Bangladesh went through a transitional government phase, ruled by a military backed non-elected civilian government, one of whose mandates was to go after the political elite who were purportedly corrupt. That drive resulted in an outflow of politicians and businessmen to various destinations, Singapore being the most popular. The country switched to civilian government in December of 2008.
These shopping trips can be such a drag. After a month or two, they all look familiar. Done with the Abdullah street and its throng of exiles. I rather be seen somewhere else, or none at all. But they keep asking me the same questions, and all the bloody familiar faces, and then again the same topics...again, and again, and again…the ‘situation’ back home, the sheer stupidity of the caretakers and the army, and of-course the constant plotting of how to get back home…..and the brutal torture of their friends in jails of Bangladesh,
Today I just want to go to side street café and eat Singapore Noodles. Go easy on the shrimp, will ya? The doctor at Elizabeth has been specific. The doctor has seen so many Bangladeshis that he has greeted me with a heavily accented ‘kemon achen’? Went at the insistence of my hubby who wants to make sure I am ‘healthy’ all the time. Will be happy to get a car. It’s as if I love being confined to the 18th floor of this hotel all the time. Can we get a service apartment? The hubby is too status conscious for that. Half the time he is on the laptop managing his accounts and calling the banks and giving them codes and god knows what else. I wish he would talk to me sometimes, I mean talk talk, not just ask me for a glass of water or ask what I want from room service. Watch it girl, getting depressed is dangerous. But it has its occasional good parts too…..like the humongous ruby cabochon necklace he got me the other week. Not my style, but more like a show-off piece. Where did I wear it? Oh, at the restaurant below, at the gathering of other fellow exiles. You would think they would be morose or something, but hell no….wine flowed, so did caviar, which not too many appreciated, the ladies sparkled along with the jewels and the rediscovered passions for French see-through fabrics. Someone needs to tell Mrs. Reaz that her choice of fabrics with that figure of her’s borders of bearing the likeness of a tropical snowman……a bit too revealing isn’t it? Anyways, my ruby necklace will be a bigger hit when I to gets to wear it at my niece Nitu’s wedding coming up in a few months, if I make it to Dhaka by that time, that is.
The day has been spent with Mrs. Safayet at the Amrita Spa located at the Raffles. Tons of gooey mud, and scrubs, and pampering in the backdrop of piped music, the then, boredom, again. She is the only kindred soul it seems in the whole group. The rest, well, the equivalent of Bangladeshi trailer trash, simple women with humble backgrounds, suddenly ennobled with an infusion of undreamed amount of cash, transplanted from the ‘mufasshals’ straight to Gulshan and Baridhara via transit through Khilgaon and Lalbagh. Mrs. Karim is an exemption, but her nose is stuck up so high, it looks taller than the Empire State. Pedigreed with some minor sidelined Indian royal blood, she acts as if she is the reigning maharani of the exiles and yet her contempt and disdain for the rest doesn’t take long to spill out eventually. Their money helps, this combination of old and new money that is. They have bought to small estate on the northern shores from where you can literally see the lights of Johar bahru across the strait. Must give her credit for her impeccable taste though. Full of antiques, Chinese and Indian and western, and all in their perfect places. Her house has been , in Gulshan with two attached plots, the same. Had this been the US, both places would have adorned the pages of Architectural Digest by now. The sons and daughters and their spouses and their ever expanding broods of children, life a little factory of sorts, all centered in that estate, and there are already talks of buying off the adjoining estates on the left and right. I think negotiations have already started. With their wads of cash, it won’t be long before the deals go through. The locals (well they have been here for so long now, the Locals are just them Bangladeshis, and the Singaporeans are just plain ‘them’, an insider joke no doubt) are already calling the street KarimNagar. Oh well, I miss my mom, all left alone in Dhaka. I want her to move to the US with my brothers, but my ‘bhabis’ are a breed apart. Selfish, self-indulgent and totally spoilt, and did I mention their husbands, my brothers, all three of them wrapped around their petit manicured fingers like little chimps? My Boro Apa is the reigning matriarch of her huge extended family, and highly respected by the in-laws. Mom will not move there though, with these Bengali inhibitions of staying with the ‘jamai’. I call her as often as I can. Thank goodness, she has her school to take care off in Banani and that keeps her occupied. Initially she was adamant that she should quit the school and surrender the day-to-day operations to members of the trustee board. Now it seems like a blessing, with her in Singapore. And I miss my kids, immensely, achingly so. Shama has been duly deposited in a boarding school close to KL, and Shanu, my dear little Shanu, has been sent to a ‘public school’ in the UK, costing a fortune and more so, millions of miles away, in a totally different time zone, in a cold climate, where he dearly misses his mom, and hates the constant grey of its skies. Rabbi, my not so dear husband at the moment, has shipped them off so in whatever places that was available at such a short notice. I, and only I, take full credit for their good grades prior to their public schools. A strict regimen of rationed TV and play-stations, tons of reading, both out loud and in their own capacities, and all those math games, which tried my patience and my sanity sometimes, but I persevered, looking at their cherubic faces. I had to. Shanu, the finicky eater whose saving grace was either a mug of Holicks or sushi from Samdado, and Shama, they both avoid the subject of food when I call up UK or KL, and there is always this accusatory tone in their voices, that literally breaks my heart every time. Rabbi….whenever the kids gets emotional with him, duly passes the phone back to me. They need their Dad too, don’t they? In these moments, if the timing is not odd, I always call Mrs. Safayet, lately relegated to Seema Aunty. God knows why an Ivy League professor would get his head unscrewed and come home to enter politics. Uncle has been sued by Anti-corruption for putting his signature on some dubious deals and look at the mess they are in. At least they have US passports and soon will be on their way there to stay with their second son who lives in New York and some sort of a hoity-toity investment banker recruited straight out of Harvard business school. Once they are gone, I will miss Aunty a lot. She reminds me of so much of her own khala back in Dhaka. She is always affectionately calling me ‘Beta’, I just love that, and when she asks about my kids, sounds like she really means it. She had also deposited her brood in various private schools during her husband’s pre-tenure vagabond days as a professor. I hope Shanu and Shama, my sweet little darlings will turn out to be like her kids, successful, good looking, and ….well, willing to put up their parents in times like this.
I tell the taxi driver to head for the Clarke Quay. I am in the mood for hummus and the Marrakesh serves a decent plate along with their chicken cooked in fermented lime, topped with olives and dried apricots. It always cheers me up. After that? A bit of window shopping at the Hilton arcade, and maybe have tea there. Rabbi must have come back from hi morning swim, and probably will be downing more whiskey then he should have; then he has all these ‘meetings’, a combination of gossips, back-biting, strategizing their return, and more business plans. Lately there have been too many bottles of Johnny Walker lying about around the suite. Need to have a talk with him, a bit of moderation cant be that bad. He has already opened up two companies, not only to siphon the money into businesses, but also to get the resident visas that make their stay ‘official’ and long-term. Oh forgot, supposed to drop by at the real-estate agent’s office and look up some more properties. So far I have refused to make any choices, like admitting that our exiles are permanent. Rabbi is, thank god, totally happy with my delegated role as the house hunter, otherwise I would have been forced into the role of a housewife all over gain, catering to these hordes of bhabis in their diaphanous saris. Well, Mrs. Halim showed up in a skirt and a top the other day, but she looked more like her house-keeper at her hotel floor. And Halim Bhai with his loud Hawaiian shirts and dyed moustache, they make quite the pair. I like them though, with their off-the cuff remarks that border on political incorrectness and their constant for the perfect ‘Deshi taste’ (the taste of home) in all they eat. But, hey that’s another story. I wanted to take a few courses on nursing at the Yuba College, just for the heck of it, but hubby objected. Why should his wife ‘do’ nursing???? He suggested that I take some courses on finance, but what on earth for? He is there for THAT. Now he is suggesting a trip to Bali for the weekend, but I wanted to see the Angkor Wat. Ever since I took that art history course on Asian arts and architecture back in college, I have been enthralled by it. But no great hotels close by and therefore it was vetoed. I am craving for company, someone who notices my existence and talks about the world in general. Should I give Atef a call? I still have his pen in my purse…the very thought of it gives me the shivers.
Atef, oh Atef, he is some piece of work. Of mixed Indian and Middle Eastern descent, dark olive green eyes, light olive skin, lean and tall, with a head full of sexy long curls, with a body that is definitely toned for hours at a time at the gym. Both Atef and I were waiting at the VIP customers’s lounge at the Citibank while Rabbi was inside, with his ‘personal banker’. He wanted me to sign something and sent out this form, but I needed a pen, and out came a MontBlac out of Atef’s pockets.. Unlike Rabbi who treats the pen like a status symbol, always poised in his shirt pocket, he even carries a separate pen for his more mundane needs, Atef’s has seen some use, no doubt, full of scratches and even a bite mark. Goodness, a MontBlanc that gets chewed. He had flashed me a quick smile while he had forwarded the pen nonchalantly towards me. When the coffee service came, he jumped at it, asking whether I took cream and sugarand some small talk followed. He apparently represents his father’s business interests in Singapore. A bit later I was given his business card, and mechanically I gave mine, that stated my name, cell number and the name of the hotel. Initially he assumed that I worked there and asked my position. Visibly embarrassed and somewhat blushing, I just said that my husband and I ‘lived’ there. Flashing a quick smile, he looked towards where Rabbi was in and asked me what he did. I just tell him, ‘business, I suppose’…Thank god Rabbi just walks out at that very moment and I introduce him to Atef.
A few days later Atef calls and invites the pair of us for lunch. Rabbi naturally refuses and doesn’t even bother to ask what or where was the location. So, I show up myself, not without much morose that the spouse cannot join….Turns out the lunch is at Hua Ting at Orchard Road. The place is fabulous, the Cantonise cuisine is to die for, and the pleasant company, so divine…. Before I knew it, the ‘lunch’ has lasted three hours, have been informed in detail of each other’s family all over the globe, both of our mother’s penchant for ethnic looms, the love for live pop concerts. Rabbi and Atef shared the common passion for fast cars and Atef was particularly enthusiastic about the debut of the Grand Prix in Singapore in a few more months and apparently has already ‘bought’ a box. After dinner we strolled on the streets, looking at the various stores selling brands from the world over. It was tea time. Atef invites me to the Marina for tea…
It turns out Atef lives on a boat, a yatch to be exact, a smooth 80 feet schooner. I kind of guessed that he was well off, but this was totally unexpected. Initially wary of climbing onto it, I was somewhat reassured when a turbaned Sikh butler and a matronly Malay purser appeared on the deck to receive us. The purser Mrs. Abubaker, turns out to be his Amah from his early days and apparently have been looking after Atef since his early teens. She looks at me with very keen, not exactly disapproving, but curious eyes. Maybe there will me a passing remark about her to Atef’s mom later sometime. Earl Grey and buttered scones were followed by petit samosas and bite-sized pastries. The interior exuded charm and sophistication that she has only seen in movies and magazines. A bit later Atef offered his chaufer driven car to drop me off at her hotel. A total gentleman…damn.
That was two weeks ago. Since then there has been other invitations, all declined, but their phone conversations have definitely become longer, to the point we were teasing each other about their families, clothes, money, and even their looks, almost in a childish way. The Boloshoi Ballet was in town and he has tickets, but I decided not to. Why feed the rumour mill fodder with the whole town crawling with ‘us’. What I need to focus and get out my head was the brief brushing of his hand against mine in front of the chinese jade store while pointing at a piece. It had sent shivers down my spine but he was totally oblivious to this briefest of encounters. Anyway, better ask Rabbi about their dinner plans. He is ‘busy’. He is always busy lately, boozing, now he has taken up poker and has ‘discovered’ Scottish malts. He tells me to pick up some paracetamol from the corner store. How much cash do I have?
The pen is still there, with that bite mark staring at me…
My heart is beating really fast... I bring out the cell and call Atef…..
Wednesday, 15 October 2008
Monday, 13 October 2008
Priyotomeshu……
It has to end…it just has to. After two years, I have absolutely nothing to show for it except for a lot of bitter emotional upheaveals and tons of agony.
It all started when Sachin offered to introduce me to you in Café Mango on the 12 th of August, 2005. Yes, I remember the day pretty darn well. You were supposed to meet at 7:30, for which I had to make some excuses for some meeting from his office and literally run over there. But you were one and half hours late, by which time Sachin was totally embarrassed, He was totally pissed, and you offered no apologies, absolutely none whatsoever. You, the doyen of the NGO crowd, with the possibility of beauty and grace showed up in a haggered t-shirt and baggy jeans, hair some-what ruffled, dark circles underneath the eyes, and a small purse held in your hands. You also refused to make any eye contact whatsoever and requested a cup of ginger tea and a fudge brownie with vanilla ice-cream on top. I made some polite conversations about work, got some matter-of-fact responses, which seemed forced, and decided to just shut-up. You didn't have a mobile phone with you and could not be reached or summoned as to why you were late, nor was any explanations offered. Fuming, when Sachin confronted you, you just mumbled. You were not the least bit curious about me.
Those eyes, those beguiling eyes of yours,….I still cannot get them out of my head. Those very dark eyes, framed on the top with those bushy, somehow not very feminine eye-brows seemed to speak volumes. It spoke of intellect, an erudite mind-set, and a psyche that I find intensely mesmerizing. I still cant fathom the irony of this attraction since, after leaving that day,I gave Sachin such a hard time for wasting his time with this creature from the abyss of rudeness such as you…..
Sachin came to Dhaka five years back as a senior merchandiser for one of the huge local conglomerates that made everything from under wears and denims, to funky shirts to uniforms. He had a grinding job with the strangest of hours that had to combine both the local time-zone and the west-european one. He constantly cribbed about it but the fact that he was being paid in cash in crisply US dollars and he endured, yes 'endured' with be just the right word for it. In spite of all this, he managed to have a small circle of friends consisting of expats, the NGO crowd, and the semi-intellectuals who dabbed in 'social development' I guess you fell into the latter. You were mentioned a couple of times as the 'girl you should meet', butyou never seemed to have the time. You were either traveling, or had conferences to attend and arrange, or was burning the mid-night oil in your office in Lalmatia.
