Black Ice
SynopsisPlot
Abdul Khaleq teaches at a rural college nearing collapse in a newly independent Bangladesh. When a writer friend asks him to chronicle his childhood, Abdul retreats to an enchanting world in the suburbs of Calcutta. He remembers the girl who spoke to fish and birds, the girl he first loved. He also recalls the stream of visitors who came to his parents' door in those days, some bearing want, some malice, and others, generosity and wisdom. He plummets into despondency when memories return him to a time when Hindu-Muslim tensions in undivided Bengal eclipsed his innocence. Abdul's nostalgia enrages his wife Rekha who resents his lack of ambition and aloofness. Prodded by the village physician Doctor Narhari, the couple embarks on a boat ride that forces them to confront their discord and desires and plumb the roots of Abdul's alienation.
Story
About this book
Abdul Khaleq is a teacher at a rural college on the verge of closing in newly independent Bangladesh. When a writer friend encourages him to set down memories of his childhood, Abdul finds himself pulled back to the suburbs of Calcutta, to a time before Partition reshaped the subcontinent. He recalls a girl who spoke to fish and birds, the first person he loved, and the steady flow of visitors who arrived at his family's door carrying need, ill will, or quiet generosity. Those early memories eventually reach the period when Hindu-Muslim tensions in undivided Bengal cut through his childhood world.
His wife Rekha has little patience for his backward gaze. She is frustrated by what she sees as his passivity and emotional distance. At the urging of the village physician Doctor Narhari, the couple takes a boat ride that becomes an occasion to face the fractures in their marriage and to trace how Abdul's sense of dislocation took root.
First published in 1977, Black Ice is Mahmudul Haque's novel about the quiet, persistent damage that Partition left on those who inherited its losses. The story moves between two settings, postwar Bangladesh and prewar Calcutta, linking personal memory with historical rupture across a single life.
