By Tapas Kanti Baul

Barrister & Solicitor | Writer | Researcher | Human Rights Activists.

This story unfolds in a world parallel to our own — an Earth that mirrors our geography, our history, and our cruelty, but wears different names. East Bengal stands where Bangladesh once did. Hindustan borders it to the west, and Puristan lies to the north. The cities are familiar in shape but alien in spirit. The flags are different, but the blood is the same.

In this world, truth is not a universal constant. It bends under pressure, fractures under fear, and sometimes disappears entirely — buried beneath the weight of survival.

The coup came like a whisper in a cyclone. No tanks. No gunfire. Just flags — bright, vibrant, and deceptive — waving in the hands of young men who claimed to be revolutionaries. Within days, the centrist government of East Bengal was gone, replaced by a regime that wore religion like armour and wielded silence like a blade.

In the capital city of Dharmapur, the air was thick with incense and fear. The minorities — Hindus, Buddhists, Christians — had vanished from public life. Their homes were ash. Their temples were rubble. Their names were erased from school registers and voter rolls. They were forced to resign from academic and administrative posts.

And Ahmed Samadul, once a voice of resistance, now wrote in favour of the regime.

He sat in his study, the morning light slicing through the blinds like interrogation beams. His fingers hovered over the keyboard. The headline blinked on the screen:

“The Manufactured Crisis: Hindustan’s War of Words”

“Truth is a luxury,” he muttered. “Survival is a necessity.”

His assistant, a young intern named Rafiq, entered with a printed copy of the UN speech by General Maqsood Rahmani.

“Sir, the General’s statement is bold. He says Hindustan’s intelligence fabricates the reports of minority attacks.”

Samadul nodded, eyes unfocused. “Boldness is the currency of power. Facts are just small changes.”

Rafiq hesitated. “But… weren’t you tortured by these same people in 2002?”

Samadul’s face twitched. He looked away. “Eh! That was a different time. A different truth.”

Later that day, Samadul lay on a hospital bed. The surgeon, Dr Leena Chowdhury, explained the procedure.

“You’ll be receiving corneal transplants. The donor was a young girl. Hindu. Seventeen. Victim of the Shantigram riots.”

“I don’t want to know,” Ahmed said.

“She wanted her eyes to go to someone who could see the truth.”

“Then she chose poorly.”

As the anaesthesia seeped into his veins, memories returned. The cell in 2002. The boots. The slogans. The pain. He saw the face of the officer who broke his ribs — now a minister in the new regime.

The anaesthesia crept into his bloodstream like a slow, deliberate lie. Cold at first, then warm. Then nothing.

But the mind does not sleep when the body does. It drifts.

So this is how it ends, not with blindness, but with borrowed sight.

Seventy years of seeing too much and understanding too little. The world had changed, but the architecture of cruelty remained the same — only the slogans were different.

They say the eyes are windows to the soul. But whose soul will I see now?

He remembered the surgeon’s words. “The donor was a Hindu girl. Seventeen. Victim of the Shantigram riots.”

A girl. A child. Torn from the world by the same forces he now defended in print.

I did not kill her. I did not drag her from her home. I did not light the match.

But he had written the words that erased her.

Truth is not a flame. It is a mirror. And I have spent my life fogging it.

He saw the faces of his torturers from 2002. Their boots. Their fists. Their laughter. He had written against them then. He had believed in justice. In fact. In resistance.

Now he wrote for them.

Survival is a slow betrayal. One compromise at a time.

The darkness deepened. Samadul felt the surgical tools moving, unseen. The corneas are being placed. The sutures. The silence.

What if her eyes remember?

A strange thought. Irrational. But persistent.

What if vision carries memory? What if the last thing she saw was burned into the tissue, waiting to be seen again?

He imagined her final moments. The mob. The fire. The screams.

And now I will see through her eyes. I will inherit her last vision. Her last truth.

A chill passed through his mind.

I wrote that the attacks were propaganda. I wrote that Hindustan fabricated the reports. I wrote that the minorities were safe.

He had lied.

And now, he would see the truth.

Seven days later, the bandages came off. Light flooded his vision. The world was sharp again — too sharp.

He picked up the newspaper. His article stared back at him.

“The Manufactured Crisis…”

He read it aloud. The words felt alien, like insects crawling across his tongue.

That night, sleep came like a thief.

In the dream, he stood in Shantigram. The sky was red. Smoke curled from burning rooftops. A mob surged forward, chanting:

“Purify the land! Cleanse the blood!”

He saw a house. Inside, a girl — Rani Das — was dragged by her hair. Her parents screamed, held down by men with machetes.

Ahmed tried to move, but his feet were rooted. He could only watch.

The girl looked at him. Her eyes — his eyes — were wide with terror.

“Why did you lie?” she whispered.

The mob descended. Rani’s screams tore through the air, sharp as shattered glass. Her body convulsed. Her eyes never closed.

He saw everything. Felt everything. The pain. The humiliation. The final breath.

Then silence.

Then darkness.

Ahmed woke with a gasp, drenched in sweat. The room was quiet, but his mind was screaming.

He touched his face. His fingers came away wet — blood.

His eyes were bleeding.

He stumbled to the mirror. The reflection stared back, unfamiliar. The eyes were not his. They were hers.

“I saw it,” he whispered. “I saw everything.”

He collapsed to the floor, clutching his head.

“I can’t see! I can’t bear it!”

Dr Chowdhury rushed in.

“He’s haemorrhaging. Get him to the theatre!”

As they wheeled him away, he whispered:

“Her eyes… they remember… and now I do too.”

Samadul’s voice cracked, not from pain, but from guilt.

“I wrote her death into silence. And she wrote it back into me.”

The doors closed. The hallway fell silent.

But somewhere, deep in the folds of his mind, the screams continued.

In a quiet room in Shantigram, a photograph of Rani Das sat on a dusty shelf. Her eyes, once full of life, now lived in a man who had forgotten how to see.

And now, Samadul could never unsee.

Vase of Redemption: This painting features a deep blue ceramic vase, visibly mended with flowing golden Kintsugi lines that also form intricate leaf patterns. A soft, warm light illuminates the vase, casting subtle shadows and emphasizing the glow of the gold, further underscoring the theme of redemption.