Dhaka: It has been a month since Khandaker Mustaque Ahmed, 60, and his 18-year-old wife Cynthia Islam Tisha were forced to leave the Amar Ekushey Boi Mela, Bangladesh’s national book fair, in Dhaka on 9 February. The couple had gone to stall number 7, put up by Mijan Publishers, to promote Mustaque’s book Tisha-r Bhalobasha or Tisha’s love.

As a crowd of young visitors gathered around them, shouting ‘shame, shame’, the couple had to be escorted out of the fair by law enforcement officials. The video of the incident went viral on social media, and Mustaque and Tisha became an overnight internet sensation in Bangladesh due to incessant trolling, court cases, charges of sexual grooming against Mustaque, and news channels endlessly debating the couple’s marriage.

Apart from their age gap, what seems to have shocked people is the fact that Tisha is a Class XI student of Ideal School and College in Motijheel, Dhaka, where Mustaque is a donor member of the governing body.

Meanwhile, Tisha-r Bhalobasha has become a best-selling book in Bangladesh, and Mustaque is looking for an Indian publisher. Talking to ThePrint over phone from Dhaka, he said he never imagined facing so much hate for marrying someone he loves. “People call me sugar daddy. They say Tisha married me for money. I am just an honourable man trying to live a quiet life with a woman. Why should that be an issue in 2024? Read my book to know how pure my love for Tisha is,” Mustaque said.

“I am just an honourable man trying to live a quiet life with a woman. Why should that be an issue in 2024? Read my book to know how pure my love for Tisha is”

Fair’s most-controversial book

The Dhaka book fair is a must-attend annual event in the city’s literary calendar, with authors of national and global repute and lakhs of book lovers thronging the venue. This year was no exception. However, the big crowd that had gathered at the Suhrawardy Udyan on 9 February afternoon to meet Mustaque, whose book had suddenly caught the attention of the city, and his wife, turned abusive. Had it not been for the officials of the paramilitary force Bangladesh Ansar, the situation could have gone out of hand.

Reporting the incident, The Daily Observer said young visitors were miffed at the couple for bringing ‘shame’ to their society. “They are spreading that culture by writing books on it. Because of it, the conscious section of the society forced them to leave the book fair,” the paper quoted people from the crowd.

Mustaque said people booed them away and have been abusing them on social media because of a video leaked by his father-in-law. “There is a video of me telling Tisha to have her meal on time. But the video has been edited in such a way that it seems I am forcing Tisha to have food. It was just my concern for her that made me tell her to have food on time,” Mustaque told ThePrint. However, Tisha’s father has done more than allegedly leaking a video. He has filed a case against Mustaque.

“Tisha’s father filed a case of kidnapping and rape against me. Tisha went to court and told the judge she chose to marry me and was not forced to do so”

Mustaque and Tisha tied the knots on 25 March 2023, and their marriage became public in June. “In August, Tisha’s father filed a case of kidnapping and rape against me. Tisha went to court and told the judge she chose to marry me and was not forced to do so,” Mustaque said.

In her interviews to the media, Tisha has not hinted at any coercion and has stood firm by her decision to marry Mustaque. “I am an adult woman. I can marry anyone. If I don’t have a problem with it, why do the critics have a problem? Even his (Mustaque’s) grown children have no problems with us,” she has been quoted by The Daily Bangladesh as saying.

An attendant at the Dhaka book fair’s stall number 7 told ThePrint that the book has already become this year’s surprise hit. “A lot of young [people] come to the book fair every year to roam around, leaf through a few books, and eat at the food stalls. But almost everybody visiting our stall is picking up Tisha-r Bhalobasha,” the attendant said, adding that controversies like this help book sales.

Riding high on their newfound fame, Mustaque and Tisha have been giving interviews and appearing on TV channels and digital platforms regularly. They are all over TikTok videos and Facebook reels. “I want our story to be made into a film. There is a lot of negativity around, let there be a film on our love,” Mustaque told ThePrint.

“I am an adult woman. I can marry anyone. If I don’t have a problem with it, why do the critics have a problem? Even his (Mustaque’s) grown children have no problems with us”

Choice or grooming?

The Mustaque and Tisha story has split Dhaka wide open. While the comments on their videos are full of hate, there is sympathy for the couple in some circles as well. Bangladeshi author-actress Ashna Habib Bhabna told ThePrint it is unfortunate that love was being dissected in this manner. “Is it not natural for two people to fall in love? Why care about age or religion or sexual orientation? One can fall in love with a crow also. In my new book, a crow falls in love with a woman. For me, love is free,” Bhabna said.

In an opinion piece for the news portal Sokaler Khobor 24, Bangladeshi writer-in-exile Taslima Nasrin wrote that if people are criticising the age difference between Tisha and Mustaque, saying that she married him for money, then does it imply that women who do not have a significant age gap with their partners do not consider the financial status of their men? “Most women marry for financial stability and men marry to get regular sex, someone to run the house and produce children. This is the most basic unwritten bond of marriage,” Taslima wrote. She said the good thing about Mustaque is that he has not stopped Tisha from continuing her education, nor has he forced her to wear a burqa or a hijab. “Rather, he is letting Tisha wear modern clothes and walk in public holding hands. They are telling the world they have married out of love, that they are in love,” she wrote.

“I want our story to be made into a film. There is a lot of negativity around, let there be a film on our love”

Mustaque said he is not the first man in Bangladesh who has married a woman much younger than himself. “The celebrated Bangladeshi writer Humayun Ahmed had married the much-younger actress-singer Meher Afroz Shaon. There are many such couples whose stories are not famous. From Saudi Arabia to Hollywood, there are so many couples who have a big age gap. Why did Tisha and I get vilified?” he asked.

Sharmin Rashid Mimi (name changed on request), a Dhaka-based woman’s rights activist, has a different view. “This is not about choice. This is about the inherent power imbalance in their relationship. Mustaque is a member of the governing body of the school where Tisha is a student. This is a clear case of grooming where an emotional connection with a minor has been established with the objective of sexual abuse,” Mimi said.

Mimi dismisses Mustaque’s clarifications to the press that Tisha was not a minor when they got married. “How old was she when he started dating her? Technically, they may have married when she turned 18, but a 60-year-old governing body member wooing a student is a huge red flag. I do not support societal conservatism, but I will not call sexual grooming love either,” she told ThePrint.

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Deep Halder

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