The Old Lady

Published in the Daily Star on 3rd June, 2007

The scene devastated me. She was laid in her bed, her body wrapped in white cloth. I gave a last kiss on her forehead, while tears from my eyes rolled downwards, pausing on my chin for a brief moment before dropping onto her right cheek. I rubbed the salty water; her skin was as cold as a Siberian night. Just yesterday she had thrown me an angel’s smile, warm and red, a heaven in this world full of sins. And today she lies still, cold and pale, as alone as the moon in a starless sky.

Dadu is no more.

I could not sleep for days. Her departure tormented me. That dawn when the cold western winds were blowing, I thought of going for a walk. I wandered here and there through the labyrinth of Mirpur’s alleys, until I saw a very old woman standing alone. Something about the way she stood captivated me, and I stayed there in silence, watching her.

She might have been about five feet tall, her back slightly bowed due to the weight of her age. She was wearing a worn out green colored sari with no blouse. It was completely battered from everyday use and a few parts were mended with other small pieces of clothes. She did not have any sandals on her feet which were severely scratched as if she walks a thousand miles before she sleeps. The alley was quite dark and her face was not perfectly visible. But when I looked closer, I saw a tall dark face. She had a long thin nose and below that, her emaciated long lips had an upside down curve, like the negative x2 curve of geometry. The concentration of sunlight had two effects on her; her skin had become extremely tanned and her hair had become red. Her most remarkable feature were her eyes as they were big and luminous. They glowed with enormous happiness even though the rest of her face was just a deserted battlefield.

She was standing beside a house in the darkest alley I had ever seen. The house was made of abandoned tin, punched with holes, and was supported by a large dustbin. The dustbin was full of rotten garbage. I could sense the most horrible smell, distorting all my other senses. Her only companions must have been the stray dogs and the unsettling mice running all over the place, diving in the rubbish. The alley was wet with sewer water. I noticed it was the backside of one of the big Mirpur garment factories. The grey building vigorously emitted toxic fumes, creating a foggy environment full of melancholy.

I sighed and thought of heading back home. She was looking at me gravely. I turned around, started to walk. After rambling a couple of steps, I stopped and turned back, wondering what the old lady was doing. She was still standing, looking at me. But her big eyes gave me no sign of recognition or fear or love or farewell.

On my way home, I was thinking that when my Dadu died, at least a thousand of our relatives came to pay their condolences. My parents and uncles put their endless efforts to keep her alive for a few more days. The best medical treatment affordable by us were provided to her, and constantly all of us were there to support her, to grant her final wishes. But what about the lonely old lady that I saw a moment ago? She doesn’t have anyone beside her, and even if there is someone, that still means practically nothing when you don’t have money. I guess that if she dies tonight, no one would even know she is dead, until the place would smell. I see aged homeless beggars in the streets of Dhaka everyday who are as old as my Dadu. What happens to them when they die? Who buries them six feet under the soil? I suddenly realized that I feel more sad thinking about this unknown old lady rather than thinking of my own Dadu’s death.

Later that morning, I could finally sleep. The old lady returned to me in a dream. Standing beside her was my grandmother. Dadu smiled at me, like a glimpse of the last smile she had given me that last day at the hospital. The old lady was staring at me; but her big eyes still gave me no sign of recognition or fear or love or farewell.

This story is dedicated to my late grandmother, Ms. Kudsia Begum (1933-2006) who passed away a few months ago.

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

Starring at the world through my rearview - Personal History

Published in the Daily Star's STAR CAMPUS MAGAZINE on February 25 ,2007. This is my 1st published story.

It was a dark stormy June evening at Dr. Shahin Huda's chamber in Dhanmondi when my father suddenly shouted with more power in his voice than the raging thunderstorms outside, “It's a boy!!” Immediately my uncles and aunts stopped sweating, my grandmother stopped praying, my youngest uncle stopped flirting with the nurses, and my grandfather stopped walking to and fro throughout the whole clinic and declared to name me Md. Ghulam Sumdany. The name Ghulam which means, “The follower” and “Sumdany” which means, “The prophet who swims in God's sea of love” did not impress my father at all, but he gladly accepted his old father's wishes, as I was the first grandson and the first descendant of the Azimpur Family. My father, Md. Ghulam Dastegir, thanked my mother, Mrs. Nasrin Dastegir, and told her that he was a smart man to choose such a beautiful woman like her to be his wife who presented him with such a beautiful son! As my father's name starts with “D” and my mother's name starts with “N”, they together decided to add “Don” to my name. Later that night, my other grandfather gave me a gold locket on which it was written in Bengali, “28th June, 1985” on one side and “Don” on the other side.

