Exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen said she doesn't find relocating to Kolkata from Delhi a feasible option at this point, adding that "I don't want to get kicked around anymore".
Speaking to PTI on the BJP raising her ouster from Kolkata in Parliament, Nasreen said she would instead urge the governments concerned, both at Bengal and the Centre, to allow her to travel to the city every once in a while to attend literary functions and book fairs, events with which she continues to share a strong emotional bond.
"I have been kicked around like a football by the political dispensations who felt ill at ease with my presence within their boundaries because of my literary and world views. At this stage of my life, I don't want to get kicked around anymore. Instead, it would please me if the governments allow me to travel to Kolkata to attend literature festivals and book fairs from where I continue to receive regular invitations," she said over the phone.
Nasreen, who gained global attention in the early '90s because of her essays and novels with feminist views and sharp criticism of what she characterised as "misogynistic religions", was forced to leave Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of multiple fatwas calling for her death in the aftermath of the publication of her novel 'Lajja'.
She moved to India in 2004 after spending a decade in Europe and the US, and spent the next three years in Kolkata until some controversial passages from her book 'Dwikhandita' provoked large-scale violence on the streets of the city in November 2007.
She was forced to move from Kolkata, first to Jaipur and subsequently to Delhi where she was initially placed under house arrest. Nasreen, a gynaecologist, is currently based in Delhi on a long-term resident permit and multiple-entry visa. -- PTI
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