Reality and Fiction: Collective Hallucinations

This is a story set in my city, Dhaka, when one autumn day in the early '90s, hundreds of people gathered outside Dhaka Central Jail in protest. They were seeking to stop the hanging of a man who was apparently on death row, within the premises. However, the problem was, the man was not in the jail at all. In fact, he never existed.

When I was 8 years old, Bangladesh was a country of 120 million. Dhaka was a city of 7 million. And we all had 1 television channel we could watch - Bangladesh Television. Back then, a TV was a matter of novelty. And coloured TV sets were only the luxury of a select few in Dhaka. It was a time when people across the country were crowding around the one television set in their villages. Congregations formed inside lone huts juiced up by a stolen power line, where scores of people would gather to watch the entertainment. The magic box would bring us a select range of programming - from the state-scripted nightly news, to heavily censored 80's American TV shows, to a few iconic Bengali television drama serials.

I recall vividly when one such homegrown Bengali TV drama had won the hearts of millions across the country by storm. Everyone was tuning into the same channel. And in a peculiar way, it brought forth among the nation a quality of a hive-mind. And so, when "Kothao Keu Nei" by Humayun Ahmed was halfway through its 20 episodes, everyone was humming to each other about it, raving about the plot, and buzzing in keen anticipation for the remainder of the show. In no small way the serial had captivated everyone's attention. And 8-year old me was not left behind.

The biggest attraction of the show was the main protagonist - Baker Bhai. The character of Baker Bhai was basically a transformed local adaptation of Arthur Fonzarelli (Fonzie), from the 1970's American sitcom Happy Days. Like Fonzie, Baker Bhai was a street thug who carried around a stern and hard exterior. He was restless and seemingly aimless in his demanour. He spoke curtly, and his vernacular was punctuated by boyishly hilarious catchphrases like "Dholai koira dibo! (I'll beat you up like laundry!)".


Similar to The Fonze, the rebellious Baker Bhai who initially shows himself to be emotionally immune and hardened to the world, is unravelled through the narrative. By the soft touch of a romantic love interest in his life, he is revealed to be a caring human being, with an astute sense of morality, truth and justice. Soon enough, Baker Bhai was no longer merely a street thug. He eventually became our street thug, the people's thug - who would keep his tough exterior intact, but use his muscle and force to protect the helpless. By 1993, Baker Bhai's popularity had soared sky-high, winning the fictional character the adoration of millions across Bangladesh. However, unlike Fonzie who found himself in the cheery fantasy that was Happy Days, Baker Bhai's was a tragic story. By the end of the show, he is betrayed by his friend, found guilty of a murder he committed while defending an innocent, and finally hanged in Dhaka Central Jail.

And that was when, for a period of time, the veil between reality and fiction thinned out to oblivion. The penultimate episode of the serial had set the scene for the finale. Baker Bhai was in jail, awaiting his hanging in silent suffering. His execution was to be shown in the last episode.

Meanwhile, the morning of the last broadcast, the streets and homes of Dhaka city erupted into unanimous mourning. A sombre heaviness had fallen over the city. I myself recall feeling a sense of grief at the impending end of Baker Bhai that day. It was an inexplicable sadness that I remember sharing with my cousins, family and friends. The news trickled in, that crowds of people were pouring out onto the streets. They were gathering in all parts of the city, reportedly grief-stricken and already mourning the coming death of Baker Bhai. A mob of a few thousand had gathered outside Dhaka Central Jail itself, and was demanding that the police release Baker Bhai from custody, insisting that he does not deserve to die. In the face of such Kafka-esque surrealism, I imagine the police could do nothing but stare back blankly.

While the comedy of this whole situation is indeed a belly-ache, for those who stood outside the Central Jail, I cannot be sure that they were laughing at that moment. And even though I myself did not join them, their grief (however delusional) somehow made complete sense to me then as well. It was the first time I saw first-hand the power of narrative, to stir real emotions by channeling psychic energy from an unreal world. Dhaka has not yet forgotten its flirtation with the absurd that day. It is still etched in memory, as the day we found ourselves in a collective hallucination, simultaneously aware of its ludicrity, yet helpless in the face of its intensity.