Non-fiction
Little Cruelties
artwork by ariyana
One Thursday, the weekend I usually long for, when I was readying myself for a family get-together, my cell phone vibrated. It was Fazal, who had been my classmate at Dhaka University in the early eighties and who had been a frequent visitor to my house in Libya when we were there as expatriates. He said that he was dying to see me and would like to come over with his family that evening. Since we were supposed to go out, my wife Sufia had already changed into something formal. As I put off our visit, she changed out again back to the casual blue sari she had been wearing. Even though there were no visible signs of reaction, I could sense a touch of resentment in her as she said: "You could say that we had a party. Why do we have to compromise always? Why?" I did not know it either, but barring a few occasions, it was a familiar pattern in my behaviour. Was so-called sophistication, or politeness, a weakness that people exploited? I didn't know. Her enthusiasm dented, Sufia concealed her frustration and went to the kitchen, as she always does, to prepare snacks for the guests. Our bua, who was settling down to watch her favorite soap on NTV, irately trudged past Sufia into the second kitchen to chop some onions and be ready to help Sufia in case she needed it. Meanwhile, I tossed the sofa cushions in right places, re-ordering an already spick-and-span living room. Rumor had it that Fazal's children were the Kids from Hell; it was also well-known among his friends that wherever his kids went, they left behind a trail of destruction. Fazal's "bad parenting" was talked about among his friends, with aspersions cast on his inability to perform his duty as a father. With all that background information at the back of my mind, I was tense as I paced back and forth in the car park, waiting for their arrival. While I was wondering whether Fazal could find the place, the cell phone vibrated once again: "Dost, I am near the BOL office.Tell me which way I should go." "Just some yards ahead, take the left lane that cuts from Road 35, and then straight on till you stop before a six-story building." "I got the lane." "Baas, now you just drive straight ahead. Yes, I see a car coming. Is it you?" "It is. Okay." Seconds passed by, and the car honked before the closed gate. Gesturing vaguely, he along with his wife and two kids got down from the car. While Fazal and I exchanged greetings, with lots of "shala" and "haramjada" thrown in, one of his boys started to throw a tantrum: "Shour'er bachha, I will kick your butt." "Ammuu, look what he has done to me," said Salem, the younger of the two, drawing his mother's attention to the small chunk of dirt on his buttocks where his elder brother had landed a kick. Quarreling over a handball, the elder one had pushed Salem hard to make way for him to dribble the ball like a pro footballer in the patio. Just as their slightly animated mother pressed the door chime, and before I ushered Fazal into the room after the two kids and their mother, Sharif, the elder one, kicked the ball straight into the ceramic pot plant stationed under the door-side mirror, breaking it into pieces. Pain shot down my spine as I saw the clay-made flower vase smashed into smithereens. To my utter dismay, however, Fazal merely glanced at it. He then looked around and said, "Fatafati flat. Dost, how much?" His admiration did not elicit any "thank you" response as I was seething with anger. I was even more surprised when Sharif's mother caressed her son's back and says: "Lokhhi chele, don't do like this. Chachu will be mad." I felt like slapping her powdery face, made redder with blush-on, but I had to restrain myself as she and Sufia hugged each other accompanied by baby talk: "Bhabi, you look beautiful. What's the secret?" "I've put on Lajja, bhabi. Also, you have become slim. What's your secret?" The rest of the conversation was giggles and whispers. In the living room Fazal, a bubbly sort of a person, however, tried to liven up an atmosphere turned somber by the incident. I was actually counting seconds and minutes and muttering prayers for them to leave, though, in an effort to masquerade what was going through my mind, I kept wearing a smile on lips. Misreading it thoroughly, Fazal got somewhat animated and said: "Dost, get me some maal." "When did you start? I thought you are a virgin." "Was. Not is." "Any brand?" "Anything goes." "Scotch?" "Anything. I am just crazy now. Get it, man." While Fazal reclined into the cozy comfort of a single-seat sofa, I went to look for the bottle of Teachers that Nasim, another friend of mine, had brought over a couple of days before to lift me out of a depression that I'd been sunk in that day. Finding the half-empty bottle missing from behind the bookshelf where I had concealed it, straightaway I took recourse to the wisdom of Sufia, who, with a cryptic smile, made the disclosure: "It's in the deep freeze." As I fetched it hurriedly, she said: "Why hide it from me? I know what is happening where. It's my household." Happy at this revelation and feeling elated, Fazal and I drank a toast from narrow glasses filled with Scotch. He gulped down drink after drink, and in a drunken stupor, generously used curse words--'Shala' and 'Haramjada' and worse--while conversing before getting completely blotto. I feared I was in for trouble. No sooner had I sensed that feeling that he