Coincidentally Sachin kept calling wanting to find out whether either had called. He totally felt bad for the whole experience, specially after the months of hype, and wanted some positive outcome to come out of it. I finally said 'yes, I will eat my pride for you and give her a call…ok?', but I I didn't have your number. Sachin promptly sent the number over the SMS and called back.
"Call her now', he said. "I told her you are gonna call right now and she said it was OK'.
I ring her number which is a land-line with a PABX extension and you answer the phone yourself I guess there wouldn't be any receptionist there at 8 in the evening.
I introduce myself. There is a pause and she says in a matter of fact way, "Who? I can't recall…what is this all about".
Sachin would really look good in a coffin. I say, 'Café Mango, a few days ago? We met through Sachin?'. And as the ultimate ice-breaker I add 'You were awfully late, remember?'
The Ice-Queen thaws somewhat and responds warmly " Ahh, yes Hi Rubel. That was the worst possible day for me to do anything, specially meet new people. I had just got my transfer notice and was totally down 'bout it.'
'Where to?'
'Beijing, of all places. My NGO has been given this advisory consultancy for the ministry of social welfare there and I have been asked to go for two years. It was such a shock since I had no intention for moving abroad, but its such a career move, I was totally torn about it.'
One more nail just got hammered in Sachin's coffin. She is leaving…what a waste of time.
'Oh, that's good, I guess….when do you leave?'
Our first one-on-one conversation is about her leaving. I could the irrelevance of it all. I had maintained a long-distance relationship till a few months ago for over four years, and after the misery of such an ordeal, I am not even remotely getting associated with one in similar circumstances of the opposite sex.
"Hey Rube… (From Rubel to Rube…not bad), is it possible to meet up for coffee and talk? I have to get this report in by tonight and its already eight."
'Where at and when?'
'You suggest, my schedule is pretty much clear after day after tomorrow and I am quite flexible. ' (flexible, are you?)
'How about Santoor at Dhanmndi on Thursday evening, around 8 ?'
'That will be great. Yes, I can make it. Will see you then, okay? Bye."
Santoor was where the chemistry began. There was where I discovered that beyond that unkempt outdoors of yours, there is a soul uncannily complimentary to mine. We, you and I, we have read the same books, the same movies, more or less the same music and even coincidentally the same sarcasms. I have found my soul-mate. It was meant to be a short dinner, till the waiters started to turn the lights off and dropped enough hints that we needed to go. Your departure to Beijing was only three weeks away. On the way out, in the pretext of looking for your driver, you held on to my arms for a few seconds.
Then we were unstoppable.
It was Eid Day. You were flying out the next morning. A single guy showing up at your doorstep was a hint less than subtle, but I showed up anyway. Your mother was more than ecstatic to see me at your doorstep. She asked me a million prying questions before she bothered to inform you that I was downstairs. Later on you could not rebuke her enough in front of me. I stayed as late as possible that was within the civilized norm, cushioned by the fact that quite a number of our 'mutual' friends showed up. That was the day, with the harmonium and the tabla decorated on the living room floor did I realize that you are a classically trained vocalist, but you refused to perform that night, you just wouldn't. Your stubbornness permeates through more than sweat, doesn't it?
I called religiously every Saturday since that day. I couldn't sing the praises of Beijing enough and yet the first thing you write to me is 'Reached your dream city, quite a dreary place so far….." ….
I wanted to come a week before my b'day, which would have been your b'day. My idea was to celebrate it together, but you told me to postpone the trip. You were drowning among economists, protocols, and VIPs who wanted to 'do' Beijing. And showed up I did, went to the local version of the 7-11 and got ourselves two slices of lemon mernague cakes and celebrated our b'days together. I had to maintain the utmost of secrecies about this trip, remember? After all we are Bangladeshis and guys are not supposed to show up in a girl's apartment as a guest, are we? You did make me promise that you and I would be at our 'best' behavior.
Beijing was a total blur. Next day I proceeded to clean out your apartment, which was a pig-sty to be totally honest. It totally lacked a woman's touch it seemed. There were molded veggies in your fridge that were left behind by your mom a month back. You were totally unabashed when I told you that the penicillin farm was ready for harvesting. I hardly saw you till late at night, totally blurry and fatigued beyond belief day after day. I cooked and cleaned and played the role of a tourist with a vengeance, my frustrations at being able to even have a decent conversation taken out at the various unsuspecting souvenir sellers and sales clerks. Only on the 8th day, after I had postponed my departure twice and had totally given up on you did you finally come around. As usual you came in late and tired, walked into the kitchen, saw the food, lit two candles for the dining table and set the table. Then you did the most remarkable thing. You freshened up, came out and with your right hand took my left and guided me the table for dinner. The first thing you said was 'You can do much better than me, are you sure? ' It is as if I have already asked your hand for marriage. All I said was 'Yes, I am here, aren't I?'. It was the quietest most romantic dinner I ever had. I remember the glow of the candles on your face with a gentle shine on your hair cascading down your shoulders, and there was a sparkle in your eyes that was enchanting beyond belief. You produced a bottled of white wine afterwards which we finished till the late hours of the night, and when it was time for bed, you kissed me on the cheek, our first.
Next the day, we were finally a couple. Hand in hand, you took me to the flea market and the arts district in the converted warehouses. We had dinner in the phutongs in that quaint little avant-gard looking restaurant. Don't deny that you had a great time that day. I saw you in a totally different light that night. There was a side of you that was totally frivolous and free from all the chips on your shoulders that you seem to carry all the time.
There was a gait. That night, when I went to sleep, you came back, stood there by the door for what seemed like hours and you had a smile on your face. Yes, I was awake and could see your silhouette from the light of the hallway. If there is an enduring image of your that is totally transfixed in my mind, it will this one, you in your pajamas and a t-shirt, hair let down, looking at my face while I pretended to sleep….
That was a year ago.
Since then, the walls around you have started to be raised. I can feel that you are raising your defenses. But why? I have asked you to marry me and you haven't answered. I have asked for a definite answer to our at least being together have not received a definite answer. Can you say something, please? There are pressures in a long distance relationship to begin with, but you have made it harder by not sharing anything. We still talk on the phone for hours about everything….social issues, the latest drama in Dhaka and the latest social initiative in Beijing….but never 'us'. You avoid the subject like the plague. But if I don't call for a week or two, there will be desperate calls, messages, and e-mails asking about me.
Look, I have been a friend, but I have always wanted more and I have been straightforward about it. Please do me a favour, and I am sure after two years you can do this for me. Just give me an answer. We can both move forward. No formal 'Ogo Priyotomeshu….' letter is required. Are we a couple? Yes or No??
It all started when Sachin offered to introduce me to you in Café Mango on the 12 th of August, 2005. Yes, I remember the day pretty darn well. You were supposed to meet at 7:30, for which I had to make some excuses for some meeting from his office and literally run over there. But you were one and half hours late, by which time Sachin was totally embarrassed, He was totally pissed, and you offered no apologies, absolutely none whatsoever. You, the doyen of the NGO crowd, with the possibility of beauty and grace showed up in a haggered t-shirt and baggy jeans, hair some-what ruffled, dark circles underneath the eyes, and a small purse held in your hands. You also refused to make any eye contact whatsoever and requested a cup of ginger tea and a fudge brownie with vanilla ice-cream on top. I made some polite conversations about work, got some matter-of-fact responses, which seemed forced, and decided to just shut-up. You didn't have a mobile phone with you and could not be reached or summoned as to why you were late, nor was any explanations offered. Fuming, when Sachin confronted you, you just mumbled. You were not the least bit curious about me.
Those eyes, those beguiling eyes of yours,….I still cannot get them out of my head. Those very dark eyes, framed on the top with those bushy, somehow not very feminine eye-brows seemed to speak volumes. It spoke of intellect, an erudite mind-set, and a psyche that I find intensely mesmerizing. I still cant fathom the irony of this attraction since, after leaving that day,I gave Sachin such a hard time for wasting his time with this creature from the abyss of rudeness such as you…..
Sachin came to Dhaka five years back as a senior merchandiser for one of the huge local conglomerates that made everything from under wears and denims, to funky shirts to uniforms. He had a grinding job with the strangest of hours that had to combine both the local time-zone and the west-european one. He constantly cribbed about it but the fact that he was being paid in cash in crisply US dollars and he endured, yes 'endured' with be just the right word for it. In spite of all this, he managed to have a small circle of friends consisting of expats, the NGO crowd, and the semi-intellectuals who dabbed in 'social development' I guess you fell into the latter. You were mentioned a couple of times as the 'girl you should meet', butyou never seemed to have the time. You were either traveling, or had conferences to attend and arrange, or was burning the mid-night oil in your office in Lalmatia.
Coincidentally Sachin kept calling wanting to find out whether either had called. He totally felt bad for the whole experience, specially after the months of hype, and wanted some positive outcome to come out of it. I finally said 'yes, I will eat my pride for you and give her a call…ok?', but I I didn't have your number. Sachin promptly sent the number over the SMS and called back.
"Call her now', he said. "I told her you are gonna call right now and she said it was OK'.
I ring her number which is a land-line with a PABX extension and you answer the phone yourself I guess there wouldn't be any receptionist there at 8 in the evening.
I introduce myself. There is a pause and she says in a matter of fact way, "Who? I can't recall…what is this all about".
Sachin would really look good in a coffin. I say, 'Café Mango, a few days ago? We met through Sachin?'. And as the ultimate ice-breaker I add 'You were awfully late, remember?'
The Ice-Queen thaws somewhat and responds warmly " Ahh, yes Hi Rubel. That was the worst possible day for me to do anything, specially meet new people. I had just got my transfer notice and was totally down 'bout it.'
'Where to?'
'Beijing, of all places. My NGO has been given this advisory consultancy for the ministry of social welfare there and I have been asked to go for two years. It was such a shock since I had no intention for moving abroad, but its such a career move, I was totally torn about it.'
One more nail just got hammered in Sachin's coffin. She is leaving…what a waste of time.
'Oh, that's good, I guess….when do you leave?'
Our first one-on-one conversation is about her leaving. I could the irrelevance of it all. I had maintained a long-distance relationship till a few months ago for over four years, and after the misery of such an ordeal, I am not even remotely getting associated with one in similar circumstances of the opposite sex.
"Hey Rube… (From Rubel to Rube…not bad), is it possible to meet up for coffee and talk? I have to get this report in by tonight and its already eight."
'Where at and when?'
'You suggest, my schedule is pretty much clear after day after tomorrow and I am quite flexible. ' (flexible, are you?)
'How about Santoor at Dhanmndi on Thursday evening, around 8 ?'
'That will be great. Yes, I can make it. Will see you then, okay? Bye."
Santoor was where the chemistry began. There was where I discovered that beyond that unkempt outdoors of yours, there is a soul uncannily complimentary to mine. We, you and I, we have read the same books, the same movies, more or less the same music and even coincidentally the same sarcasms. I have found my soul-mate. It was meant to be a short dinner, till the waiters started to turn the lights off and dropped enough hints that we needed to go. Your departure to Beijing was only three weeks away. On the way out, in the pretext of looking for your driver, you held on to my arms for a few seconds.
Then we were unstoppable.
It was Eid Day. You were flying out the next morning. A single guy showing up at your doorstep was a hint less than subtle, but I showed up anyway. Your mother was more than ecstatic to see me at your doorstep. She asked me a million prying questions before she bothered to inform you that I was downstairs. Later on you could not rebuke her enough in front of me. I stayed as late as possible that was within the civilized norm, cushioned by the fact that quite a number of our 'mutual' friends showed up. That was the day, with the harmonium and the tabla decorated on the living room floor did I realize that you are a classically trained vocalist, but you refused to perform that night, you just wouldn't. Your stubbornness permeates through more than sweat, doesn't it?
I called religiously every Saturday since that day. I couldn't sing the praises of Beijing enough and yet the first thing you write to me is 'Reached your dream city, quite a dreary place so far….." ….
I wanted to come a week before my b'day, which would have been your b'day. My idea was to celebrate it together, but you told me to postpone the trip. You were drowning among economists, protocols, and VIPs who wanted to 'do' Beijing. And showed up I did, went to the local version of the 7-11 and got ourselves two slices of lemon mernague cakes and celebrated our b'days together. I had to maintain the utmost of secrecies about this trip, remember? After all we are Bangladeshis and guys are not supposed to show up in a girl's apartment as a guest, are we? You did make me promise that you and I would be at our 'best' behavior.
Beijing was a total blur. Next day I proceeded to clean out your apartment, which was a pig-sty to be totally honest. It totally lacked a woman's touch it seemed. There were molded veggies in your fridge that were left behind by your mom a month back. You were totally unabashed when I told you that the penicillin farm was ready for harvesting. I hardly saw you till late at night, totally blurry and fatigued beyond belief day after day. I cooked and cleaned and played the role of a tourist with a vengeance, my frustrations at being able to even have a decent conversation taken out at the various unsuspecting souvenir sellers and sales clerks. Only on the 8th day, after I had postponed my departure twice and had totally given up on you did you finally come around. As usual you came in late and tired, walked into the kitchen, saw the food, lit two candles for the dining table and set the table. Then you did the most remarkable thing. You freshened up, came out and with your right hand took my left and guided me the table for dinner. The first thing you said was 'You can do much better than me, are you sure? ' It is as if I have already asked your hand for marriage. All I said was 'Yes, I am here, aren't I?'. It was the quietest most romantic dinner I ever had. I remember the glow of the candles on your face with a gentle shine on your hair cascading down your shoulders, and there was a sparkle in your eyes that was enchanting beyond belief. You produced a bottled of white wine afterwards which we finished till the late hours of the night, and when it was time for bed, you kissed me on the cheek, our first.
Next the day, we were finally a couple. Hand in hand, you took me to the flea market and the arts district in the converted warehouses. We had dinner in the phutongs in that quaint little avant-gard looking restaurant. Don't deny that you had a great time that day. I saw you in a totally different light that night. There was a side of you that was totally frivolous and free from all the chips on your shoulders that you seem to carry all the time.
There was a gait. That night, when I went to sleep, you came back, stood there by the door for what seemed like hours and you had a smile on your face. Yes, I was awake and could see your silhouette from the light of the hallway. If there is an enduring image of your that is totally transfixed in my mind, it will this one, you in your pajamas and a t-shirt, hair let down, looking at my face while I pretended to sleep….
