Omega Unwinds

OMEGA UNWINDS What had begun as a direct action project had become an ostensibly more humdrum affair, a relief effort which held up the fig-leaf of reconciliation between communities. It was not so much that Bengalis were not getting reconciled with their Bihari neighbours. They didn't have all that much to do with them, as they had problems enough of their own in the newly emerging nation of Bangladesh. In this mature phase of the project it became clear that those Biharis most able to do so, were managing to leave, most for India, some for Nepal or even Pakistan. It was also apparent that in areas where Omega had never much set foot, the Biharis were doing as well if not better than in those places where Omega had been working. This somewhat undermined confidence, and led to an increasingly cynical approach to their presence, a preparedness to engage more in personal and group adventures as the projects continued to evolve, increasingly run by the Biharis themselves. This, combined with radical pressure from the original Omegans, who had always favoured direct action over being, as they saw it, effectively mere agents for the UN or Oxfam, led Omega finally to a consensus. They would hand over the projects to the Biharis themselves, and begin a programme of withdrawal. High ideals had only ever been matched in intensity by the unconventional nature of their preferred lifestyles and choices, as is most clearly spelt out in this, the fourth in the Shantiluyah series. Although partially successful in their bid to live closer to the people than was usual for western agencies - a success that impacted on their health, both physical and mental - the Omegan volunteers were nonetheless never able or willing to go native to anything like the extent that would have been required to satisfy their lofty intentions. This increasingly led to a special kind of nihilistic and surreal style of living, which could not mitigate the nostalgia and chronic culture shock which never left them. The story told is one that does not shy from dramatising some of the consequences of all this in personal relationships and individual behaviours, which were not always exemplary from a strict standpoint of how one should behave in another's country, and indeed in a strikingly contrasting culture. Nevertheless, it is also a story of successes, of difficulties overcome, of some heroism, much survival, often through the anarchic humour with which they variously viewed their situation, and even their task. It is finally the true story (however fictionally told) of a little known episode in the history of youth in the early 1970s, just as little known in the annals of the emergence of Bangladesh.