New Year's Celebration

Illustrations by Sabyasachi Hazra

Below is the winning entry, New Year's Celebration, in The Daily Star Literature Page Short Story Contest sent in by Munjulika Rahman of Uttara, Dhaka, currently at Randolph-Macon Women's College, Virginia, United States. Whenever she is next in Dhaka, she should feel free to walk into Daily Star offices for a grip 'n grin photo op with our chief editor and her prize-winning cheque.

Here, as sole judge of the contest who read all the entries, I feel it incumbent to point out that merely because one contestant's story was chosen does not mean the others 'lost.' Not so at all. In fact, the response from our readers was gratifying--all sorts of efforts were sent in, including some that attempted to experiment with genres--such as the one that was a parody of the urban Bengali romantic tale. Another memorable one attempted a new twist on the old theme of family discord--a son's reaction to a father's infidelity. Yet another attempted a variation on the spy story. All the entries were within hailing distance of each other--none were spectacularly bad. Munjulika won largely on the basis of overall coherence and an error-free English. On this last point, I admit to being astonished, and humbled, by the fact that so many contestants, given their obvious limitations in English, were unafraid to enter the fray, and tried to imaginatively set down the immediate experience of life in Bangladesh. It is this spirit that the literature page salutes in its readers. You all make my task at The Daily Star lighter. Thank you.

---Editor, Literature Page

Jabeen opened her eyes slowly and looked at the wall clock. Ten to one. She buried her nose in the soft white pillow and tried to remember what it was that she had dreamed about. A red dress, or was it black? She was getting ready to go somewhere in the dream. Oh my god! The New Year's party is tonight! She jumped down from the bed, grabbed the telephone and called Sarah, her best friend.

"Sarah? Oh, hi, Sana. Is your sis there? No? She left half an hour ago? Ok, I'll talk to you later. Bye!"

She picked up the pair of jeans from the floor and ran into the bathroom. While washing her face Jabeen thought of what her mother had said to her about going to the party. This was the first time she was going to an all-night party, and even though she thought she was old enough, she had a hard time convincing her mom. Then again, she understood that it must be natural for her mother to worry.

Jabeen heard the doorbell and thought, "Oh, she's here!" She changed into the jeans and her favorite T-shirt that said "PHAT-Pretty Hot And Tempting" on the back.

"Jabeen!" she heard Sarah calling. "The appointment at the salon is at one o'clock! It'll take us forever to get our hair and nails done. Why aren't you ready yet?"

"I woke up late because I was on the phone with you till three! When did you get up?" Jabeen asked while applying lipstick carefully with a lip brush.

"Eleven. Had to choose my dress, shoes, and lipstick for the party. Oh, I settled on the red dress. So I'll need to borrow your eye shadow. Ok, Jabeen, hurry up! You don't have to put on lipstick now! We are only going to the salon."

Sarah grabbed Jabeen's arm and dragged her out of the room.

Jamila looked at the grimy old clock at the end of the big hall. Ten to one. Ten more minutes before lunch break. Her arms hurt from operating the cloth-weaving machine continuously from early morning, and her head ached with the noise from all the other machines in the factory. She looked around her and saw the rows of machines working rhythmically. Collectively, they sounded like the wheels of the train in which she had come to the city. Jamila tried to remember what her life was like in the village before they moved to the city. Her father got paralyzed from the waist downwards after he fell down from a coconut tree. Her mother used to support the whole family by working as a maid in the house of one of the wealthier families of the village. Jamila took care of her two younger siblings and her father; she cooked the food and kept the house clean.

Jamila always tried to finish her household chores early, so that her father would give her permission to go to the local public school. It was free for girls and Jamila attended whenever she could find time. She loved learning alphabets and poems and playing with her classmates during break. Jamila's favourite season was spring, because then the classes were held outside in the yard of the school, under the shade of the big mango tree. A cool breeze from the lake weaved through the students as they sat on banana leaves on the ground and repeated alphabets after the teacher. Those were probably the happiest times of Jamila's life.

As her father got sicker, he needed more medical care and expensive medicines. There were no other jobs available, and her mother's meager wage could not cover all the expenses.

The villagers who had been to the city said that it had buildings with twenty floors, and people went up the floors in big boxes by pushing buttons. There were many factories where hundreds of people worked, and they assured Jamila's mother that she and Jamila too would find work. She was probably thirteen or fourteen when her mother sold all their belongings and collected some money to come to the city and find employment. The first few months in the city were miserable. They slept on the roadside since they had nowhere else to go. The traffic frightened Jamila, and the noise and pollution made her feel sick. She found a job at a factory that manufactured cloth and her mother started working as a maid in a house. They built a makeshift hut with plastic bags near the house her mother worked in. Her younger siblings looked after their father when Jamila and her mother worked during the day. Her father had been sicker than usual the past few days and.... the lunch break bell rang, waking Jamila up from her reverie. She looked around to check whether the supervisor had seen her daydreaming.

It was almost five in the evening when Jabeen came back from the salon. Her curly hair was blow-dried and straightened. She sat on her bed with a note pad and a pen held precariously with her manicured fingers. She made the list of things she needed to do:

hair
nails
makeup
dress
choose purse & things to take in purse
pick up Sarah
* eye shadow for Sarah.

At the end of two hours when Jabeen had finished dressing and putting on her make-up, she stood in front of her full-length mirror and looked at herself.