That was a year ago.
Since then, the walls around you have started to be raised. I can feel that you are raising your defenses. But why? I have asked you to marry me and you haven't answered. I have asked for a definite answer to our at least being together have not received a definite answer. Can you say something, please? There are pressures in a long distance relationship to begin with, but you have made it harder by not sharing anything. We still talk on the phone for hours about everything….social issues, the latest drama in Dhaka and the latest social initiative in Beijing….but never 'us'. You avoid the subject like the plague. But if I don't call for a week or two, there will be desperate calls, messages, and e-mails asking about me.
Look, I have been a friend, but I have always wanted more and I have been straightforward about it. Please do me a favour, and I am sure after two years you can do this for me. Just give me an answer. We can both move forward. No formal 'Ogo Priyotomeshu….' letter is required. Are we a couple? Yes or No??
Fair and Lovely….
It was almost love at first sight. Taufic had gone to the Lalmatia Aarong to pick up a few things and her cousin Laboni had wanted to come along. She called and said that some friends from college were joining her. It would be fun to hang out, she said. Afterwards, going to the lakeside on road 32 and having ‘‘fuchka’ was on the itenary. When Laboni and the gang walked in, all four of them together, Taufic was literally thunderstruck by one of the ‘friends’. She was a bit tall, very very fair, a long face, with hazel eyes, but a nose that was more Mediterranean than Bengali. The nose reminded her of Indira Gandhi, whose biography was being avidly consumed at home by his mom at the moment. Laboni must have noticed his face, because she said right away, ’Oh, this is Farzana by the way….and this is…’
All of a sudden Laboni had become Taufic favorite cousin. Laboni, astute and clever as ever, promised to introduce the two, provided he paid for this overpriced handbag she has seen at the One Stop Mall.
Santoor was not that packed. It was, after all a week-night and the dinner crowd was a bit sparse on these days. It was precisely for that reason Taufic had chosen that venue. It was public enough and at the same time nice, quite and classy to impress a damsel. He was actually out on a ‘date’. He had finished his MBA from IBA and was immediately gobbled up by a bank with a foreign pedigree. Since then, his family has been ‘visited’ by a large number of friends’ friends, obscure and not so obscure relatives, and even some women who are in similar positions. His parents lapped up all the attention they had been getting and at the same time goading him to make a choice, get married, and settle down. With his education over and the career more or less settled, Taufic tended to agree. Farzana seemed perfect. She seemed demure, polite, and subtle in her make-up, not that she needed much to begin with, finishing her Masters in English at Dhaka University, father was a banker just like him and mom also taught at a school. Like Taufic, there was just one other sibling.
The meeting was not what he had expected. None of the gushing of the harlequin romances, but more like the beginning of a negotiation. The numbers and statuses of immediate relatives, properties they own, future plans, whether both were ready to be married or not, and any skeletons in the closet in terms of past liaisons…. Taufic confessed there had been one, a turbulent passionate affair in his intermediate and undergrad days but it had fizzled and the girl was married with kids now, living the suburban life in Sydney. Farzana said that there had been none, there had been more than a few interests but their family being somewhat insular and conservative, she did not pursue anyone. She also said that her father was actually her step-father, her own father being out of the picture since her birth. She was born in 1971 and it has been assumed that he did not survive the turbulent times.
Laboni asked her mother, Taufic’s khala, to take the proposal to Farzana’a parents. They came over to Taufic’s, met the clan, dates were set, number of guests were negotiated and the marriage was solemnized. Laboni even got a genuine Benarasi Silk sari out of it.
Farzana’s younger sister Tarana was on the darker side, like his dad. Apparently she has had a complex about the whole thing, especially since she always got compared to her elder, fairer, therefore prettier sister. She described herself as wheatish brown and her bathroom cabinet was filled with all kinds of fairness products that were available. Somehow her complexion stubbornly refused to upgrade itself from wheatish brown to a lighter version of brown but she wouldn’t give up. Farzana’s admonitions about these products always came with a rebuttal, ‘look who is talking’. Tarana was the spoilt brat who had the run of the house, but Farzana was the over-protected one. Her mom was more open to Tarana and Farzana always perceived her mom as somewhat cold towards her. Not that there was any neglect or cruelty, but the bonds that are supposed to be there between a mother and her first born was somewhat lacking. Father was always kind, somewhat formal, and looked after everything Farzana ever needed. But she could feel that it required an effort, which he executed flawlessly, never letting her feel like a step-daughter. Ever aware of the attentions Farzana would get due her complexion and looks, they were always on the alert, gently guiding her to stay out of trouble. However, when Tarana and their dad interacted, sparks flew. All the coquettishness of a young girl came out of Tarana naturally and father indulged her daughter. Mother was always a bit distant, quiet, had a fixed smile on her face, always observing everyone, never interfering. It was an atmosphere Farzana wanted to escape. She wanted to be doted upon, the centre of someone’s entire existence. She hoped and prayed that Taufic would be her pillar and her prayers had come through.
Not only Taufic, but the entire clan doted on her. A fair skinned beauty, but also down to earth, she got along with everyone was an instant hit. They have become the golden couple, him with the flying career in finance and a trophy wife and she the doyen of every elderly female and an item of jealousy among his colleagues and their wives. She also became the benchmark of all future bridal acquisitions, fair, educated, spoke bangle and English with equally ease, a budding gourmet cook, looked after the in-laws like her own and quite the host, throwing small elegant dinners with menus coming out of the ever growing piles of cookbooks collected from New market and Nilkhet.
Two and half years have passed. Now there are perpetual hints about the ‘need’ to have a baby. Both of them were really in love, happy, and life trudged on; there wasn’t any compulsion for parenthood for either of them. But Taufic had been concerned lately. Farzana kept having this slight fever which after all kinds of antibiotics, refused to go away. Blood tests were suggesting some kind of infection but after going through several doctors, nothing could be pinpointed as a source. Other than the slight temperature and the occasional fatigue that accompanied, she seemed to be nonchalant about the whole thing and kept assuring her hubby to be patient. It would eventually go away.
Anyway, Taufic was about to be sent to Singapore by his bank for a training on financial derivatives and he applied for his holiday right after the training was over. He would take his wife and enjoy a kind of second honeymoon and at the same time get her wife checked out over there.
Farzana was ecstatic there. Singapore was like a dream, with walkable streets, window shopping, a variety of street foods and a gleaming cityscape. She would wander about during the day, check back in to the hotel room in the late afternoon and wait for Taufic to return from his training, get some rest and hit the town again. There was always some rendezvous with some colleagues and afterwards they would go for a walk by the waterfront. The doctor’s appointment was next Tuesday.
The doctor heard her history, frowned, and ordered a whole volley of tests that subjected her to giving out what seemed like vials of blood, peeing in a cup, and waiting for two long days. He immediately referred her to nephrologists who seemed to repeat the blood drawing all over again, and put her inside a giant scanner to look into a 3D image of her kidneys. There was no good news. The reason for her recurrent fever was that both of her kidneys were not functioning, polluting her blood with the impurities her kidney failed to flush out. She needed to be on dialysis. In the long run, she needed at least one new kidney.
The honeymoon was over. There was considerable crying and praying that accompanied their arrival. Dialysis meant in those days braving the corridors of either PG or Suhrawardi and enduring the stench such public hospitals offered. She didn’t have a choice and endured. Her fever abated. Her glow was back after each and every session, but pregnancy was out of the question. Her mother offered her kidney but the tissues didn’t match, and Tirana’s life was till ahead. Imagine her suitors finding out she had only one and had to watch her diet for the rest of her life. The local specialist finally said that Farzana’s biological father’s family could be traced. There just might be a poor relative of some kind who could come to an arrangement for a kidney…..
Taufic’s conversation with her parent’s on this regard didn’t go well, not well at all. Her father just looked at her mom and kept quiet initially, and her Mom’s face went totally blank and pale at the same time. Obviously fighting her tears, she solemnly announced, ‘baba, it is not possible’ and went off to her room. The generally congenial Taufic really lost it. After half a minute of numbness, he asked her dad ‘Why Not?’ Then thinking that this might be a sensitive issue for him, he solemnly got up, stormed out of the living room and went to their bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him. Amma was sitting on her chair in the corner of the room, obviously morose, shaking, and crying her heart out. Even during the wedding, she was somewhat stoic. Taufic had never seen her or even assumed her to be this vulnerable or even emotional. Taking a deep breadth, he started, ‘I know it’s hard, but she is your daughter and her life is at stake. She can’t be on dialysis forever. Can’t you help us? Her father must have some relatives somewhere. Look, you don’t have to do anything. Just give me a lead or two and I’ll do the rest. Think of Farzana. She is really suffering’.
Amma looked at his face, this time her body having in violent sobs and tears. She just said, “Baba, please forgive me, but that’s not possible’. This time Taufic also started crying. Farzana over the past two and a half years had given him so much peace of mind and a feeling of happiness, Taufic didn’t know such feelings existed. He was in love with her head over heals and the prospect of losing her in the long run was NOT an option. The same question came out, this time in very high decibels, ‘WHY NOT??? What can be more valuable than the life of your daughter???” There was a gentle tap on the door. ‘Open the door, its Baba’. Taufic, coming back to his senses and realizing the scene he just created, timidly opened the door and kept his head low. Baba gently took his hand and guided him towards the bed; they both sat down next to amma’s chair. Amma had started wiping her tears with the edge of her sari and was trying to compose herself. As gentle as ever, baba simply said, ‘Nilu, Taufic should now.’ The crying started all over again, and Taufic, bewildered kept looking from Baba to Maa and finally asked, ‘Know what? Please tell me.”
Both Baba and Maa were engaged to be married in February of ’71. But the war broke out and all the wedding plans were temporarily put on hold. They were both student of Rajshahi University, where they had met. She was from Kushtia and him from Jessore. After weeks of tearing at his conscience, he finally joined the Mukti Bahini and disappeared. There would be occasional messages of his activities and what he was doing. She was just happy that he was alive. In the meantime Kushtia was overrun by the Pakistani army. The army camp was just five minutes away and a sense of fear permeated the neighborhood. One Cornel Belayet was in charge, occasionally seen puttering about in town in an open jeep, mustached and sun glassed, the quintessential army officer in charge. Somehow she had caught his attention while she was hanging her clothes in the balcony to dry and he was passing by. He made an appearance in the household that same evening and made some polite enquiries about the family. He was pretty keen on Nilu, ‘Bohat accha larki hai apko’, he said to his dad. Sensing the direction the conversation was going, he informed the colonel that she was already engaged, in fact, the ‘aqd’ ceremony had already taken place and once things were back to normal, he would formally take her to Jessore. The ‘aqd’ was a total lie of course, but the Colonel was dejected no doubt. He literally turned red on the face, said a very formal ‘Khoda Haafez’ and left. He was back two weeks later. He had made some inquiries and found out that the fiancé was a Mukti Joddha. He had to pick her up for questioning about his whereabouts. There was hardly any questioning. Initially there was a lot of physical harassment, but when his coaxing was not getting him anywhere and he finally lost it. He kept slapping her and started tugging at her sari. She was returned two days later, broken in body and spirit, eyes sunken beyond recognition, and she refused to speak for days. Colonel Belayet was eventually taken to a POW camp in India and he was the father of Farzana.
Farzana had no clue about her parentage. They had uprooted themselves for her sake and started another life in Dhaka to protect her. Besides, which girl would have a normal life knowing of her violent conception?
The silence in the bedroom was eerie and deadly. Amma’s face had turned to stone, Abba had an arm on Taufic’s shoulder and his eyes were watery. Taufic had gone totally blank.
The story continued. Farzana was born premature in December, a miracle baby in certain ways since she was not expected to survive. Mom, now unofficially a ‘birongona’ had tried to kill herself or at various occasions tried to starve the baby to death. But Farzana’s nani persevered. When Baba came to see her on the 20th of December, he kind of knew already what had happened. The baby, tiny as ever, was being fed with a dropper by an ayah, Nilu in a post natal depression, totally refused to even touch the baby and had been in her own state of self-rejection. Abba, stayed on, a week later took Nilu as his wife and took the baby and went off to Jessore. They would move to Dhaka a year later. It was in fact Abba who took Farzana in the palms of his hands and placed it on Amma’s lap for the first time. Tarana was born five years later.
Taufic just came home and found Farzana resting on the bed. He just lied down next to her held on tightly and started crying.
There was a happy ending at the end. Tarana insisted that she donate one of hers and the tissues matched this time. The whole family went off to Singapore where the transplant was successfully completed. And Tarana was married off after all. Apparently Taufic’s colleague from work, Shabbir had met her during their wedding and while not exactly smitten, had been in touch ever since. He had been updated all along of the saga of Farzana and her health. In fact he thought she was a heroine of some sort for the sacrifice she was making for her step-sister. Only that she wasn’t as fair as Farzana……
All of a sudden Laboni had become Taufic favorite cousin. Laboni, astute and clever as ever, promised to introduce the two, provided he paid for this overpriced handbag she has seen at the One Stop Mall.
Santoor was not that packed. It was, after all a week-night and the dinner crowd was a bit sparse on these days. It was precisely for that reason Taufic had chosen that venue. It was public enough and at the same time nice, quite and classy to impress a damsel. He was actually out on a ‘date’. He had finished his MBA from IBA and was immediately gobbled up by a bank with a foreign pedigree. Since then, his family has been ‘visited’ by a large number of friends’ friends, obscure and not so obscure relatives, and even some women who are in similar positions. His parents lapped up all the attention they had been getting and at the same time goading him to make a choice, get married, and settle down. With his education over and the career more or less settled, Taufic tended to agree. Farzana seemed perfect. She seemed demure, polite, and subtle in her make-up, not that she needed much to begin with, finishing her Masters in English at Dhaka University, father was a banker just like him and mom also taught at a school. Like Taufic, there was just one other sibling.
The meeting was not what he had expected. None of the gushing of the harlequin romances, but more like the beginning of a negotiation. The numbers and statuses of immediate relatives, properties they own, future plans, whether both were ready to be married or not, and any skeletons in the closet in terms of past liaisons…. Taufic confessed there had been one, a turbulent passionate affair in his intermediate and undergrad days but it had fizzled and the girl was married with kids now, living the suburban life in Sydney. Farzana said that there had been none, there had been more than a few interests but their family being somewhat insular and conservative, she did not pursue anyone. She also said that her father was actually her step-father, her own father being out of the picture since her birth. She was born in 1971 and it has been assumed that he did not survive the turbulent times.
