Inheritance of war

Published : May 16, 2024 11:00 IST - 4 MINS READ Some of the finest literary works were born of conflict and war. The Hippo Girl and Other Stories By Shah Tazrian Ashrafi Hachette India Pages: 192 Price: Rs.399 In The Hippo Girl and Other Stories, we find sensitive portrayals of these situations and more, as the young debutant author Shah Tazrian Ashrafi profiles the pieces of the broken, post-Liberation War society of Bangladesh. Parental prejudices In the titular story, “The Hippo Girl”, the indifference of neighbours to an economically disadvantaged young girl’s personal tragedy leads to a displacement of emotions in her. Bilal is bullied by his peers for a disability, but bullying, as the story demonstrates, is learnt behaviour, with children merely mimicking adults whose prejudices they inherit: “We could pluck the teachers’ disdain for him from the way their eyes rolled, their nostrils flared, the long sighs they exhaled….” Violence begets violence, and the characters in these stories are stuck in its never-ending cycle. In the stories “A Blazing History of Rage” and “Queen Victoria”, the unreasonable academic pressures exerted on children by South Asian parents and the ensuing physical abuse for not meeting expectations collide with the violence of war; eventually, in these stories, as in others, parents must face the consequences of their actions.