Saturday, April 28, 2007

Pahela Baishakh - A sad story

Published in the Daily Star's STAR CAMPUS MAGAZINE on April 22, 2007.


Pahela Baishakh was a day full of laughter and joy, glee and felicity. I was having a good time with my friends at the lake of Dhanmondi Mukto-Moncho, watching a happy and pleasant crowd. We were all laughing and having fun, when something happened that put me and my entire troupe in deep melancholy. A beautiful girl was standing under a tree, probably waiting for someone. She was wrapped in a red and white saree, had baily flowers on her head and her face seemed to be colored with the ecstasy of the Bengali New Year. Suddenly a group of boys, all university going kids like us, stood behind her. They were whispering and talking among themselves through sign languages. Immediately my eyes got fixed at a green colored pet bottle of a well known soft-drink, and before I could realize, one of the boys started shaking it vigorously and hastily pulled off the plastic cork. The drink jumped out like a fountain; it fell on the girl's saree. The desi cotton saree immediately gained transparency, revealing the inner garments of her back. She turned around quickly and stood dumb folded for a while; her blood must have been evaporated. The boys said “Sorry” and walked away with smiling faces elated with joy as if they have conquered the world. Tears must have filled her eyes, for she immediately rushed out of the place, got lost, within the crowd walking towards the exit of the lake, like a river estuary meeting the sea.

The readers should not misunderstand by thinking that those boys were from the slum. In fact, their outlooks were just like us, the bandana on their heads represented a particular university in Dhanmondi. Are we pursuing higher education for this sort of behavior? What they have done makes education seem to be worthless. I believe that our universities should teach about ethics and moral behavior rather than on going through the books and theories. What is responsible for this type of mentality? Is it our education system that is corrupting not only the mind but also the soul? Is it our history of being dominated by others that make us so cheap? Why don't the average “educated” males in our society respect women or women's empowerment? Since we all came from a women, then why do we rape our women, disgrace our women? What fun did they get in ruining the girl's day, for influence tears in her eyes? I don't know the answers to all these, but these type of stories occur everyday in the streets of Dhaka. This type of mentality is a curse that should be overcome or else we should be ashamed to call ourselves 'educated'. The rest is up to the readers to decide