A dead man walking in far away Shillong

NOTHING of what happened to Rip Van Winkle has happened to Salahuddin Ahmed. The colonial British-American villager of Dutch ancestry in the short story by Washington Irving fell asleep after drinking moonshine in a mountain, whereas the BNP leader was allegedly abducted from his hideout in Uttara before being allegedly dropped to graze in an Indian town full of frowns. Twenty years elapsed before Van Winkle woke up from his slumber, and Ahmed's ordeal lasted only two months. That difference makes all the difference because the former returned to a whole new world, and the latter to the same lame one.

Back in his village, Rip Van Winkle recognised nobody. His wife had died and his close friends had either fallen in a war or moved away. He got into trouble when he proclaimed himself a loyal subject of King George III, not aware that the American Revolution had taken place. He didn't even notice that King George's portrait was replaced with one of George Washington. Van Winkle was also disturbed to find his namesake, unaware the man was his grown-up son.

One could argue that Ahmed has also woken up in a new world of some sort. He has resurfaced in a new country where everything appeared strange to him except that his memories still connected him to the past and haunted him. It wasn't for nothing that he looked lost, and the townfolks thought he had a mental condition.

To think of it, it has been a reverse journey for Salahuddin Ahmed. He landed in a foreign country instead of returning to his own. He is fortunate to be alive but also unfortunate at the same time because he wasn't gone long enough from his familiar world. He remembered he had a wife and wanted to talk to her. He remembered what happened to him, although one supposes he has left unspoken more than he has spoken already. That hope is dissipating fast as we hear that he may be suffering from memory loss.

Up until now, he remembers others as passionately as others remember him. There's no change of portrait to indicate a change of government in his country where he's still a wanted man. The circumstances surrounding his reappearance are still shrouded in mystery as much as those surrounding his disappearance. 

The physical condition in which he was found has baffled many. He was reasonably clean-faced wearing decent clothes, and his shoes had near mirror shine. His face carried no marks giving the impression he was blindfolded for a long time. One couldn't have looked so fresh and foppish if one were detained against one's will for two months!

Then again, others wonder how a former state minister and civil servant could be so stupid to enter a foreign country without valid papers. Why did he take that infantile risk? How could a political heavyweight of this country allow it to reduce himself into the butt of a joke in a foreign land? The reddest of herrings, of course, is why an Interpol alert was so ostentatiously issued, not after he went missing but after he was found.

These questions can be answered in as many ways as one likes. It could be that the former BNP spokesman didn't feel safe to return home. It could be that he wished to stay in the custody of Indian police instead of giving himself up to the police in his own country. It's also possible he was abducted and taken across the border before being dumped like an expired product. Those who held him captive may have dressed him purposefully, much like a performer costumed for his act. 

At this point, the BNP leader should envy his fictional counterpart. Rip Van Winkle woke up in the natural process after the effects of the drink had worn off. But what determined the timing of Ahmed's return? Why did he choose to emerge from his hiding now if it was self-imposed? Why did his captors let go of him now if they had taken him in the first place?

Sherlock Holmes gives the hint in Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet. People reason either synthetically or analytically in order to solve a problem. The former kind is forward thinkers who put together the events in their minds and argue from them what  the outcome will be. The other kind is backward thinkers who work out in their imagination the steps, which lead to the outcome.

Others are going back and forth in their minds, but the dead man walking in far away Shilong has this dilemma, which once ridiculed communist rule: You get free dental care, if the rest of the time you keep your mouth shut. He knows he has to walk in silence unless he wishes to drop dead. 

The writer is the Editor of weekly First News and an opinion writer for The Daily Star. 
Email: badrul151@yahoo.com