Just Mere Chance Decides?

I was returning from school, blowing big bubbles out of the Big Babol bubble gum in my mouth, trying to decide how I would spend the evening, when I felt a light tug at my knees from behind.

I turned around. It was a little boy of five or six: brown skin burnt in the sun, tattered shorts faded but dark with dirt. Black hair turning reddish; lack of protein, I remembered from biology. Swelled belly. Yep, lack of protein. He produced a small, cupped hand. “Baia, ekta taha than na!”* Dry broken voice. Parched throat: extremely thirsty. I brought out my wallet and fished for all the change; it totaled around five or six taka, I guess. Put them down into the little hand. The sheer magnitude of the offer was a glow in his eyes. Maybe his first earning of the day. Without second thought, I turned back on my way.

On second thought, a few seconds later, I turned around again. He was counting his income. A little, undernourished child: not at school, but in the streets. Not enough clothes to dress properly. No one to take care. I looked up. There was another boy, also five to six. Neatly pressed grey shorts and white shirt. A young lady, the mother perhaps, takes the school bag from the child and gives him a small chocolate bar. He throws it away. I looked to the other side of the street. Yep, ice-cream; that’s what he wants. The mother gets him a big one from the vendor. And then the chauffeur descends from the car and opens the door for the two of them. The car speeds away. A newly washed Honda: polished dazzling deep green.

I looked down on this other boy. He was staring at me. Wondering. About what, I don’t know. I took out my wallet, again. A fresh, twenty-taka note. I gave it to him. He was more confused and amazed than ever.

I turned back and returned home.

Being a citizen of this Third World country, where a majority of the population lives in abject poverty, in conditions worse than that of the boy mentioned above, I could never justify the differences between the rich and the poor. Why is life so fair to some people that they have enough money to spend on lavish ice cream and candies, while so unfair to others who can hardly eat even once a day? Why is it that some people have to sleep in the open air, on the footpaths, while others at luxurious Home Sweet Homes find it hard to decide which side of the huge, soft, bed they’ll sleep on?

I never found the answer.

A dirty little child, or an old hobbling beggar is something I never wanted to face when I go out into the streets of the city. It sets off thoughts in me. I start calculating. If the 120 million people of the country were to give one taka each, we’d have 120 million taka. That’s a lot. No, maybe only 60 million people can afford to give just a taka each. Sixty million bucks. That’s still a lot. No, why not just 5 million people give ten bucks each. 50 million taka. We could use that to feed a lot of the poor. Save some lives.

Nah, won’t work. People don’t care.

Is it just mere chance that decides whether the boy I mentioned above is not the one that goes to school and that the rich kid is not the one that begs? Is it just by a mere game of chance that some are born in marbled palaces while others are doomed to slum-life? The persistent, irritating beggar who asks you for a little money or food, do you think it is his fault that he was born to do this job?

Do we just let it go like this?

Don’t you think we could do something?

 

* – “Just a taka, please?” (The author is a citizen of Bangladesh, a country of the Indian subcontinent with a population of 120 million. Taka: Unit of Bangladesh currency, equivalent to approximately $0.018 at the time of writing.)

Barely Remember

Dearest Granddaddy,

I barely remember you.

All I have are

The slices of your voice,

Images of you drinking your Jack Daniel’s

Every day at 4 o’clock,

Sharp.

I miss you,

I wish I could have learned from you

With your pens and papers,

Newspapers and editorials,

If only you could have survived life.

Mothering Kind

I was thinking

of donating

my ovaries;

They are of no use to me.

 

Let some other willing

lady

flower the earth

with babies,

 

(much like a dandelion

scattering seeds).

 

Shower me with scorn;

I stand firm in my decision.

 

I am not the mothering kind.

An Observation on Perception

Yesterday

I was walking

Downtown.

At one point

I looked up

Across the street,

And I saw a little boy

Drop his bottle on the sidewalk

At the base of the Woodman Tower.

He bent down in front of a

Mammoth marble pillar;

Then, giggling wildly,

Was plucked from the ground

And danced in a circle

By an energetic mother.

And the whole time

He never

Looked up,

Completely oblivious to the

Thousands of feet of

Concrete and glass

Towering

Above his tiny head.

 

And I thought to myself,

Hey baby,

I think we’ve all

Been there.

Pattern of Forgiveness

The night is yours alone—

Shadows gawk through darkness—

You uphold dignity in your stance,

A simple smile.

 

We all hurt inside—

We all let loneliness wash over.

Restraints we set for ourselves

Are broken by others.

 

A faded tissue here to hold—

Blanketed by tears of remorse.

Every faint sound—every motion…

Becomes a pattern of forgiveness.

 

Light cracks through shadowed blinds—

Once again…

My eyes shut,

Waiting for dreams.

