innovate-issue-005

“Rizu, wake up, Rizu...” I called him up. He woke up, rubbing his eyes. His eyes were red from crying.“Where did you fall down?”“Hgshhff…hhssirtuhg gjjg hhs” he made sounds from his mouth and pointed his fingers towards thegate.It is where he used to sit and play alone or sometimes play with his cousins. As he couldn’t speak, somost of the time he was left alone. He didn’t complain about the solitude.“Let me see your wound."He reluctantly showed me his bandaged covered knee. I undressed the bandage to reveal the wound.There was very little blood but more swelling. It looked like he had knocked his knees against somesolid object.“Are you sure, that the metal gate didn’t cut your knees?”He nodded vigorously in negation.“Urshula, I am taking him to the hospital for the tetanus. It is better to be safe than sorry later.”I heaved him up in my lap and made my way towards the clinic near-by. I remember how small he feltthat day. He was hardly 4 at that time. He was thin and small and I could easily carry him around inmy arms. It was no trouble at all.He cried a lot when he saw the injection. He cried more when the needle broke into his skin. He didn’tstop crying until the next day. By the time his tears dried, his body became warm. He got a little fever.But nobody paid attention to the dog that died in front of our house. Rizu called that dog Shafali.When the dog died, the people from municipality took the dog and burned it. But nobody paidattention to it.We thought that it was a normal fever that children usually get when they cry for a very long time.Urshula was attentive at her best. She attended to his every need. She changed the wet cloth on histemple that helped to keep the temperature down. She fed him boiled rice with boiled dal.But he was far from being cured. His fever didn’t come down for next two days. I was starting to getworried.As advised by the doctor, we gave him medicines. On the third day the fever came down slightly. Itook that as a good sign.Rizu was cured on the fifth day. He was back to his old routine of creating mayhem around the house;stealing mangoes from the trees and irritating his grandmother and grandfather when they tried to takea nap in the afternoon. He made cute little drawings that Urshula sewed on my poetry books and wekept them in our home’s library.I admit I was flattered to see my books, matching shoulders with the likes of Bakim Chandra on thelibrary shelf. Those little things made me feel that I really succeeded in my dream of becoming awriter.