Laboni asked her mother, Taufic’s khala, to take the proposal to Farzana’a parents. They came over to Taufic’s, met the clan, dates were set, number of guests were negotiated and the marriage was solemnized. Laboni even got a genuine Benarasi Silk sari out of it.
Farzana’s younger sister Tarana was on the darker side, like his dad. Apparently she has had a complex about the whole thing, especially since she always got compared to her elder, fairer, therefore prettier sister. She described herself as wheatish brown and her bathroom cabinet was filled with all kinds of fairness products that were available. Somehow her complexion stubbornly refused to upgrade itself from wheatish brown to a lighter version of brown but she wouldn’t give up. Farzana’s admonitions about these products always came with a rebuttal, ‘look who is talking’. Tarana was the spoilt brat who had the run of the house, but Farzana was the over-protected one. Her mom was more open to Tarana and Farzana always perceived her mom as somewhat cold towards her. Not that there was any neglect or cruelty, but the bonds that are supposed to be there between a mother and her first born was somewhat lacking. Father was always kind, somewhat formal, and looked after everything Farzana ever needed. But she could feel that it required an effort, which he executed flawlessly, never letting her feel like a step-daughter. Ever aware of the attentions Farzana would get due her complexion and looks, they were always on the alert, gently guiding her to stay out of trouble. However, when Tarana and their dad interacted, sparks flew. All the coquettishness of a young girl came out of Tarana naturally and father indulged her daughter. Mother was always a bit distant, quiet, had a fixed smile on her face, always observing everyone, never interfering. It was an atmosphere Farzana wanted to escape. She wanted to be doted upon, the centre of someone’s entire existence. She hoped and prayed that Taufic would be her pillar and her prayers had come through.
Not only Taufic, but the entire clan doted on her. A fair skinned beauty, but also down to earth, she got along with everyone was an instant hit. They have become the golden couple, him with the flying career in finance and a trophy wife and she the doyen of every elderly female and an item of jealousy among his colleagues and their wives. She also became the benchmark of all future bridal acquisitions, fair, educated, spoke bangle and English with equally ease, a budding gourmet cook, looked after the in-laws like her own and quite the host, throwing small elegant dinners with menus coming out of the ever growing piles of cookbooks collected from New market and Nilkhet.
Two and half years have passed. Now there are perpetual hints about the ‘need’ to have a baby. Both of them were really in love, happy, and life trudged on; there wasn’t any compulsion for parenthood for either of them. But Taufic had been concerned lately. Farzana kept having this slight fever which after all kinds of antibiotics, refused to go away. Blood tests were suggesting some kind of infection but after going through several doctors, nothing could be pinpointed as a source. Other than the slight temperature and the occasional fatigue that accompanied, she seemed to be nonchalant about the whole thing and kept assuring her hubby to be patient. It would eventually go away.
Anyway, Taufic was about to be sent to Singapore by his bank for a training on financial derivatives and he applied for his holiday right after the training was over. He would take his wife and enjoy a kind of second honeymoon and at the same time get her wife checked out over there.
Farzana was ecstatic there. Singapore was like a dream, with walkable streets, window shopping, a variety of street foods and a gleaming cityscape. She would wander about during the day, check back in to the hotel room in the late afternoon and wait for Taufic to return from his training, get some rest and hit the town again. There was always some rendezvous with some colleagues and afterwards they would go for a walk by the waterfront. The doctor’s appointment was next Tuesday.
The doctor heard her history, frowned, and ordered a whole volley of tests that subjected her to giving out what seemed like vials of blood, peeing in a cup, and waiting for two long days. He immediately referred her to nephrologists who seemed to repeat the blood drawing all over again, and put her inside a giant scanner to look into a 3D image of her kidneys. There was no good news. The reason for her recurrent fever was that both of her kidneys were not functioning, polluting her blood with the impurities her kidney failed to flush out. She needed to be on dialysis. In the long run, she needed at least one new kidney.
The honeymoon was over. There was considerable crying and praying that accompanied their arrival. Dialysis meant in those days braving the corridors of either PG or Suhrawardi and enduring the stench such public hospitals offered. She didn’t have a choice and endured. Her fever abated. Her glow was back after each and every session, but pregnancy was out of the question. Her mother offered her kidney but the tissues didn’t match, and Tirana’s life was till ahead. Imagine her suitors finding out she had only one and had to watch her diet for the rest of her life. The local specialist finally said that Farzana’s biological father’s family could be traced. There just might be a poor relative of some kind who could come to an arrangement for a kidney…..
Taufic’s conversation with her parent’s on this regard didn’t go well, not well at all. Her father just looked at her mom and kept quiet initially, and her Mom’s face went totally blank and pale at the same time. Obviously fighting her tears, she solemnly announced, ‘baba, it is not possible’ and went off to her room. The generally congenial Taufic really lost it. After half a minute of numbness, he asked her dad ‘Why Not?’ Then thinking that this might be a sensitive issue for him, he solemnly got up, stormed out of the living room and went to their bedroom and slammed the door shut behind him. Amma was sitting on her chair in the corner of the room, obviously morose, shaking, and crying her heart out. Even during the wedding, she was somewhat stoic. Taufic had never seen her or even assumed her to be this vulnerable or even emotional. Taking a deep breadth, he started, ‘I know it’s hard, but she is your daughter and her life is at stake. She can’t be on dialysis forever. Can’t you help us? Her father must have some relatives somewhere. Look, you don’t have to do anything. Just give me a lead or two and I’ll do the rest. Think of Farzana. She is really suffering’.
Amma looked at his face, this time her body having in violent sobs and tears. She just said, “Baba, please forgive me, but that’s not possible’. This time Taufic also started crying. Farzana over the past two and a half years had given him so much peace of mind and a feeling of happiness, Taufic didn’t know such feelings existed. He was in love with her head over heals and the prospect of losing her in the long run was NOT an option. The same question came out, this time in very high decibels, ‘WHY NOT??? What can be more valuable than the life of your daughter???” There was a gentle tap on the door. ‘Open the door, its Baba’. Taufic, coming back to his senses and realizing the scene he just created, timidly opened the door and kept his head low. Baba gently took his hand and guided him towards the bed; they both sat down next to amma’s chair. Amma had started wiping her tears with the edge of her sari and was trying to compose herself. As gentle as ever, baba simply said, ‘Nilu, Taufic should now.’ The crying started all over again, and Taufic, bewildered kept looking from Baba to Maa and finally asked, ‘Know what? Please tell me.”
Both Baba and Maa were engaged to be married in February of ’71. But the war broke out and all the wedding plans were temporarily put on hold. They were both student of Rajshahi University, where they had met. She was from Kushtia and him from Jessore. After weeks of tearing at his conscience, he finally joined the Mukti Bahini and disappeared. There would be occasional messages of his activities and what he was doing. She was just happy that he was alive. In the meantime Kushtia was overrun by the Pakistani army. The army camp was just five minutes away and a sense of fear permeated the neighborhood. One Cornel Belayet was in charge, occasionally seen puttering about in town in an open jeep, mustached and sun glassed, the quintessential army officer in charge. Somehow she had caught his attention while she was hanging her clothes in the balcony to dry and he was passing by. He made an appearance in the household that same evening and made some polite enquiries about the family. He was pretty keen on Nilu, ‘Bohat accha larki hai apko’, he said to his dad. Sensing the direction the conversation was going, he informed the colonel that she was already engaged, in fact, the ‘aqd’ ceremony had already taken place and once things were back to normal, he would formally take her to Jessore. The ‘aqd’ was a total lie of course, but the Colonel was dejected no doubt. He literally turned red on the face, said a very formal ‘Khoda Haafez’ and left. He was back two weeks later. He had made some inquiries and found out that the fiancé was a Mukti Joddha. He had to pick her up for questioning about his whereabouts. There was hardly any questioning. Initially there was a lot of physical harassment, but when his coaxing was not getting him anywhere and he finally lost it. He kept slapping her and started tugging at her sari. She was returned two days later, broken in body and spirit, eyes sunken beyond recognition, and she refused to speak for days. Colonel Belayet was eventually taken to a POW camp in India and he was the father of Farzana.
Farzana had no clue about her parentage. They had uprooted themselves for her sake and started another life in Dhaka to protect her. Besides, which girl would have a normal life knowing of her violent conception?
The silence in the bedroom was eerie and deadly. Amma’s face had turned to stone, Abba had an arm on Taufic’s shoulder and his eyes were watery. Taufic had gone totally blank.
The story continued. Farzana was born premature in December, a miracle baby in certain ways since she was not expected to survive. Mom, now unofficially a ‘birongona’ had tried to kill herself or at various occasions tried to starve the baby to death. But Farzana’s nani persevered. When Baba came to see her on the 20th of December, he kind of knew already what had happened. The baby, tiny as ever, was being fed with a dropper by an ayah, Nilu in a post natal depression, totally refused to even touch the baby and had been in her own state of self-rejection. Abba, stayed on, a week later took Nilu as his wife and took the baby and went off to Jessore. They would move to Dhaka a year later. It was in fact Abba who took Farzana in the palms of his hands and placed it on Amma’s lap for the first time. Tarana was born five years later.
Taufic just came home and found Farzana resting on the bed. He just lied down next to her held on tightly and started crying.
There was a happy ending at the end. Tarana insisted that she donate one of hers and the tissues matched this time. The whole family went off to Singapore where the transplant was successfully completed. And Tarana was married off after all. Apparently Taufic’s colleague from work, Shabbir had met her during their wedding and while not exactly smitten, had been in touch ever since. He had been updated all along of the saga of Farzana and her health. In fact he thought she was a heroine of some sort for the sacrifice she was making for her step-sister. Only that she wasn’t as fair as Farzana……
Like all these little fish in the river……
Hausa was really perturbed by the whole process. She has made Black Forest Pudding a million times in her life but today it is not looking or tasting the same. She has a reputation for the cake in her Zonta and Rotary Club circles. People ask for the recipes all the time and she always has been very generous with it. However, they all say that they never taste like hers. Well, today she is facing the same predicament. Not only that, today the pudding has been requested by her mother to entertain her friends and cousins, and therefore will be under heavy scrutiny of all the aunties and khalas. Well, the cherries were perfect, so were the brown sugar and the combination or plain and self-rising flour, exactly 200 grams of butter, no more no less, her private stash of dark chocolates and Kirsch whipped cream lovingly sourced by herself and occasionally by her husband form their numerous trips abroad….well something has gone terribly wrong. After the required hour and forty five minutes of baking, she had put the skewer in for tasting and it was bitter and overly sweet. Must be the chocolate and the sugar. Oh well, she has to instruct Ammi to serve with heavy doses of plain whipped cream to make it palatable, but went ahead with the garnishing of the pudding with shaved chocolate swirls and cherries with stems on the top so that it looked like a cute little volcano with the bright red lavas erupting from the top. Her son Andalib always gets a kick from the décor, before diving into the pudding.
Earlier in the morning, she had been to Agora for her shopping. Aisles after aisles of delectable, mostly imported that has the likes of her new avenues of cooking and tasitng adventures. She hated the fact these items were no longer the exclusive domains of women like here, well traveled, thoroughly westernized, and a palate that has been painstakingly acquired with dining in all the fancy restaurants of home and especially abroad. At the same time, there was a certain delight and pleasure to be able to find Danish whipped cream and Japanese Sago noodles under the same roof so close to home. She needed some brown sugar for the recipe for the pudding, along with chocolates and cereals for the kids, detergents and cleaning solvents for the house, and wanted to get a kilo of the Thai dragon-fruit that are seasonal and just arrived.
Hausa was in the aisle that stocked shampoos and beauty products and specially those Sri-Lankan herbal items. She was always looking at them but the packaging was always very boring and unattractive for her. They probably would look out of place among the bottles of Este-Lauder and Shishedos, but there was no harm in looking. There were two women next to her, hawking the space in front of the baby products but were having an animated conversation of some sort. Apparently one of them just returned from the southern areas, visiting her in-laws, where there had been a storm of biblical magnitude. Oh yes, thought Hausa, she had scoured her closet for all the old salwar kameezes and the cotton saris that she no longer wore and, along with a check for twenty five thousand takas, had dropped them off on behalf or Rotary and thus cleared her conscience. The imagery from the devastation moved her immensely and she and her friends quickly called each other, collected a truckload of clothes and money and got them dispersed as soon as possible. There was also the picture of her husband with the Chief Advisor giving a chunk of money to the relief fund. Then of course the wedding season and the season of wild Bengal winter began and her calendar was booked choc-a-block with fittings, tailors, parlors, jewelers and the countless weddings, walimas, and engagements parties which always seem to be held at Radisson, Westin, Spectra, or Shenakunjo. She dreaded going to the ones in Sheraton or Sonargaon, because by the time the traffic has been dealt with and festivities began, she felt hitting the shower and untangle the artwork of her favorite stylist….and she definitely dressed down for any events in the community centres… Anyways, this women, Shoma was the name she had gathered, was mentioning her distant phupu-sashuree in the village who had lost her son and her grand-daughter. Apparently when faced with devastation there, it was Shoma who had broken down. The phupu-shashuree, apparently after having shed her share of tears for weeks on end had merely patted Shoma's head and produced a cup of tea and a some 'mooree' for them. Her husband, who definitely had a close connection with the family during his childhood was lamenting the loss of his cousin, not seen in almost fifteen years was regaling the childhood memories of running through the fields, chasing the water buffaloes into the ponds and stealing the neighbors mangoes together. Apparently the women had kept her stoic composure and finally told the two, "Baba, I have no more tears to shed. After the storm, we all cried like all these little fish in the river. Allah has taken what He wanted back and now our lives are going on as you see it.' Transfixed, Hausa kept fiddling with the bottles of lotions and what not till Shoma and her friend moved on. These simple village people….crying like little fish in the river. Fish don't cry, big or small, do they? Anyway, she found the brown sugar in the next aisle that was required for the pudding and checked out…..
