BINGO

Presentation on the critical review of Tariq Rahmans Short story, Bingo

The Author
Tariq Rahman, born in February 4, 1949 a distinguished National Professor of Sociolinguistic History at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. A highly published scholar, 90 articles, 9 books, 22 contributions to books & several book reviews. A guest professor in Denmark and Spain. A Fulbright research scholar (1995-96) at U. T. Austin. The first incumbent of the Pakistan chair at U.C. Berkeley (2004-05).

Honours
Pride of Performance 2004 Pitras Bukhari Award for Language and Politics in Pakistan 1999 by the Pakistan Academy of Letters Best Research Work of 1996 in English Also awarded by the National Book Foundation for Social Sciences Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship (USA)

His collections of short stories

The legacy & other short stories

Work & other short stories

The third leg & other short stories

brief which mirror Pakistani society

small, every day events familiar to us all He makes a comment on the foibles and contradictions of human beings

His early career in army

An officer in the armored corps The role of the Pakistan Army tormented young Rahman when he was a man in uniform didnt want to kill in a war he did not believe in opposed the 1971 military action in Dhaka & decided to resign from the army although he was never posted in the East Pakistan took a different position on the issue of Bengalis---suggests all the concerned citizens to read the Hamood Rehman commission report to see why bones were crushed for raising slogans. He says we cannot mend those bones but we should confront the ghosts of our past

Bingo
The writers of English fiction have not shown any reaction to the politics of Pakistan during 1970s Bingo was the first story written on this theme It is entirely a fiction the complex nature of friendship, duty, treason, and civil war Its ending serves as a painful reminder of the loss of half a country, of the scale of human suffering and the muddle that any civil war entails It makes BINGO rather rare & exceptional story.

Political background
East Pakistanis resented for not having been given as much representation in the government as their larger numbers warranted They also resented the snobbery of the Civil Service of Pakistan and military officers from the Western Wing. Sheikh Mujeeb-ur-Rehman ---leading political leader from East Pakistan--- demanded provincial autonomy through his famous six points.

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In December 1970s elections Mujeebs Awami League got the maximum votes but Yahyas government refused to allow him to form government in the centre, further they refused to concede his six points. In March 1971 the Awami League declared Bangladesh to be an independent state and Yahya ordered the army to take military action to suppress the rebellion. Mujeebs followers formed a military force of their own, called Mukti Bahini, and were being given military training in India.

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They fought with determination and Bangladesh became a battlefield. In 1971 November the Mukti Bahini helped by the Indian army fought and defeated the Pakistan Army and forced it to surrender. All this political background is not given in the story but is necessary to understand it.

The title of the story

Significant and surprising for some people, as Bingo denotes a game Here in the story Bingo refers to a person belonging to Bangladesh The title just belongs to the story as the story revolves around Bangladesh and a Bengali, Tajassur.

Themes in bingo
The Agony Of The Fragmentation Of Pakistan It provides insight into Pakistani mannerism which depicts how impressionable young minds of Pakistani army were distorted in the name of misguided patriotism & how this patriotism resulted in the fragmentation of Pakistan and led to the loss of half

of the country.

Misery
The story begins with a note of misery from the narrator: It was miserable in the first term at the Pakistan military Academy. They made us stand in the snow in underwear at night and I was given a cold shower and frog-jumps too. The degree of misery increases as the story proceeds further and heightens at the end of the story with the cutting deaths of Tajassur himself with his whole family.

Colonial attitudes of West Pakistanis

West Pakistanis thought themselves superiors to the East Pakistanis & treated them as their colony. Safeer tells us: I think this is a race of slaves A Bengali major blamed Safeer saying: You are colonists like French in Algeria and the Belgians in Congo Tajassur told Safeer Pakistan was not created to be a slave colony. Bengal was treated as a colony by the CSP officers. The army officers made fun of our men and beat them.

Pakistani armys contempt towards Bengalis

Another theme in Bingo is Pakistan armys hatred, disdain and rather sarcasm towards Bengalis. They made fun of Bengalis. They called them Bingos out of mockery and contempt.
Bingos were dirty--stubborn Bingos-or--bloody Bingos

Safeer does not even consider them humans and tells us:
They looked like animals--- their animal faces scared me The bastards cried for pity and whimpered like dogs

Sadism of military officials

Pakistani military officials are depicted as sadists. From the very beginning of the story we find inhuman military officials enjoying inflicting pain & physical and mental torture on the junior cadets. The battalion major was a sadist. He made me hop around catching my ankles till I fell down and my legs ached like hell. Pakistan army officials enjoyed beating & roasting the Bengalis. The narrator tells us: Some officers delighted in torturing Bingos

Inhumanity & Brutalism

They did not think that Bengalis were also humans like them. They did not feel their suffering as their own. They drank whisky and avenged the Bingos by subjugating and exploiting their women. We found them inhuman all the more when we find them roasting and clearing the villages from the Muktis. We find Safeer describing the scene as: The scene was rather like some Second World War movies, except that brown skinned people ran out like chickens with their heads cut off.

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Safeer describes an army official saying: Major Ali Ahmad was an expert in bringing in Bingos as a net brings in fish. We would shoot them slowly one by one. It improved my target practice a good deal.