You’re All You’ve Got

In middle school I’ve learned many things, but the two most basic are you have no friends, and life’s not fair. Don’t even try to say I’m wrong, because I know. You may think that you have a friend, maybe one you’ve known since kindergarten, but eventually you split up and never talk to one another again. Of course no one will admit this but it’s true. When I say that life’s not fair, that’s because it’s not! In middle school you get dealt a bad hand, and there’s no way out.

Being in middle school is like being a lemming in a cage. The lemmings follow each other, and are trapped; there’s no way to get away from it. No matter how hard you try to get away from the other lemmings it never works. Friends are like lemmings, who follow the head lemming. As soon as they find someone better, a faster better-looking lemming they totally forget about you. Many times you think this person, or people, will be there to confide in forever and would always have a shoulder for you to cry on. Then one day your best friend finds a more perfect lemming and slowly begins to drift away from you. Slowly at first, then faster and faster until one day you look up and you’re alone. Then you begin to think, and you realize, they weren’t really my friends in the first place. You’re alone, alone, alone, and there’s no one to pick you up when you fall.

This is because life’s not fair. In a way you’ve always known that because you didn’t always get the color Popsicle you wanted, but now its because of real things. Life’s not fair because you don’t get along with your family, and they cut you down and insult you all the time. Life’s not fair because your so-called friends betray you and there’s no one to turn to, and whenever you have a bad day there’s really no one to turn to. Life’s not fair because after missing the bus, failing a test, getting a referral and pulling a muscle you still have to go home, do three hours of homework, take out the trash and listen to a lecture from your parents. Life’s not fair because many times you feel like no one loves you and feel as if you can’t go on.

I may sound like I’m whining and complaining, but that’s because I am. I’ve learned that sometimes, well a lot of times, whining and complaining make you feel better. Most of the time you get yourself nothing except people sick of and mad at you but you feel better. Since you have no friends and life’s not fair you might as well do things that make you feel better because you’re the only one you’ve got. I don’t know if it will stay that way forever, I sure hope it doesn’t, but if it does then at least I learned two important things in middle school, and I know I will remember them always, true or not.

Always

We came, we came,

I don’t know why,

It wasn’t just to watch the sky,

The spinning step and hidden path,

I thought with such a tired heart,

Every breath would be my last,

Compared to you I have no past.

The moon, the stars,

We claimed them ours.

Life of Birds

their eyes don’t need to pierce cloud

wings don’t have to be told to extend

see how they coax the wind into submission

 

watch them tumble in harnessed waves of sky

their silent agreement

in effortless flight

 

their grace lands with them

sinks into the earth as they struggle to walk

 

children chase them back into the clouds

watching their small bodies soar

wishing more than ever that they had been birds

 

the blades of their wings

scar the mountains, the hills

yet they flinch upon the movement

 

of the white blouse in the window

the young woman who holds a wineglass to her ear

and listens

 

for the husky whisper

of crows’ wings navigating the fog

but there are no branches here for them

no perch where they might curl their toes

where she could study the darting blues and purples

on their backs

 

where can they go to avoid setting foot

on the rocky ground

upon which they are destined to stumble

 

we pray

let there always be a gentle sea

an uplifting wind

a forest lush with lazy years

 

the gulls cry out

where can they go

the waves are churning

earthward

The Human Condition

A small

invisible

sun

lights a glass cube

in which stands

a little man

casting his own

small

shadow.

Furry Curtains

I thought of telling you tonight

of the secrets I hold, or the barriers you bring upon me

forcing my eyes to be sealed grimly

in spite of your beautiful face,

held up solemnly to the bright light.

Too bad baby, your water is near gone

and it’s drought season this November.

 

And “Daddy she’s making me cry.

Daddy, she’s hurting me again.

The blue and dirty lady,

she came from underneath the bed.”

“Hush sweetheart, it’s only a bad dream.”

“But Daddy, the furry curtains are scaring me…”

 

Under the bed, baby, is where I’d love to be.

Just the two of us, clinging to satin sheets once more

as the night light slowly fades away

leaving us with nothing to hold

except each other.

 

And I’ll be all you need,

I’ll tell you all the bedtime stories you never heard before,

because Daddy was too drunk to do it.

And besides,

he always skipped the best parts.

 

You remind me of a river in a storybook I got

for my 12th birthday

from a sweet, but absent-minded auntie of mine

who wore her shirts inside out,

and forgot to put her teeth back in

after making love to the fishes.

 

And I’ll take you far away,

to the places we dreamed of going

everywhere you always said you’d rather be.

Anywhere but here…

 

She said bedtime was half an hour ago,

but I’m just not tired yet.

Scare me one more time,

I want the furry curtains back.