"Not bad," she said to herself and looked closer. "Oh, my hair is curling up again. I wish I had natural straight hair like Sarah's. But at least it's not as bad as usual." She took a few steps back and walked towards the mirror again, careful not to wobble on her stilettos. Jabeen decided the purse looked better if she hung it from her shoulder. She gave her hair one last brush and was all ready for the party.

While coming out of the factory, Nilu, one of Jamila's co-workers drew her aside.

"I heard there's a vacancy in the neighboring factory. If we go soon, we might get a part-time position. I don't want to go there alone. The supervisor isn't very decent, as you know."

The supervisor was known to be a pervert who passed lewd comments at the girls who worked in his factory. She hesitated for a few moments, but decided she needed the money. The doctor had prescribed a new medicine for her father that she would have to buy. Also, if she could collect some extra money, she planned to send her younger brother and sister to school.

"Ok, let's go right now, because he might be busy. Since it's closing time. he won't pay too much attention to us," Jamila replied.

Fortunately, the supervisor was busy making all the workers sign the departure sheets. He looked at them briefly and said he would let them know later.

Instead of taking the bus, Jamila saved the money by walking home, and on the way she bought some rice and vegetables for her family. When she reached their hut, she found her mother sitting outside the hut, washing bowls with dried coconut fiber and ashes. Jamila was telling her mother about the events of the day, when she noticed a slim girl wearing a dress and very high stilettos getting into a car.

"She must be the daughter of the family who lives in that house," she told her mother. "How pretty she is!"

"That she is. But how does she walk in those shoes?" her mother asked.

"I guess they get used to it," she said, as she went inside the hut to cook the vegetables.

When she was finally able to go to bed that night, it was almost midnight.

Jabeen was having the time of her life. She had danced for two hours straight and was talking to a cute guy whose name she did not know when her cell phone rang.

"Yes, mom! Oh, is it really almost two in the morning? No, I am not drunk. Can't I stay a little longer? Ok, Ok, I'll get somebody to drop me home."

Jabeen found Sarah and asked her to drop her off at home. A few of their friends came along with them. The friends were drunk, and as they drove to Jabeen's house, the boys yelled "Happy New Year!" to everybody in the street, embarrassing Jabeen no end. Some of the boys had firecrackers with them and as they approached Jabeen's house, Sameer, one of her close friends, took out a lighter, ignited some of the firecrackers and threw them out through the car window. Jabeen saw them going up in the air and landing on the row of shanties. As the car sped away, Jabeen looked back and tried to see if the firecrackers had started a fire. She kept her head turned and stared into the darkness, but couldn't see anything. She figured that if there were a fire she would be able to see it since it was dark. Maybe she was worrying uselessly.

Jamila couldn't remember later whether it was the heat of the flames or the screaming of the people that woke her up. When she opened her eyes, she saw the back wall of the hut burning and her father, inches away from the fire. She woke her father up and started dragging him away. By this time, her mother and siblings had awakened and together they carried their father outside. When they reached the street, they saw that the whole row of shanties was on fire. People were screaming out each other's names, making sure their family members were not left inside the burning huts. Some were trying to salvage whatever belongings they could while others were running about with buckets of water. Jamila stood there, dumbfounded, as the plastic covers of their hut curled up in the heat and fell in gradually.

When Jabeen woke up the next morning, she kept her eyes closed and thought about the good time she had at the New Year's party. How many guys had she danced with? Let's see.. there was Farshed, Russell, and ... she didn't remember the name of the guy in the blue shirt. Slowly she became aware of wailing and screaming outside. There was a lot of commotion going on in the street, she thought, something must have happened outside. She quickly went to her window and on the street below saw the burnt-down remains of the shanties. Gray smoke was twirling upwards from the ashes, while some women were squatting on the ground, crying and beating their foreheads with the palms of their hands. "Oh my god! What if it was Sameer's firecracker?" she thought.

Jabeen went and found her maid in front of the kitchen window, looking at the distressed people on the street. She told Jabeen that somebody had set fire to the roadside shanties last night.

"Jamila's mother who works in our neighbor's house lived there. Jamila used to come and talk with me sometimes. She works in the factory. All their belongings have burnt down. Luckily they pulled their invalid father out of the hut in time or else he would have burnt too. All their possessions are gone," she said and sighed.

"Oh, god! That was Sameer's firecracker!" Jabeen said to herself. She paced about in her room, trying to figure out what she should do. "Uff, why did I let those drunk guys come with me? Should I tell Dad? See what he can do? But first I have to go and see what has happened."

Jabeen slipped into her sandals and ran downstairs. She stood in front of the gate of her house and saw the blackened frameworks of huts along the wall. She could see a rough bed, which had survived the fire, but the mattresses were burnt. Somebody's old transistor was lying in the ashes. Some of the women were still crying, while others just sat on the ground hopeless and tired, holding their children tightly to themselves. People were rummaging through the ashes with sticks to see if they could find anything.

Jabeen went upstairs, sat on her bed and thought, how come I never noticed these people before? How is it that it took me such a horrendous act to become aware of the poor people in the street? How could she have been a part of something like this? "I didn't do it directly," she rationalized. "But then, it was my fault, because the guys came to drop me." Could she help the people by giving them money? But she didn't have money. Maybe her father could help. But if she told her parents, they would be very angry and would probably not let her go to any parties. What if her parents told the police and they got Sameer? Jabeen couldn't think anymore. After some time, she decided to tell her parents. "Whatever it is, I can't stay with the guilt of doing this.

" Jabeen went to her mother and began to cry.