puked on the Persian carpet that Sufia brought to Dhaka all the way from Qatar. Minutes later, Fazal was stretched out on the sofa. "Sorry, bhai. He always does things like this." Fazal's wife pricked her husband's cheek with her varnished nails and said: "Get up. Let's go." The rest was a scene enacted by lots of other players as Sufia and I looked on as bystanders. A darwan and Fazal's mustachioed driver carried him off to his car, followed by his two hyper-active kids and wife. While Sufia, Bua and I were struggling to clean the carpet, the car zoomed past the gate into the sodium-lighted street of Gulshan. It was around midnight by the time we three could bring some sanity to the proceedings. The carpet was stacked in bua's bathroom, the living room floor mopped twice, pieces of the broken ceramic vase dusted away, and finally, a bottle of lemo-scented air fresher sprayed into the air. With the Fazal episode over, some days went by without much ado till on Saturday last week I became a party to some more cruelty before the KFC at Gulshan Avenue, a street dotted with eateries and banks, both local and foreign. Though it is meant to be a residential area, in fact, the concept of area zoning faces challenges in Dhaka--a post-modern concept, indeed! At lunchtime, along with other harried and hungry people, I was waiting in line at a food joint when a young mother, one naked child in her lap and another clinging to her legs, arrived there and stretched out her hands for help. The tired and hungry children whined as their mother made vain attempts to calm them. The line got longer but barely moved, and as the children's cries rose to high-pitched screams, everybody, including me, stared irately at the helpless mother. Right at that moment, one really loud yell from one of the kids echoed through the restaurant, prompting an indignant response from someone in the queue. A whiskered man, probably in his forties, was the first one to react: "Shut up. Chillachilli bondho koren." A young man chimed in with another piece of cruel advice: "Damn shit. Bhagen." "Koi jamu?" the tired and hungry mother responded softly at one stage. She couldn't answer her own question. Neither could the customers. Even though, many of the customers were parents themselves, they treated her like a criminal. Being a parent myself, had I not committed a crime by allowing the cruelty of others? Although I did not pass any remark, it would be unfair to say that I did the right thing by remaining silent. I could have or should have bought some food for the children, or at least I should have given the woman some money so that she could buy some food for the children. If not, I could have easily left the place to avoid the cruelty being acted out and endorsed by the silent majority in the line. While returning to my home, I witnessed some more cruelty. As I trudged back in rain to my flat at Gulshan, I was beckoned at by a young woman, one of the 'street people' our society leaves to fend for themselves, huddled before the entry of Gulshan's Azad Mosque. She was swaddled in a dirty, scorched-looking blanket, clutching a cheap vinyl bag packed with her belongings. Three teenagers, talking and laughing loudly, approached her from the lane opposite to the mosque gate. Clad in jeans, with a pony tail, one of them, whirling a keychain, went close to the woman and said: "Chol jabi?" "Allah, save me," the woman said before burying her face in the blanket in panic. The other two, sporting their gym-honed bodies through body-hugging red t-shirts and tight blue jeans, joined the first one: "Chol, onek kichu pabi." The woman kept muttering "Allah, Allah, Allah..."--which grew in frequency as they kept extending their invitations to her. The woman stared at them helplessly like a wounded animal surrounded by hunters. As Providence would have it, the rain started to pour down, and the third voice said: "La howla." And then having had their fun, they all ran past the mosque into the main Gulshan thoroughfare and got into a waiting CNG. I returned home, soaking wet, and passed a troubled night. I came across more heartlessness while jogging in the morning at Ramna Park. This spring, I watched thin saplings put out tiny leaves and tall grass being mowed in the park. Last Wednesday, as I reached the park, I was flustered at seeing how it had been abused. Instead of using the park for recreation, while jogging I saw a car being cleaned, the contents of the ashtray and the litterbag of the car being dumped inside the gate of the park in front of the official Prodhanmontri house. Some steps forward, I found some juveniles spraying paint from cans to write political slogans and graffiti on the white-distempered wall near the children's enclosure. Yellow and blood-red roses and surjomukhi flowers which are planted in rows surrounding the open space in the middle of the park had been picked off. Near the waterfront restaurant people had left litter, including crumpled bags, paper plates smeared with ketchup and paper cups half-filled with Coke on the tables, amid empty dented Lemu, RC, and Virgin cans on the ground. Back at home, as I huddled in the warmth of my family, I wondered why we all allow and contribute to the supply of these endless daily cruelties. Wasn't there enough of it already? Haroonuzzaman teaches English at the Independent University Bangladesh.
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