Zebun and Hausa have been friends since their school days. The friendship has endured over two decades in spite of the ups and downs that are part and parcel of any such long term alliances. Zebun's two sons, Shaehan and Shohan adore Hausa as if she is substitute mother of some sort. In fact her own son and daughter and those two act like siblings along with all the fights and affections and jealousies that come with it. Shaehan, the elder one, was asking for a particular brand of chocolate a week back and she had seen it at Agora and picked some up for him. He is also into fish. Their verandahs and spare rooms have aquariums that are teeming with fish of all shapes, sizes and colours. Hausa was somewhat fascinated by them but up to a moment. A few minutes of gazing and listening with rapt attention to Shaehan's latest statistics about new batch of eggs that had just hatched and then Zebun and her would catch up with the latest developments of their lives, shopping, acquisitions, and their respective husbands and children. This time, the weather being so pleasant, Zebun asked for tea in the upper floor balcony, which looked out to the garden below. Here was also a rather long fish tank with some small fish that were swimming in swarms. Something about it seemed to transfix her and she was staring at it for a few seconds when Zebun snapped at her, 'What happened to YOU all of a sudden, heh?'. Shaehan was crossing the verandah to go to the other side of the house where his mother has made them a game room stocked with the latest gizmo. She called him out, 'Shaehan, baba, don't remember seeing this tank before. What fish are those?'. Excited about her interest in the subject, his face lit up. "Oh auntie, this one has been here for ages. You just didn't notice. These are the local 'pootee'. In fact, auntie, the cook is always threatening to fish them out and serve it for lunch. Isn't it ridiculous?'. A quick smile and he was off.
Yes, the 'pootee' was very much part of the diet once. She never realized how pretty they were. A tiny body shimmering in silver, with small black dot close to the tail, just like those evil-eye spots on babies. They were swarms and swarms of them swimming back and forth in that huge tank. A bit of deflected light fell on the tank and it was like a shimmer and dazzle that was almost hypnotizing. The fish went back and forth over and over again and, in that hypnotic state of hers, they seemed like millions, multiplied into infinity. Just a fish tank and imagine this in the river……
She was holding the cup of Earl Grey in her right hand. But the hand started to shake and Zebun retorted right away, 'What the hell!!! You OK? What's bothering you??'. Hausa's eyes were swelling with tears and she could feel the uncountable emotions welling up inside. So….this is what the woman had meant. All those tears, Oh God.
Once home this unknown woman related to this also unknown Shoma had already began the process of permeating her mind, body and soul. How much tear do you need to shed before you dry up? Her mom called twice to remind her about the black forest pudding. Those imageries from TV began the process of haunting her. Even when she was pouring the brown sugar into the bowl, her mind became a jumble of images of those infinite sugar crystals and the millions of 'pootees' swarming in the water and the imagined face of that woman shedding copious amounts of tears all at once. A few of her own salty tears fell into the mixture as well. No wonder, she thought, the pudding didn't taste right. She wasn't paying attention and must have put too much of the brown sugar with chocolate. The pudding all of a sudden seemed totally un-important. She wanted to hold that woman tightly and cry with her. She wanted to find her right now, and all of a sudden she felt utterly and totally helpless. She sat down in the settee in her bedroom and started her version of shedding tears….. like all those little fish in the river……
Earlier in the morning, she had been to Agora for her shopping. Aisles after aisles of delectable, mostly imported that has the likes of her new avenues of cooking and tasitng adventures. She hated the fact these items were no longer the exclusive domains of women like here, well traveled, thoroughly westernized, and a palate that has been painstakingly acquired with dining in all the fancy restaurants of home and especially abroad. At the same time, there was a certain delight and pleasure to be able to find Danish whipped cream and Japanese Sago noodles under the same roof so close to home. She needed some brown sugar for the recipe for the pudding, along with chocolates and cereals for the kids, detergents and cleaning solvents for the house, and wanted to get a kilo of the Thai dragon-fruit that are seasonal and just arrived.
Hausa was in the aisle that stocked shampoos and beauty products and specially those Sri-Lankan herbal items. She was always looking at them but the packaging was always very boring and unattractive for her. They probably would look out of place among the bottles of Este-Lauder and Shishedos, but there was no harm in looking. There were two women next to her, hawking the space in front of the baby products but were having an animated conversation of some sort. Apparently one of them just returned from the southern areas, visiting her in-laws, where there had been a storm of biblical magnitude. Oh yes, thought Hausa, she had scoured her closet for all the old salwar kameezes and the cotton saris that she no longer wore and, along with a check for twenty five thousand takas, had dropped them off on behalf or Rotary and thus cleared her conscience. The imagery from the devastation moved her immensely and she and her friends quickly called each other, collected a truckload of clothes and money and got them dispersed as soon as possible. There was also the picture of her husband with the Chief Advisor giving a chunk of money to the relief fund. Then of course the wedding season and the season of wild Bengal winter began and her calendar was booked choc-a-block with fittings, tailors, parlors, jewelers and the countless weddings, walimas, and engagements parties which always seem to be held at Radisson, Westin, Spectra, or Shenakunjo. She dreaded going to the ones in Sheraton or Sonargaon, because by the time the traffic has been dealt with and festivities began, she felt hitting the shower and untangle the artwork of her favorite stylist….and she definitely dressed down for any events in the community centres… Anyways, this women, Shoma was the name she had gathered, was mentioning her distant phupu-sashuree in the village who had lost her son and her grand-daughter. Apparently when faced with devastation there, it was Shoma who had broken down. The phupu-shashuree, apparently after having shed her share of tears for weeks on end had merely patted Shoma's head and produced a cup of tea and a some 'mooree' for them. Her husband, who definitely had a close connection with the family during his childhood was lamenting the loss of his cousin, not seen in almost fifteen years was regaling the childhood memories of running through the fields, chasing the water buffaloes into the ponds and stealing the neighbors mangoes together. Apparently the women had kept her stoic composure and finally told the two, "Baba, I have no more tears to shed. After the storm, we all cried like all these little fish in the river. Allah has taken what He wanted back and now our lives are going on as you see it.' Transfixed, Hausa kept fiddling with the bottles of lotions and what not till Shoma and her friend moved on. These simple village people….crying like little fish in the river. Fish don't cry, big or small, do they? Anyway, she found the brown sugar in the next aisle that was required for the pudding and checked out…..
Zebun and Hausa have been friends since their school days. The friendship has endured over two decades in spite of the ups and downs that are part and parcel of any such long term alliances. Zebun's two sons, Shaehan and Shohan adore Hausa as if she is substitute mother of some sort. In fact her own son and daughter and those two act like siblings along with all the fights and affections and jealousies that come with it. Shaehan, the elder one, was asking for a particular brand of chocolate a week back and she had seen it at Agora and picked some up for him. He is also into fish. Their verandahs and spare rooms have aquariums that are teeming with fish of all shapes, sizes and colours. Hausa was somewhat fascinated by them but up to a moment. A few minutes of gazing and listening with rapt attention to Shaehan's latest statistics about new batch of eggs that had just hatched and then Zebun and her would catch up with the latest developments of their lives, shopping, acquisitions, and their respective husbands and children. This time, the weather being so pleasant, Zebun asked for tea in the upper floor balcony, which looked out to the garden below. Here was also a rather long fish tank with some small fish that were swimming in swarms. Something about it seemed to transfix her and she was staring at it for a few seconds when Zebun snapped at her, 'What happened to YOU all of a sudden, heh?'. Shaehan was crossing the verandah to go to the other side of the house where his mother has made them a game room stocked with the latest gizmo. She called him out, 'Shaehan, baba, don't remember seeing this tank before. What fish are those?'. Excited about her interest in the subject, his face lit up. "Oh auntie, this one has been here for ages. You just didn't notice. These are the local 'pootee'. In fact, auntie, the cook is always threatening to fish them out and serve it for lunch. Isn't it ridiculous?'. A quick smile and he was off.
Yes, the 'pootee' was very much part of the diet once. She never realized how pretty they were. A tiny body shimmering in silver, with small black dot close to the tail, just like those evil-eye spots on babies. They were swarms and swarms of them swimming back and forth in that huge tank. A bit of deflected light fell on the tank and it was like a shimmer and dazzle that was almost hypnotizing. The fish went back and forth over and over again and, in that hypnotic state of hers, they seemed like millions, multiplied into infinity. Just a fish tank and imagine this in the river……
She was holding the cup of Earl Grey in her right hand. But the hand started to shake and Zebun retorted right away, 'What the hell!!! You OK? What's bothering you??'. Hausa's eyes were swelling with tears and she could feel the uncountable emotions welling up inside. So….this is what the woman had meant. All those tears, Oh God.
Once home this unknown woman related to this also unknown Shoma had already began the process of permeating her mind, body and soul. How much tear do you need to shed before you dry up? Her mom called twice to remind her about the black forest pudding. Those imageries from TV began the process of haunting her. Even when she was pouring the brown sugar into the bowl, her mind became a jumble of images of those infinite sugar crystals and the millions of 'pootees' swarming in the water and the imagined face of that woman shedding copious amounts of tears all at once. A few of her own salty tears fell into the mixture as well. No wonder, she thought, the pudding didn't taste right. She wasn't paying attention and must have put too much of the brown sugar with chocolate. The pudding all of a sudden seemed totally un-important. She wanted to hold that woman tightly and cry with her. She wanted to find her right now, and all of a sudden she felt utterly and totally helpless. She sat down in the settee in her bedroom and started her version of shedding tears….. like all those little fish in the river……
Between Mars and Venus…..
Shahed has been totally frustrated over the past few days. He needs one measly signature from either of his parents to go to one of the school excursions, this time to the Mirpur Botanical gardens, and he can’t seem to achieve this one simple menial task. Those two haven’t been talking for days now, and the approaching either one gets the generic ‘ask your mom’, or ‘ask your father’ response.
In fact Shahed has resigned to the fact that his parents are a quarrelsome lot and had they been a western couple, they would have called it quits years ago. He is supposedly the bond, the glue, that holds them still together, but he finds the whole prospect of being ‘the glue’, like glue in real life, a messy affair. There had been occasional relief from this domestic ambiance when he used to spend the weekends at his phupi’s or mama’s place. However, being thirteen now, with furs on his face transforming into facial hair, and the lanky appearance of a growing thirteen year old, his ‘cute factor’ is on the receding end. The invitations for staying over are also on the downside, specially since his Mami found him a sitting a ‘bit to close’ to his eleven year old cousin Moumi, which created another domestic scene at his Mama’s place.
This school outing is very important…he has to go no matter what. And he wants to go legit…he had forged his father’s signature last time, was caught by the class-teacher, and was sent home, ‘suspended’, for three whole days. Those three days at home were like prison, totally grounded, and three days of relentless moralizing about the grave crime of forgery he had committed. His friend Nayan has promised to bring in some booze, picked from his father’s well-stocked bar, and of-course there will be fags, and joints, and if lucky, there will also be ‘yaba’, all under the watchful eyes of the chaperones, mostly bored house-wives who teach at the school. Lucy and Kabita already have their consent forms turned in, and with all the bushes, shrubs, and hedges, the botanical garden has every possibility of turning into the garden of earthly delights.
He never suspect his parents of extra-marital affairs that can be the cause of this ever-lasting rift between the two. Money is not the issue either. Why should it be? Mom has six apartments whose rentals have made her totally independent in her own right and dad owns a sweater and a knitting factory. Probably these lack of co-dependency are to be blamed for their not being civil to each other within the confines of the house. Not that they are ‘nouveau riche’ or anything, both of his grandfathers had been civil servants, whose prudent real-estate investments in the 60s in the form of one single plot each in Dhanmundi have made them paper-millionaires much later. The apartments and the money for the garment factories all came from that source. Coming from such ‘bhodrolok’ backgrounds, the values are neither totally western, nor totally local. They even sleep on the same bed, but refuse to face each-other. Shahed has wondered more than once how much practice it has taken to fall asleep facing opposing directions. The memories of him coming into their room years in his toddler years and literally having to pry them open from each other’s embrace so that he could sleep between them are quite vivid.
Well, the deadline for the consent form is tomorrow, and he HAS to get the signature. Nowadays, the class teacher Mrs. Naureen, will call on the phone to verify the consents. After lunch, mom is about to take a nap. He quietly tiptoes into the room and finds her leafing through an old issue of ‘Femina’.
‘You still haven’t signed’, he said in a soft voice. He is still startled by his own voice. It had changed literally overnight last week, which prompted his mom to prepare glasses of hot saline solutions for him to gargle in. Dad saw the spectacle after coming home, smiled, and then snarled, ‘Leave him alone, your son is just growing up’.
“I need to talk to your dad about your going. Do you think we’ll let you go just like that after what happened in the last one’? Oh God, the now-famous incident where two seniors were caught literally with their pants down. The furor and the subsequent parent-teacher ‘conferences’ were the source of constant giggling episodes among them, and those two elevated to hero status, even though both has been pulled out of the school by their parents.
‘Mom’, he pleaded….’everyone else has turned the forms already and Baroi keeps calling me a mama’s boy….will you just sign the paper?? You are not talking to dad anyway, so what is there to talk about?’
Well, he realized a bit too late that he probably has just stepped on the remaining raw nerve of his mom’s that afternoon. The diatribes began…’you two will never let me even have a nap in …..my whole life has been….your dad never even….you always take advantage of the ….’. Before his mom could see the swelling tears in his eyes, he quietly said ‘never mind’ and came back to his room and switched the computer on. There was a volley of messages waiting in Facebook and Yahoo Messenger. The picnic hype has gained quite the momentum and looks to be a ‘the’ social even of Grade 8, and there is a chance of his not going. This is the only day they don’t have to wear their uniforms and there are lot of messages and inquiries about who is wearing what, and who is pairing up with who.
He has to go, he just HAS to…
Dad got him a bike for his b’day two years ago, but he has not been allowed to take it out beyond the parking lot below. Unofficially he has taken it out for cruising, but on both occasions there were near mishaps, one with a rickshaw, and another with a car that resulted in a volley of obscene languages from the driver for scratching the side. Now it takes up an inordinate amount of space in his room and he would like to see this thing gone now. Mom and Dad does not know that the other reason for the total abandonment of the bike is that main axel had been dented when he gave it a flying kick a few weeks back after being jointly told off by his parental units because of pocket money. They refuse to accept the fact that a measly 100 taka per week is utterly humiliating in the environs of the school playground. If he doesn’t make it to the picnic, his fate there will be sealed forever…an ostracized outcast of a mama’s boy…..