I grew up just like a prince, pampered with toys, games, cartoon video games and a closet full of matching clothes. I was a devil in disguise and had a hard time hiding my tail inside my pants. I therefore would torture everyone and everything that came into my sight. Though I never believed in astrology, I was a pure Cancerian and somehow inherited all of its features, creativity being one of them. My mother would arrange my toys and I would creatively throw them out of the window; she would cook vegetables and I would creatively pour water on them after the cooking was completed; she would invite the next door neighbor and I would creatively slap the neighbor's little girl for wearing pink and so on. My mother was always mad at me and would occasionally ask my father, “Is it really our son?” I would sometimes get slapped by both my parents in random discrete motion. Both of them played equal roles in my life from childhood until now. It was never like I would hide behind my father in fear of my mother as I wrestled with all my father's ironed shirts, nor I would ask for a lollypop from my mother only when daddy was busy. They were both equally persistent in my life.

My father was the eldest among eleven and struggled a lot in his life. He never woke me up from my sleep even if it was half past 10 A.M as his father never had let him sleep after the Azaan in early dawn. He made me cute and chubby by feeding me two eggs a day as his eggs were always divided into four. He was a self made man. He met this beautiful and unbelievably smart young woman during his younger sister's wedding. She was wearing sleeveless kameez and her shoulders were glistening under the bright yellow wedding lights. “ You know Don,” my father still says, “Nasrin was an angel without wings and I almost had a heart attack after seeing the smile she gave me while adjusting her long black silky hair”. My mother on the other side saw a medium built, short, fair and extraordinary good-looking man who needed to take classes on “How to flirt”. But she was utterly impressed by the fact that my father was only 25 years old and was covering all of the expenditures for the wedding all by himself!! Moreover, his charming personality captivated her and as a result they got married after a six-month love affair and Mr. Don was born just after a year of their marriage.

My parents were always free and frank with me and talked with me about almost everything from sex to science”. My mother admitted me in Maple Leaf, an English medium school. In order to do so, she fought with my father and my relatives who thought English medium kids were a “bunch of hooligans”. After studying A, B, C, D at home, the gigantic school was like a jail for me. Though being the naughtiest of all, I always somehow managed to keep good relations with my teachers and this trend still continues. I was an expert cheater during exams; I never liked studies and only studied because my parents wanted me to do so. However, I always stood 2nd or 3rd in class and was a good student, until I flunked my A' levels. But that is a different story.

My father was a rich man during my early years and his financial condition fell down the stairs as I grew older. By the age of 8, I had already visited India several times and tasted all the mouth- watering food, visited Singapore, Malaysia, Pakistan, Indonesia and toured throughout Bangladesh. But I was happier when my parents went to India on business trips and left me in my grandmother's house. My grandmother, who is my greatest love, is the most influential figure of my life. She was the only one who protected me when I did the magic trick of disappearing my cousin's birthday dress. Instead of scolding me, she would cook kachhi birani for me and feed me with her own hands.

This fair and kind lady from old Dhaka usually loved cooking, quarrelling with her daughters-in-law, arranging religious ceremonies, scolding my three uncles for ruining their huge inherited properties. But, above all, she loved me! Those days I still value and recall fondly. I guess my communicative skill, my forgiving nature and my “do something for your people and your country” attitude came from my dearest grandmother. Her house was always like Disneyland for me with my grandmother and a dozen cousins running around and freezers full of ice-cream until my youngest uncle and my best friend, Bappy mama, died.

Bappy mama's death was the most tormenting, influential and the most sorrowful moment in my life. He complained of chronic fever but nobody really paid any attention. Take one paracetamol tablet and it would go away, was the treatment. But it came back, again and again, and it was already too late when he discovered that he was actually suffering from blood cancer. Singaporean doctors said, “At best 3 months”. The news shook me and I spent every evening of those cold, nightmarish months visiting the 28-year-old extraordinary handsome and fun-loving man, and imagined how did he feel when he knew he would die so soon? My mother always told me, “Whatever Allah does is for our good” and I began to ask myself “Is this for our good?? An old mother will lose her youngest son, brothers and sisters will lose their brother and I will lose my best friend…IS THIS GOOD???” After about two and a half months, he was taken to the CCU. His condition became so bad that I once witnessed my mother screaming to Allah during her prayers “Please Allah take him to you quickly. I can't stand to see him suffer like this. Or shall I take a knife and cut his throat myself? What do you want me to do?” Soon his body swelled, he could not talk and could not move, except for those brilliant white eyes that carefully looked at all his loved ones and shed silent tears. I still remember those eyes. Those two eyes. It was a cold January morning of the millennium when those eyes finally stopped shedding tears, sending my grandmother into a coma, making his girlfriend half mad, and turning my blood into sand. The disquieting questions had turned me into an atheist after his death, forever making myself ask for explanations of God's purpose.