Alienation
At two levels individuals are alienated from individuals. Safeer alienating from his Bengali colleague, although they were room mates and remained all the time so close to each other. Safeer thought that he was different and superior from his Bingo friend. Secondly we find People of West Pakistan as a whole are alienated towards the people of East Pakistan. West Pakistanis treated the Bengalis as they were not their own people. They dont adopt them as part of them. They were killing them as they were killing some other nation not their own kith and kin.

The choice of language

In BINGO we find a lot of dialogues and in the English that is typically spoken and written in Pakistan. Therefore it is full of expressions such as : Staff and seniors are allowed to nab him by the neck, He was quite a kid and kids cant get serious about politics and such like grown up things Thats a fat-headed thing to say There was a pin-drop silence in the room We had better roast your Bingo friends alive.

The language inevitably shows the stamp of Pakistani culture and local, indigenous habits of speech both in form and use. Major Ali Ahmad was an expert in bringing in Bingos as a net brings in fish This angered me and I had to slap her across the face before she became quiet I was given a blow on the head which made every thing go dark in front of me. It almost have the feel of translated story, not written originally in English.

He has used military jargon that captures some flavor of the erstwhile British Raj and shows thematic focus and sentimentality. This military jargon runs throughout the story which adds to its authenticity and effectiveness of impressions.

Point of view
The story is written with 1st person point of view. The narrator is the willing participant in the events and tells his tale in his justification. It gives it a realistic touch.

Characterization
Tariq Rahman has employed very few charactersketches in Bingo. Tajassur and Safeer tower above other characters and significantly provide a contrast. Safeer is portrayed as obtuse, jealous of Tajassur and contemptible of all Bengalis---as an inhuman and savage who kills the humanity. And Tajassur stands for love, kindness, sympathy, understanding, and the essential characteristics, that protect and save humanity. So we find a blending of humor and pathos in characterization. The characters are felt by heart as we feel humans in our real life.

Realism & imagery

It speaks a language a Pakistani speaks and has identifiably Pakistani characters. It seems clearly distilled from a real part of life. The scenes are portrayed so vividly that we feel as if watching the whole scenes with our own eyes. We see barrack rooms, parade ground, world of harsh vigor and youthful camaraderie. We see the army officials roasting the Bengalis and their women. We see the dead bodies of our own people lying all around.

We experience the love, kindness & sympathy of Tajassur and his family and feel their suffering. We can imagine Tajassur lying dead before us in a puddle of blood all over & his sister lying dead exploited and dishonored. We can see Tajassurs mother frantic, tearing her hair and throwing things all around. And we feel her cutting eyes stabbed in our hearts as if she is not only blaming Safeer, she is blaming us for all her suffering. We find all the characters talking and behaving naturally before us as the real humans with all their strengths and weaknesses.

Symbolic elements in Bingo

The story shows friendship and enmity of the two parts of a country represented by the two major characters Tajassur symbolically represents Bangladesh who is very kind hearted and wants to make others happy. He has his own principles and doesnt follow the seniors orders blindly. He has his conscience alive and fighting for a just cause.

And Safeer symbolically represents Pakistan that showed enmity and disdain to her other part called East Pakistan and it was too late when it comes to know the real importance of it. As Safeer loved Tajassur all the more after his death, Pakistanis realized the Bengalis as their own people after the fragmentation. Safeer lost Tajassur for ever with all his vigour and liveliness, similarly Pakistan lost her West Counterpart for ever and now all our mourning and lamentation on that traumatic event count nothing. Safeers love and attraction towards his sister at the end is also symbolic of his unconscious love and attraction towards Tajassur.

Ironic patterns in Bingo

Both the friends undergo the military training and aspire to be patriots and to protect their state; but ironically, they are put under the trial of their consciousness whether they are fighting is just or wrong. Both Tajassur and Safeer think that they are right. Safeer is the cause of his friends death at the end of the story & changed into a beast who, though unwillingly, but still kills the mother of his friend who were so kind to him and protected him.

There is another ironic pattern in the story. Both the countries are Muslim states; both of them got independence under one banner; but now both of them are fighting for a cause which each one of them thinks right for her and wrong for the other. Safeers behavior is ironic. Throughout the story he talks against Bengalis and his bingo friend but unconsciously he tells us his virtues as being jolly, good natured, kind hearted, and a person who helps others and wants to make others happy.

He does not know his hidden feelings about his bingo friend. It is only at the end of the story that Safeers affection for his friend comes to the surface when listening to his familiar voice he says My ears were hungry for its melody, and I kissed him on the cheeks. It is ironical that he admires and dislikes him at the same time.

Pakistanis were killing Bingos to make their lives miserable. But at the end Safeer kills Tajassurs mother not to make her life miserable but to end her misery and agony.

Conclusion
Bingo is highly satirical of our military actions in the East Pakistan & written as a social record of what happened in the East Pakistan during fragmentation. And whenever we read this story, we are bound to fill with a sense of deep unease because it cuts so close to the bone and it is so driven by the urge to expose our injustice towards Bengalis. Safeers Behaviour, the death of Tajassur and Safeers shooting of his friends mother, who was so kind to him raises a number of questions. These questions are left unanswered by the writer. These questions add to the effectiveness of the story and force the reader to think pathetically on the whole issue.