Dinner is served at 8:30 p.m. sharp. Today being Tuesday, Dad will rush through the meal so that he can go to his club for a round of poker. The meals are a deadly silent affair, where comments about the food are sharpened and thrown towards the old lady who silently bears them in the kitchen. Dad sits at the head-table and he and his mom on either side. He does not want it to be like some other nights where he has to ask the cook to feed him in the room because for some strange reason he wouldn’t be able to swallow anything on the dinner table due to the icicles that form around the room during this time of family harmony.
‘Dad’, he started, ‘I told you about the school picnic, nah?...the last date for the consent form is tomorrow. Can I go?’ He could almost feel his mom’s senses heightened to their extreme right about now.
‘What does your mom say?’
‘With all the things going on at the wretched school of yours, god knows what new incident will happen there this time. I don’t see why the picnic is so important under the circumstances. Don’t we take you out enough as it is? Already your Mami’s compliant is ringing in my ears…so humiliating….no, no picnic for you.”
Dad sighed and keeping his voice quivering voice as calm as possible, said ‘We have to trust him, you know…besides he needs to go out and we need to let him grow….can’t protect him from the world forever…...’…
“WELL, you protect him whichever way you can, he is not going.’
‘Saima, be reasonable…obviously it is important for him ….’. His Dad’s occasional outburst of understanding always impressed Shahed.
‘WELL, OUR peace of mind is also important, if not to you, at least to me’
Dad’s cheeks, in spite of his dark complexion had gone crimson. His explosion is imminent, thought Shahed. But he seemed to take a deep breath, managed to bring a smile, and coolly said, ‘Shahed, you will behave responsibly, won’t you? Just bring the form after this meal and I’ll sign it.’
Mom’s both hands came down on the table with a resounding THUMP. Shahed can already tell that dinner was already over. The resulting vibration has splashed drops of gravy and daal all over the table.
‘You JUST have to humiliate me in front of him don’t you? ALL MY LIFE you ignore me and my decisions…..”
Dad cut in..”AND when did I ignore you all of a sudden? ALL MY LIFE I have catered and compromised for you. Even last time you wanted to go to Bangkok and I wanted to stay home for Eid, we had to go your way and….”
Obviously the issue of going to the picnic has been relegated to the back-burner now. Shahed is thinking that it is amazing how chronologically organized his parents’ memories are. At the press of a button both can spew out detailed descriptions of each-other’s short comings in terms of their expectations.
He has to go to the picnic. He just has to.
Now the exchange between the two involved the model of the TV that was bought three months back for their bedroom. The costs and merits of a flat-screen TV versus a high fidelity regular one was being argued in full force.
He had enough. He tried to focus on the picnic, on either Lucy or Kabita. The trio has a unique triangle going. Lucy is head over heels over Shahed, while he likes Kabita more. At the same time, those two are the best of friends. Somehow the Shahed issue has not ripped their friendship apart yet, but cracks are growing.
‘Do you know?” Shahed blurted out. He sounded amazing calm, non-chalant, and matter-of-fact. “Do you know Milton’s parents split up? His dad has moved to Uttara with his new wife and auntie has moved to Banani. Now he is in Uttara every weekend. He loves it.’ He paused. He wasn’t sure what was his point for saying all this, but the effect it had on those two were electrifying. They just went blank and stared at him. His mom’s gesture was almost comical, her right arm frozen in mid-air in the gesture to reiterate the point she was about to make to her husband.
‘Milton was saying that his mom cries a lot. But at least they don’t fight anymore. His dad told him that he should have left his mom years ago. He seems to be doing fine, not the sour-puss he used to be. Weekdays in Banani and weekends in Uttara, he just loves it.’
His mom’s hand has come down to a resting position. “What on earth are you saying?’.
Dad looked at her and and then looked at him. “Yes, whats your point?’
“What point!!! No point whatsoever. You never seem to ask about my friends anymore, so I was just saying. Manik’s mom is also getting remarried. He is a hot-shot banker of some sort. He is getting him a Tag-Heuer watch for his wedding. Oh did I tell you about Lisa? She walked in on their parents the other day. You know what? They both were pulling each others’ hair out. She thought it was soooo funny.”
‘Are all your friends’ parents gone dysfunctional or what??” His mother snapped. The rage of her face has been replaced by beads of cold sweat, and she looked obviously flustered by these revelations.
‘Ahh, Shama!’, his father gently rebuked. The scales of his voice have also gone down dramatically. He looked at Shahed, with the look that revealed very well that he knew exactly what his son was implying.
‘Lisa was saying that his mom has to cover her head for weeks because patches of hair have come out from the top and his dad had to buy a big sunglass to cover his black-eye. She took pictures with her mobile and they were so funny.’ He giggled. He is feeling alarmed in his own way. Why is he blurting out all this, the inner secrets of their friendship sworn to secrecy?
‘I was wondering…If you two ever get divorced, who will I stay with? I think I’ll like it if I get to stay with Nanu.” Nanu’s flat is next to the Abahani cricket fields, where some of his friends practice everyday. The fiercely independent woman refuses to stay with any of her children but always welcome any grand-kid to stay with open arms and spoils them with pocket-money, and a refrigerator perennially stuffed with expensive chocolates.
‘Who said we are getting a divorce?’ said Shama.
‘Well, maybe you should. I am not hungry anymore. Going to my room to do some e-mails…ok?’
He is not getting his consent form.
Snacking after dinner is strictly prohibited in the household. It is almost a cardinal sin to eat anything after brushing your teeth, as established by his mother. After his outbursts at the dinner-table, he was quite confused. He had come back to him room and sat down on his bed. He has been visibly shaking. What was he thinking, what on earth made him to blurt out all that? And that thing about staying with Nanu!!!! Where did that come from???? He was hungry too. He tiptoed out of his room and went to the dining area. His mom and dad’s room is shut. The TV is definitely off but there are noises. Someone is sobbing? Must be his mom. Of course its’ his mom. His dad never showed emotion as such. Ever!!! But there is his dad’s voice as well, steady, soothing but quivering. He presses his ears to the door. The conversation is ineligible. But it is a change for sure. Instead of the deadly silence or the muted noise of the TV blurting out the dialogues of some crappy hindi serial, Shahed somewhat finds this exchange inside soothing yet totally bewildering. What are they talking about? Are they talking about getting a divorce? If so, it will be totally his fault. Absolutely his, to bring this up during supper, of all times. Or are they reconciling. They are talking in lowered decibels and directly to each other. That’s good, wasn’t it? Pressed as he is to the door, the sound of his own heartbeat is interfering with his eavesdropping big-time. He does catch the words ‘signing’ ‘break’ and ‘holiday’ among others….He isn’t sure whether the word ‘break’ is for breaking up or not and then go on separate holidays as an eyewash. But they did mention something about signing. He knows people have to ‘sign’ divorce papers as well. He has seen enough TV to know THAT.
Between hope and despair, Shahed comes back to his room, still hungry even more confused than ever.
In fact Shahed has resigned to the fact that his parents are a quarrelsome lot and had they been a western couple, they would have called it quits years ago. He is supposedly the bond, the glue, that holds them still together, but he finds the whole prospect of being ‘the glue’, like glue in real life, a messy affair. There had been occasional relief from this domestic ambiance when he used to spend the weekends at his phupi’s or mama’s place. However, being thirteen now, with furs on his face transforming into facial hair, and the lanky appearance of a growing thirteen year old, his ‘cute factor’ is on the receding end. The invitations for staying over are also on the downside, specially since his Mami found him a sitting a ‘bit to close’ to his eleven year old cousin Moumi, which created another domestic scene at his Mama’s place.
This school outing is very important…he has to go no matter what. And he wants to go legit…he had forged his father’s signature last time, was caught by the class-teacher, and was sent home, ‘suspended’, for three whole days. Those three days at home were like prison, totally grounded, and three days of relentless moralizing about the grave crime of forgery he had committed. His friend Nayan has promised to bring in some booze, picked from his father’s well-stocked bar, and of-course there will be fags, and joints, and if lucky, there will also be ‘yaba’, all under the watchful eyes of the chaperones, mostly bored house-wives who teach at the school. Lucy and Kabita already have their consent forms turned in, and with all the bushes, shrubs, and hedges, the botanical garden has every possibility of turning into the garden of earthly delights.
He never suspect his parents of extra-marital affairs that can be the cause of this ever-lasting rift between the two. Money is not the issue either. Why should it be? Mom has six apartments whose rentals have made her totally independent in her own right and dad owns a sweater and a knitting factory. Probably these lack of co-dependency are to be blamed for their not being civil to each other within the confines of the house. Not that they are ‘nouveau riche’ or anything, both of his grandfathers had been civil servants, whose prudent real-estate investments in the 60s in the form of one single plot each in Dhanmundi have made them paper-millionaires much later. The apartments and the money for the garment factories all came from that source. Coming from such ‘bhodrolok’ backgrounds, the values are neither totally western, nor totally local. They even sleep on the same bed, but refuse to face each-other. Shahed has wondered more than once how much practice it has taken to fall asleep facing opposing directions. The memories of him coming into their room years in his toddler years and literally having to pry them open from each other’s embrace so that he could sleep between them are quite vivid.
Well, the deadline for the consent form is tomorrow, and he HAS to get the signature. Nowadays, the class teacher Mrs. Naureen, will call on the phone to verify the consents. After lunch, mom is about to take a nap. He quietly tiptoes into the room and finds her leafing through an old issue of ‘Femina’.
‘You still haven’t signed’, he said in a soft voice. He is still startled by his own voice. It had changed literally overnight last week, which prompted his mom to prepare glasses of hot saline solutions for him to gargle in. Dad saw the spectacle after coming home, smiled, and then snarled, ‘Leave him alone, your son is just growing up’.
“I need to talk to your dad about your going. Do you think we’ll let you go just like that after what happened in the last one’? Oh God, the now-famous incident where two seniors were caught literally with their pants down. The furor and the subsequent parent-teacher ‘conferences’ were the source of constant giggling episodes among them, and those two elevated to hero status, even though both has been pulled out of the school by their parents.
‘Mom’, he pleaded….’everyone else has turned the forms already and Baroi keeps calling me a mama’s boy….will you just sign the paper?? You are not talking to dad anyway, so what is there to talk about?’
Well, he realized a bit too late that he probably has just stepped on the remaining raw nerve of his mom’s that afternoon. The diatribes began…’you two will never let me even have a nap in …..my whole life has been….your dad never even….you always take advantage of the ….’. Before his mom could see the swelling tears in his eyes, he quietly said ‘never mind’ and came back to his room and switched the computer on. There was a volley of messages waiting in Facebook and Yahoo Messenger. The picnic hype has gained quite the momentum and looks to be a ‘the’ social even of Grade 8, and there is a chance of his not going. This is the only day they don’t have to wear their uniforms and there are lot of messages and inquiries about who is wearing what, and who is pairing up with who.
He has to go, he just HAS to…
Dad got him a bike for his b’day two years ago, but he has not been allowed to take it out beyond the parking lot below. Unofficially he has taken it out for cruising, but on both occasions there were near mishaps, one with a rickshaw, and another with a car that resulted in a volley of obscene languages from the driver for scratching the side. Now it takes up an inordinate amount of space in his room and he would like to see this thing gone now. Mom and Dad does not know that the other reason for the total abandonment of the bike is that main axel had been dented when he gave it a flying kick a few weeks back after being jointly told off by his parental units because of pocket money. They refuse to accept the fact that a measly 100 taka per week is utterly humiliating in the environs of the school playground. If he doesn’t make it to the picnic, his fate there will be sealed forever…an ostracized outcast of a mama’s boy…..
Dinner is served at 8:30 p.m. sharp. Today being Tuesday, Dad will rush through the meal so that he can go to his club for a round of poker. The meals are a deadly silent affair, where comments about the food are sharpened and thrown towards the old lady who silently bears them in the kitchen. Dad sits at the head-table and he and his mom on either side. He does not want it to be like some other nights where he has to ask the cook to feed him in the room because for some strange reason he wouldn’t be able to swallow anything on the dinner table due to the icicles that form around the room during this time of family harmony.
‘Dad’, he started, ‘I told you about the school picnic, nah?...the last date for the consent form is tomorrow. Can I go?’ He could almost feel his mom’s senses heightened to their extreme right about now.
‘What does your mom say?’
‘With all the things going on at the wretched school of yours, god knows what new incident will happen there this time. I don’t see why the picnic is so important under the circumstances. Don’t we take you out enough as it is? Already your Mami’s compliant is ringing in my ears…so humiliating….no, no picnic for you.”
Dad sighed and keeping his voice quivering voice as calm as possible, said ‘We have to trust him, you know…besides he needs to go out and we need to let him grow….can’t protect him from the world forever…...’…
“WELL, you protect him whichever way you can, he is not going.’
‘Saima, be reasonable…obviously it is important for him ….’. His Dad’s occasional outburst of understanding always impressed Shahed.
‘WELL, OUR peace of mind is also important, if not to you, at least to me’
Dad’s cheeks, in spite of his dark complexion had gone crimson. His explosion is imminent, thought Shahed. But he seemed to take a deep breath, managed to bring a smile, and coolly said, ‘Shahed, you will behave responsibly, won’t you? Just bring the form after this meal and I’ll sign it.’
Mom’s both hands came down on the table with a resounding THUMP. Shahed can already tell that dinner was already over. The resulting vibration has splashed drops of gravy and daal all over the table.
‘You JUST have to humiliate me in front of him don’t you? ALL MY LIFE you ignore me and my decisions…..”
Dad cut in..”AND when did I ignore you all of a sudden? ALL MY LIFE I have catered and compromised for you. Even last time you wanted to go to Bangkok and I wanted to stay home for Eid, we had to go your way and….”
Obviously the issue of going to the picnic has been relegated to the back-burner now. Shahed is thinking that it is amazing how chronologically organized his parents’ memories are. At the press of a button both can spew out detailed descriptions of each-other’s short comings in terms of their expectations.
He has to go to the picnic. He just has to.
Now the exchange between the two involved the model of the TV that was bought three months back for their bedroom. The costs and merits of a flat-screen TV versus a high fidelity regular one was being argued in full force.