When my second brother Danny was born in 1990, I was very upset. Furthermore, when the third one who is short and fat like me, Donny, was born six years later, I was infuriated. “What is this?” I asked my mother. “I wanted a Diana or a Daisy but not a Donny! Why another brother? And why do you have to have the D and the N in all our names?” Anyway, now Danny and Donny have become like spices in an Indian dish. Without them my life just would not be “life” anymore and I can clearly see myself sitting, yawning and killing mosquitoes if these two mischievous brothers were not there.

In my teen years, I started to work in the media and performed in about nine television advertisements, music videos, hosted a cartoon show and did several works for the print media. My father also pressured me to start working and from the age of sixteen, I started teaching students. The number of students has risen over the years and currently I have about ten young kids calling me “Sir”. Now I realize why he had always deliberately pushed me to do hard work, to teach students, earn my own money, burn my own money, ride local busses and so on. These were done to teach me the hardships of life so that later I can enjoy the pleasure of success.

But when everything was going astray over the next couple of years, two great things happened in my life. One, I fell in love with this wonderful girl right before I was supposed to join a university; and secondly, I joined my university, ULAB. She is and will always be my true love and hopefully we shall marry as soon as both of us have jobs with decent salaries to support ourselves. After this guardian angel came into my life, everything changed for my betterment and once again I began to enjoy life. With constant support from this girl, my parents and ULAB, I once again became one of the very best. I became focused. I now dream to become the greatest film-maker in the history of Bangladesh. I have learned that success is to be measured not by the position that someone has reached in his life, but instead by the obstacles which he has overcome while trying to succeed. My life is on the positive side. I forever loved my teachers and now I love my university. As a result, I have been recently awarded full scholarship with stipend, which is the highest honor given by the university. For all these reasons, today the sun shines brightly after the rain and I can see glimpses of heaven right here on this earth. There have been many ups and downs in my life, but now I look at it as a very interesting life. Life has been good so far, but as someone once said, “Miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go”, I realize that more exciting events full of pain, joy, laughter or sorrow are still to come. Till then, I just cherish the love I have and cherish the life I live.

(The writer is a 3rd year student of ULAB, dept. of Media Studies and Journalism and he has dedicated the article to his teacher and mentor, Dr. Kazi Anis Ahmed)

The Jungle

It was written 1.5 yrs ago for an assignment in my Eng 103 course. I look at this now and think its worth posting. Its here as it was written, though there are many places I think it needs my "magical" touch of improvement.

It was the scorching month of May when I visited the Jungle. The sun was above the head, the roads were dusty but the jungle was still in its good mood. It welcomed me with the amazing sight of green trees, exotic plants, varieties of birds and most surprisingly a river flowing through its heart. This sort of sight is definitely seldom seen in the city which created a rhythm in my heart.

There were mostly mango, banana and jackfruit trees that I could identify. Water rushed in my mouth after seeing the red ripened mangoes hanging, inviting me to taste them. Black crows were sitting still beside the fruit like a guard, as if naughty children will snatch the fruit from its mother. Bananas, some green and some yellow, were hanging like grape fruits in their vines. Though there were no sign of the monkeys, but I saw an army of big red ants marching through the tress. Jackfruits were scattered all over the mighty tree. Unlike the other trees, the jackfruits greeted me with their sweet aroma which from my nose hit directly my heart. Some busted in the hot sun while the others waited for their turn. The red mangoes, the yellow bananas and the golden spiky jackfruits created a fairy tale environment.

There were many exotic plants with some wild species intermingled with them. They had the combination of flowers with all kinds of colors I ever witnessed. The red flowers were very eye-catching, the purple very exceptional, the yellow very bright and the orange very arresting. Nature had carefully made flower beds for them as they all stood separated from each other. Unknown wild plants grew here and there without a license, arousing the overall beauty of the flowering plants. The most remarkable sight must be the buzzing bees extracting honey for their queen, while the grasshoppers hopping in the grass below.

Though I did not see any animals, but I was surprised to see such diversity of birds in the jungle. From the crow to the Moina and many unknown ones were also seen, creating a community of their own. Some flying, some resting in the trees while the others walking gravely in the land like humans, really made me wish to have wings and fly.

The river was rather disappointing as it was no more than a swollen drain. The green water with the floating mosses threw a smell I was never aware of before. The thick water hit the mud banks on each side and showed glimpses of a silver colored dead fish. Plastic bags swim across its weedy surface like boats in a sea. But the sight of a pair of small bewildering frogs jumping arm in arm from one water lily to the other, made me find beauty in ugliness.

The trip to the jungle was not only entertaining but it was also very educating, informing me how precisely the ecosystem works. The birds, bees, plants and the flowers made me feel like a part of them. I realized that the magnificence of nature with all its splendors can only be found in a quiet jungle.