Arts & Letters, April 2018

Short story
On the way
•Numair Choudhury
Only after she secures her starched white blouse does she line
her eyes and dab her cheeks. Otherwise she wears no visible
makeup. Slinging the yellowing cloth bag over her shoulder,
she locks her door and makes her way down the unpainted
stairs. When she steps outside, she is confronted by the dust and commotion
of a seven-am weekday. But there is a welcome that Dhaka reserves
solely for her.
After she turns the corner and makes her way through rickshaws and
cycles that jingle in unison, she passes a small restaurant that caters to
the budgets of low-level office clerks, factory caretakers and wealthy college
students. Outside the eatery, her special greeting awaits. Smiling in
a ridiculous manner, the clown stands. On spying her, his grin broadens
and his face folds into mad, childish happiness. And as she hastens by
looking elsewhere, he laughs and stamps in delight as if applauding her
appearance. He claps as if magic had just unfolded. She blushes at his attention
and paces onwards, furious with the public display. Local youngsters
revel: Dancing and laughing, they are thrilled that the ritual has once
again been observed. Strangers halt their morning routines to stare at the
spectacle, while she hurries to the end of the street. This is where I watch
from.
In daylight, just as at night when the power
cuts arrive, this colossus of a city groans
under the weight of its own frame, and as
bones turn to diamond under the crush they
are mined and shipped away quietly
Numair
Choudhury is a
fiction writer.
Bothered by flies, I sit unnoticed in the bamboo shade of a fruit-stall
and watch her face. When she reaches my intersection, she seems relieved
to have escaped the simpleton’s buffoonery. But I have also observed,
much to my consternation, a bemused smile on her face.
Her name is Ayesha. She is a nurse in burn-victim rehabilitation at
a nearby hospital. It is a new institute, funded by foreign partners and
aid. The hundred-bed facility was launched with the pomp reserved for
do-gooders and thieving bureaucrats alike. They boast top quality equipment
and a staff trained by busybodies who fly in from glamorous lands.
Specialized in treating women that are casualties of acid-attacks, they
have money to throw. I detest their type; busy saving the world, they
close their eyes to the truths of our times. They do not accept that even
the toughest laws cannot make man turn away from the sulfur in his nature.
The victims they try to save, I have seen them charred and scorched
because a dowry bicycle was the wrong color, because a relative was a
week late with rent, or because a brother did not comply with local thugs.
For any number of trifling reasons, actually. This makes me laugh deep
into myself, until my amusement rings and echoes about my core.
Ayesha lives alone. An older woman from the mohallah has the keys to
Ayesha’s flat; she visits on Saturdays for a few hours. This woman cooks
and freezes some food, and takes care of the laundry. Mostly, she just lazes
about while the clothes dry, farts piercingly and smokes hand-rolled
bidis. The hospital pays little, but Ayesha needs little. Friday is her day-off
and she stays home, to experiment with new recipes, to read her Bengali
books and to hum the hours away. She likes to sing, but I find Ayesha’s
style unpolished, with none of the nuances and flourishes of an experi-
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ARTS & LETTERS SATURDAY, APRIL 14, 2018 | DHAKA TRIBUNE