He had enough. He tried to focus on the picnic, on either Lucy or Kabita. The trio has a unique triangle going. Lucy is head over heels over Shahed, while he likes Kabita more. At the same time, those two are the best of friends. Somehow the Shahed issue has not ripped their friendship apart yet, but cracks are growing.
‘Do you know?” Shahed blurted out. He sounded amazing calm, non-chalant, and matter-of-fact. “Do you know Milton’s parents split up? His dad has moved to Uttara with his new wife and auntie has moved to Banani. Now he is in Uttara every weekend. He loves it.’ He paused. He wasn’t sure what was his point for saying all this, but the effect it had on those two were electrifying. They just went blank and stared at him. His mom’s gesture was almost comical, her right arm frozen in mid-air in the gesture to reiterate the point she was about to make to her husband.
‘Milton was saying that his mom cries a lot. But at least they don’t fight anymore. His dad told him that he should have left his mom years ago. He seems to be doing fine, not the sour-puss he used to be. Weekdays in Banani and weekends in Uttara, he just loves it.’
His mom’s hand has come down to a resting position. “What on earth are you saying?’.
Dad looked at her and and then looked at him. “Yes, whats your point?’
“What point!!! No point whatsoever. You never seem to ask about my friends anymore, so I was just saying. Manik’s mom is also getting remarried. He is a hot-shot banker of some sort. He is getting him a Tag-Heuer watch for his wedding. Oh did I tell you about Lisa? She walked in on their parents the other day. You know what? They both were pulling each others’ hair out. She thought it was soooo funny.”
‘Are all your friends’ parents gone dysfunctional or what??” His mother snapped. The rage of her face has been replaced by beads of cold sweat, and she looked obviously flustered by these revelations.
‘Ahh, Shama!’, his father gently rebuked. The scales of his voice have also gone down dramatically. He looked at Shahed, with the look that revealed very well that he knew exactly what his son was implying.
‘Lisa was saying that his mom has to cover her head for weeks because patches of hair have come out from the top and his dad had to buy a big sunglass to cover his black-eye. She took pictures with her mobile and they were so funny.’ He giggled. He is feeling alarmed in his own way. Why is he blurting out all this, the inner secrets of their friendship sworn to secrecy?
‘I was wondering…If you two ever get divorced, who will I stay with? I think I’ll like it if I get to stay with Nanu.” Nanu’s flat is next to the Abahani cricket fields, where some of his friends practice everyday. The fiercely independent woman refuses to stay with any of her children but always welcome any grand-kid to stay with open arms and spoils them with pocket-money, and a refrigerator perennially stuffed with expensive chocolates.
‘Who said we are getting a divorce?’ said Shama.
‘Well, maybe you should. I am not hungry anymore. Going to my room to do some e-mails…ok?’
He is not getting his consent form.
Snacking after dinner is strictly prohibited in the household. It is almost a cardinal sin to eat anything after brushing your teeth, as established by his mother. After his outbursts at the dinner-table, he was quite confused. He had come back to him room and sat down on his bed. He has been visibly shaking. What was he thinking, what on earth made him to blurt out all that? And that thing about staying with Nanu!!!! Where did that come from???? He was hungry too. He tiptoed out of his room and went to the dining area. His mom and dad’s room is shut. The TV is definitely off but there are noises. Someone is sobbing? Must be his mom. Of course its’ his mom. His dad never showed emotion as such. Ever!!! But there is his dad’s voice as well, steady, soothing but quivering. He presses his ears to the door. The conversation is ineligible. But it is a change for sure. Instead of the deadly silence or the muted noise of the TV blurting out the dialogues of some crappy hindi serial, Shahed somewhat finds this exchange inside soothing yet totally bewildering. What are they talking about? Are they talking about getting a divorce? If so, it will be totally his fault. Absolutely his, to bring this up during supper, of all times. Or are they reconciling. They are talking in lowered decibels and directly to each other. That’s good, wasn’t it? Pressed as he is to the door, the sound of his own heartbeat is interfering with his eavesdropping big-time. He does catch the words ‘signing’ ‘break’ and ‘holiday’ among others….He isn’t sure whether the word ‘break’ is for breaking up or not and then go on separate holidays as an eyewash. But they did mention something about signing. He knows people have to ‘sign’ divorce papers as well. He has seen enough TV to know THAT.
Between hope and despair, Shahed comes back to his room, still hungry even more confused than ever.
If Only I Could Fly….
That lady from 'Ready Steady Cook' kept saying how her kids used food only as a fuel in spite of all the gourmet influences of their mom. Walking through the rain down Farquhar Road with the walkman blaring full blast in my head, I was trying very very hard not to think what was happening back in that clinic. The doctors were getting rid of something that was exactly half mine. Was it a boy or a girl, it just couldn’t be a fetus,
Could it?? I kept saying it is just a bundle of organic issue in my head, almost like chanting a mantra, but it just wasn’t working. Earlier I had gotten off the bus because all of a sudden I felt extremely claustrophobic and felt like choking. I kept saying it was just for the best, I didn’t love her anymore, I want a divorce eventually, I wanted an uncomplicated life, over and over again. Couple of years ago, when I found out that I was adopted, all I wanted was something really of my own. A baby seemed to be the only thing that would fill that need. Something, that without dispute, would be mine. Here was the chance, and it was being ripped out.
The clinic had the décor of a nice bed and breakfast. It had a garden courtyard, which in its previous reincarnation was probably the stable of a huge Edwardian estate, that were all over Edgbaston. The waiting room had well stocked men’s magazine on racing and sports. Not my forte. There were plenty of women’s rags as well, but nothing on news or current affairs. The ‘operation’ would last the entire morning. She would not be ready to go home till late afternoon, after waking up from general anesthesia and a cup of tea. Couple of weeks back, when she came back from the doctors and announced that she was pregnant, I felt very calm, yet elated. I knew the storm that was about to descent upon me. It was an accident and it was my fault, I was told. I also knew the topic of the upcoming conversation. I would be given the choice of either full time fatherhood at the expense of any job prospects, or she would be getting rid of it. She would not do both. She was not go through the motions of pregnancy and carry on with her full time PhD. She had worked too hard all her life to get to this stage, and she was not going to put it on hold. It was her body and she was the one who would have to go through all the discomforts for 10 months. There was no arguing. My fault, my callousness, and therefore my ‘burden’. I looked at her and I saw a face of ice cold steel. I was boiling inside. Ever since getting married, I was making the compromises. Now my career would be on hold again. Could we do both? No, she said, yes, said I. I asked her to make an appointment with her GP asap.
The doctor smiled and congratulated us. I said she wanted a termination. She had hesitated. The doctor’s face became stern and asked her what SHE wanted, as if I was the typical bully husband who did not want to cramp up our swinging lifestyle. I wanted to scream and almost said that wasn’t fair, but I didn’t. She opened her mouth finally and explained the crucial nature of her Ph.D. The doctor, a female, avoided looking at me altogether, after giving me an accusing look with flared nostrils and raised eyebrows . There was a bit of a queue for terminations in the NHS. However this private clinic was just around the corner….
We met for lunch on campus and decided to call the clinic. A big deal, this eating of lunch outside, she was quite parsimonious. We needed to go in for further tests to confirm etc….she did that all by herself without even letting me know. Over dinner that night, it was a very casual statement…’This old doctor had to put his finger inside …….’. Apparently the date had already been set. Exactly a week after from that day….
We went early in the morning. We paid the money and she was taken upstairs. Pink walls with Laura Ashley trimmings all over…
There was this conference in France sometime back on human rights. I found myself supporting the groups in favour of abortion but against the ones who asked for termination on demand under public health care. My argument was, it was the women’s body which went through the process of procreation. Men’s contribution in that whole process was rather very short term and therefore ‘they’ had the ultimate authority for choice. That was 10 years ago. I still believed in this thing called ‘choice’. Yet here I am, staring at the ceiling with the Tudor beams, thinking that I must have failed as a husband in the conventional sense since I could not ‘make’ her keep the baby.
The baby would have been playing with me now on the couch if it was…
She and I, we made a decision never to talk about it. Before that, after the ‘decision’ was made, I made up my mind as well that things would be treated as normal. Then she started having nausea and morning sickness and the whole bit. She wanted me to be sympathetic and wait on her. She had to have chicken soup, right NOW. Her feet felt funny; could I prop it up on a pillow and scratch it, please???? I made some chicken soup with lemon grass, ginger, and shaved carrots the next day. But she wanted it yesterday. She would not eat it. She would not even talk to me. She kept screaming it was all my fault. It must have been. After all, it did take two to tango. The after-effects of this particular tango were driving me nuts.
Two days later we went to her favourite Balti joint on Bristol Road. She was in an exceptionally good mood. So was I, but I was pretending and so was she. Here we were celebrating a ‘termination’, the opposite result of which would have been someone calling me Dad. She ordered some kind of tandoori dish for both of us. Couple of days back, there was some kind of protest in front of the clinic, with the picture of an aborted fetus all blown up and spread all over the entry of the clinic. The food just would not go down the throat. I asked for some ice-cream instead. I did not even want to look at her face, the face of the future Professor Nobel Laurate… I wanted to go home. I wanted to go the toilet and have a cry, I wanted to finish a bottle of gin all by myself, I wanted to go for a swim. I did not want to sit there eating tandoori with that woman, my wife, I did not want go back to the same room with her and share a bed that night, I did not want to look at her face and see her Dale Carnegie smile while she talked about the latest gossip about her colleagues. I wanted to puke. The whole ‘post termination feel good dinner’ was a bit too surreal for me….I wanted to go home, but she lived in that place as well, I just wanted to run down by the canals and keep walking till I came across some open meadow or something of that sort. All that walled enclosure with the tacky Bengal décor was very suffocating, food would not go down the throat…. at that moment I really wished I could fly….fly above the Birmingham skylines of steeples and red brick chimneys and far into the permanent grey skies over the British Isles till I found the sun somewhere burning bright….
Could it?? I kept saying it is just a bundle of organic issue in my head, almost like chanting a mantra, but it just wasn’t working. Earlier I had gotten off the bus because all of a sudden I felt extremely claustrophobic and felt like choking. I kept saying it was just for the best, I didn’t love her anymore, I want a divorce eventually, I wanted an uncomplicated life, over and over again. Couple of years ago, when I found out that I was adopted, all I wanted was something really of my own. A baby seemed to be the only thing that would fill that need. Something, that without dispute, would be mine. Here was the chance, and it was being ripped out.
The clinic had the décor of a nice bed and breakfast. It had a garden courtyard, which in its previous reincarnation was probably the stable of a huge Edwardian estate, that were all over Edgbaston. The waiting room had well stocked men’s magazine on racing and sports. Not my forte. There were plenty of women’s rags as well, but nothing on news or current affairs. The ‘operation’ would last the entire morning. She would not be ready to go home till late afternoon, after waking up from general anesthesia and a cup of tea. Couple of weeks back, when she came back from the doctors and announced that she was pregnant, I felt very calm, yet elated. I knew the storm that was about to descent upon me. It was an accident and it was my fault, I was told. I also knew the topic of the upcoming conversation. I would be given the choice of either full time fatherhood at the expense of any job prospects, or she would be getting rid of it. She would not do both. She was not go through the motions of pregnancy and carry on with her full time PhD. She had worked too hard all her life to get to this stage, and she was not going to put it on hold. It was her body and she was the one who would have to go through all the discomforts for 10 months. There was no arguing. My fault, my callousness, and therefore my ‘burden’. I looked at her and I saw a face of ice cold steel. I was boiling inside. Ever since getting married, I was making the compromises. Now my career would be on hold again. Could we do both? No, she said, yes, said I. I asked her to make an appointment with her GP asap.
The doctor smiled and congratulated us. I said she wanted a termination. She had hesitated. The doctor’s face became stern and asked her what SHE wanted, as if I was the typical bully husband who did not want to cramp up our swinging lifestyle. I wanted to scream and almost said that wasn’t fair, but I didn’t. She opened her mouth finally and explained the crucial nature of her Ph.D. The doctor, a female, avoided looking at me altogether, after giving me an accusing look with flared nostrils and raised eyebrows . There was a bit of a queue for terminations in the NHS. However this private clinic was just around the corner….
We met for lunch on campus and decided to call the clinic. A big deal, this eating of lunch outside, she was quite parsimonious. We needed to go in for further tests to confirm etc….she did that all by herself without even letting me know. Over dinner that night, it was a very casual statement…’This old doctor had to put his finger inside …….’. Apparently the date had already been set. Exactly a week after from that day….
We went early in the morning. We paid the money and she was taken upstairs. Pink walls with Laura Ashley trimmings all over…
There was this conference in France sometime back on human rights. I found myself supporting the groups in favour of abortion but against the ones who asked for termination on demand under public health care. My argument was, it was the women’s body which went through the process of procreation. Men’s contribution in that whole process was rather very short term and therefore ‘they’ had the ultimate authority for choice. That was 10 years ago. I still believed in this thing called ‘choice’. Yet here I am, staring at the ceiling with the Tudor beams, thinking that I must have failed as a husband in the conventional sense since I could not ‘make’ her keep the baby.
The baby would have been playing with me now on the couch if it was…
She and I, we made a decision never to talk about it. Before that, after the ‘decision’ was made, I made up my mind as well that things would be treated as normal. Then she started having nausea and morning sickness and the whole bit. She wanted me to be sympathetic and wait on her. She had to have chicken soup, right NOW. Her feet felt funny; could I prop it up on a pillow and scratch it, please???? I made some chicken soup with lemon grass, ginger, and shaved carrots the next day. But she wanted it yesterday. She would not eat it. She would not even talk to me. She kept screaming it was all my fault. It must have been. After all, it did take two to tango. The after-effects of this particular tango were driving me nuts.
Two days later we went to her favourite Balti joint on Bristol Road. She was in an exceptionally good mood. So was I, but I was pretending and so was she. Here we were celebrating a ‘termination’, the opposite result of which would have been someone calling me Dad. She ordered some kind of tandoori dish for both of us. Couple of days back, there was some kind of protest in front of the clinic, with the picture of an aborted fetus all blown up and spread all over the entry of the clinic. The food just would not go down the throat. I asked for some ice-cream instead. I did not even want to look at her face, the face of the future Professor Nobel Laurate… I wanted to go home. I wanted to go the toilet and have a cry, I wanted to finish a bottle of gin all by myself, I wanted to go for a swim. I did not want to sit there eating tandoori with that woman, my wife, I did not want go back to the same room with her and share a bed that night, I did not want to look at her face and see her Dale Carnegie smile while she talked about the latest gossip about her colleagues. I wanted to puke. The whole ‘post termination feel good dinner’ was a bit too surreal for me….I wanted to go home, but she lived in that place as well, I just wanted to run down by the canals and keep walking till I came across some open meadow or something of that sort. All that walled enclosure with the tacky Bengal décor was very suffocating, food would not go down the throat…. at that moment I really wished I could fly….fly above the Birmingham skylines of steeples and red brick chimneys and far into the permanent grey skies over the British Isles till I found the sun somewhere burning bright….
The Whiffs of Homecoming…
M.K.Aaref
The rancid smell of the freezer hits him so hard it fells like he just got punched. Three days of on-site marketing research and this is what he comes home to. He needs to talk to his miserly landlord. No, he should kill that bugger-all. He has complained over and over about the faulty fuse-box, it short-circuits every time there is a power outrage and then it needs fiddling and wire patching before things start working again. The smell, geeez, he almost loses his lunch, and who the hell will clean out the fridge now??? The Bua, spoilt matron as she is will flatly refuse or give such a hue and cry, he will leave it alone. He is starving. The harrowing journey from up north to the zonal office and then home has been one bone shattering experience of bad roads, car troubles, and hot humid weather with no AC. He has been looking forward to a shower, some left-over curries with some boiled rice and get a decent night’s sleep.
Zaber has been having a terrible week. After visiting various outlaying areas, he finds that at least three new companies have penetrated the market, with a price range that would definitely give his bosses a big headache. And a headache it has been… big, major one……his boss screams at him for not keeping up with market intelligence, and not putting forward a strategy to block these upstarts to show up in their doorsteps. Zaree has been giving ultimatums from Dhaka over the phone. She makes it sound like there are suitors taking numbers for a chance to proposition her and she needs to be rescued by him. Zab and Zarr, that what their friends call them. Zab knows the routine by now. Zar’s mother is not unfavorable towards Zab, but she has held out for better ‘prospects’, as she calls it, and now there has been a few proposals; one a Ph.D. from North Dakota, settled and ‘established’ over there. The other is a well known doctor who is also a faculty member of one of the better private medical colleges. The latter is a ‘Bilaat Ferot’, after just getting his MRCP with flying colours. All Zaber has to offer is his bachelors in business from one of the top-most local business schools, a reasonably well paid job with a cash-rich multinational, even though it means being out in the boonies for another few years without any prospect of being posted in Dhaka anytime soon. Those two have been going out for seven years now, ever since their O’level times, but the strains of a long distance relationship has become from a crack to a canyon. Zar is now doing her MBA, giving her the freedom of the student lifestyle even now. That means waking up late, taking naps during the day and staying up late doing assignments and bugging the hell out of Zaber till almost dawn sometimes. He does not mind initially, with hours spent on the mobile phone stuck to his ears and the wires of the recharger dangling, but his work had been suffering and he puts a stop to it. He switches on the phone, and there will be at least 5 or 10 SMSs waiting. The first ones are all lovey-dovey and as the night progresses, they show increasing irritability and frustration for not being able to talk to him. Zar’s mom, the cunning conniving bitch that she is, has let it be known that it is unthinkable that her precious only daughter who is about to have a master’s degree under no circumstances should marry anyone with just a bachelors. He has applied last year to his alma-mater for an MBA, but shows up for the admission tests totally unprepared. His own family still doesn’t miss the chance to rub it in and Zara’s…, well, it is just like giving them the prefect excuse on a silver platter.
He manages to find two eggs left on a bowl in the pantry. The Bua must have left it there for his breakfast, to be prepared in the morning. The Bua has offered to stay in the house when he is out doing his surveys, but he is paranoid about having her stay over. Not that she has any fascination about his IPod or his laptop or the stereo for that matter, but he knows that she has an immense curiosity about his personal belongings. And there is the small matter of his mom’s foods disappearing from the fridge. On top of that, this is such a small town. Word gets around, even where there is nothing to go around to begin with. Well, if she was around, at least she could have told the landlord to fix the fuse box and there would be a supper of some sorts waiting, instead of this hellish odour emanating from the ice-compartment and that seems to have permeated the entire pantry as soon as he opened it’s door. He cracks the eggs, puts some salt and whisks it with the wooden ladle, finds a frying pot, puts some oil and pours in the mixture. There is a letter waiting pushed underneath the front door from one of those universities he has applied again. Shit, the viva-voce for the MBA programme is on next Wednesday. That day he has to address the district managers of his northern distributors and put the fear of god in them if they want to retain their distributorships.
The mobile rings, and its Mom from Dhaka. Zaber always dreads these calls at this time of the night. It means that after all the chores of the day have been completed, mom has finished his prayers, dad is watching TV or rather dozing in front of it, and now she can contemplate at peace about her kids and their future. Only that she is not at peace with Zaber and his sibling. After the customary inquiry about food consumption, it is about his health, and then the emotional blackmail begins. Why are our moms so pre-occupied with our eating, he always wonders. Inevitably, the conversation veers towards the ‘settling’. His job outside Dhaka is not something she is happy with. Can he get a transfer? What about marriage? She has been given yet another picture of a pretty girl. His sister wants to marry this guy she doesn’t like and him not being home, she is listless and the sister needs some guidance from his older brother. Yatty yatty yatty……
The eggs get burned. Now he really has to starve or go out in that yucky corner shop for some roti and curry. His stomachs revolts last time he is there. Telling mom that he has to hang up is not a viable option either. The water works will begin in their silent relentless flow towards the hell of motherhood and dad will call the next day to reprimand him for upsetting his mom. The never ending saga of passive involuntary appeasement continues….Patience, patience…….whatever virtue there is to this characteristics is yet to materialize….He finally gets off by explaining the ordeal of the day and hangs up.
An SMS arrives. The Dhaka boss is coming and staying over for the presentation. Fine. The MBA viva voice just gets the final nail in its coffin. Instead of theoretical strategies of marketing, he now has to do an actual one now. Instead of vying for an “A”, he has to vie for his survival and hopefully get in the good books of the boss so that he can include him in his Dhaka team. Enough of this small town living… And who needs an MBA anyway? It’s just a piece of paper to increase his marketability, more for the future in-laws than anything.
Another SMS. Its Zaree. SHE IS GETTING ENGAGED TOMORROW. There are a few seconds of hiatus where he doesn’t know how to react. So he just stands in the middle of the room, staring at the screen of the mobile. He is not even going to dignify the message with a response. After so many years, it has come down to a single text message. He will not even enquire who the lucky fellow is. That explains the phone call two days back from Nabil, their common friend, that he should make an effort to sit with her face to face and resolve their issues once and for all. So he knows as well. Is that him by any chance? Judas. I hope not. I most certainly hope not.
He starts smiling. He is not sure why though. He is feeling very light-headed all of a sudden. The return of the prodigal son to Dhaka is not eminent after all it seems. He will miss Zarr, but not in a desperate way. He hasn’t felt like that about her for some time now. Oh well. Need some food. NOW.
He takes out a tissue, covers his nose and throws open the freezer door again. Better get it aired out for the Bua tomorrow. He has to be nice and diplomatic with the landlord now. He also makes a mental note to buy some incense sticks on his way back to offset the smell of the kitchen. Now, the decision of the moment …roti with vegeies or roti with a meat curry…..
The rancid smell of the freezer hits him so hard it fells like he just got punched. Three days of on-site marketing research and this is what he comes home to. He needs to talk to his miserly landlord. No, he should kill that bugger-all. He has complained over and over about the faulty fuse-box, it short-circuits every time there is a power outrage and then it needs fiddling and wire patching before things start working again. The smell, geeez, he almost loses his lunch, and who the hell will clean out the fridge now??? The Bua, spoilt matron as she is will flatly refuse or give such a hue and cry, he will leave it alone. He is starving. The harrowing journey from up north to the zonal office and then home has been one bone shattering experience of bad roads, car troubles, and hot humid weather with no AC. He has been looking forward to a shower, some left-over curries with some boiled rice and get a decent night’s sleep.
Zaber has been having a terrible week. After visiting various outlaying areas, he finds that at least three new companies have penetrated the market, with a price range that would definitely give his bosses a big headache. And a headache it has been… big, major one……his boss screams at him for not keeping up with market intelligence, and not putting forward a strategy to block these upstarts to show up in their doorsteps. Zaree has been giving ultimatums from Dhaka over the phone. She makes it sound like there are suitors taking numbers for a chance to proposition her and she needs to be rescued by him. Zab and Zarr, that what their friends call them. Zab knows the routine by now. Zar’s mother is not unfavorable towards Zab, but she has held out for better ‘prospects’, as she calls it, and now there has been a few proposals; one a Ph.D. from North Dakota, settled and ‘established’ over there. The other is a well known doctor who is also a faculty member of one of the better private medical colleges. The latter is a ‘Bilaat Ferot’, after just getting his MRCP with flying colours. All Zaber has to offer is his bachelors in business from one of the top-most local business schools, a reasonably well paid job with a cash-rich multinational, even though it means being out in the boonies for another few years without any prospect of being posted in Dhaka anytime soon. Those two have been going out for seven years now, ever since their O’level times, but the strains of a long distance relationship has become from a crack to a canyon. Zar is now doing her MBA, giving her the freedom of the student lifestyle even now. That means waking up late, taking naps during the day and staying up late doing assignments and bugging the hell out of Zaber till almost dawn sometimes. He does not mind initially, with hours spent on the mobile phone stuck to his ears and the wires of the recharger dangling, but his work had been suffering and he puts a stop to it. He switches on the phone, and there will be at least 5 or 10 SMSs waiting. The first ones are all lovey-dovey and as the night progresses, they show increasing irritability and frustration for not being able to talk to him. Zar’s mom, the cunning conniving bitch that she is, has let it be known that it is unthinkable that her precious only daughter who is about to have a master’s degree under no circumstances should marry anyone with just a bachelors. He has applied last year to his alma-mater for an MBA, but shows up for the admission tests totally unprepared. His own family still doesn’t miss the chance to rub it in and Zara’s…, well, it is just like giving them the prefect excuse on a silver platter.
He manages to find two eggs left on a bowl in the pantry. The Bua must have left it there for his breakfast, to be prepared in the morning. The Bua has offered to stay in the house when he is out doing his surveys, but he is paranoid about having her stay over. Not that she has any fascination about his IPod or his laptop or the stereo for that matter, but he knows that she has an immense curiosity about his personal belongings. And there is the small matter of his mom’s foods disappearing from the fridge. On top of that, this is such a small town. Word gets around, even where there is nothing to go around to begin with. Well, if she was around, at least she could have told the landlord to fix the fuse box and there would be a supper of some sorts waiting, instead of this hellish odour emanating from the ice-compartment and that seems to have permeated the entire pantry as soon as he opened it’s door. He cracks the eggs, puts some salt and whisks it with the wooden ladle, finds a frying pot, puts some oil and pours in the mixture. There is a letter waiting pushed underneath the front door from one of those universities he has applied again. Shit, the viva-voce for the MBA programme is on next Wednesday. That day he has to address the district managers of his northern distributors and put the fear of god in them if they want to retain their distributorships.
The mobile rings, and its Mom from Dhaka. Zaber always dreads these calls at this time of the night. It means that after all the chores of the day have been completed, mom has finished his prayers, dad is watching TV or rather dozing in front of it, and now she can contemplate at peace about her kids and their future. Only that she is not at peace with Zaber and his sibling. After the customary inquiry about food consumption, it is about his health, and then the emotional blackmail begins. Why are our moms so pre-occupied with our eating, he always wonders. Inevitably, the conversation veers towards the ‘settling’. His job outside Dhaka is not something she is happy with. Can he get a transfer? What about marriage? She has been given yet another picture of a pretty girl. His sister wants to marry this guy she doesn’t like and him not being home, she is listless and the sister needs some guidance from his older brother. Yatty yatty yatty……
The eggs get burned. Now he really has to starve or go out in that yucky corner shop for some roti and curry. His stomachs revolts last time he is there. Telling mom that he has to hang up is not a viable option either. The water works will begin in their silent relentless flow towards the hell of motherhood and dad will call the next day to reprimand him for upsetting his mom. The never ending saga of passive involuntary appeasement continues….Patience, patience…….whatever virtue there is to this characteristics is yet to materialize….He finally gets off by explaining the ordeal of the day and hangs up.
An SMS arrives. The Dhaka boss is coming and staying over for the presentation. Fine. The MBA viva voice just gets the final nail in its coffin. Instead of theoretical strategies of marketing, he now has to do an actual one now. Instead of vying for an “A”, he has to vie for his survival and hopefully get in the good books of the boss so that he can include him in his Dhaka team. Enough of this small town living… And who needs an MBA anyway? It’s just a piece of paper to increase his marketability, more for the future in-laws than anything.
Another SMS. Its Zaree. SHE IS GETTING ENGAGED TOMORROW. There are a few seconds of hiatus where he doesn’t know how to react. So he just stands in the middle of the room, staring at the screen of the mobile. He is not even going to dignify the message with a response. After so many years, it has come down to a single text message. He will not even enquire who the lucky fellow is. That explains the phone call two days back from Nabil, their common friend, that he should make an effort to sit with her face to face and resolve their issues once and for all. So he knows as well. Is that him by any chance? Judas. I hope not. I most certainly hope not.
He starts smiling. He is not sure why though. He is feeling very light-headed all of a sudden. The return of the prodigal son to Dhaka is not eminent after all it seems. He will miss Zarr, but not in a desperate way. He hasn’t felt like that about her for some time now. Oh well. Need some food. NOW.
He takes out a tissue, covers his nose and throws open the freezer door again. Better get it aired out for the Bua tomorrow. He has to be nice and diplomatic with the landlord now. He also makes a mental note to buy some incense sticks on his way back to offset the smell of the kitchen. Now, the decision of the moment …roti with vegeies or roti with a meat curry…..
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