Silly Tales

Mole Man

I was 10 and just experienced the craze of the ICC world cup '99. By the time the tournament ended I was soaked into a fantasy world where I felt that I could play for any international team in the world. One day during lunch break we actually found a vacant spot on the school field and managed to get our hands on a bat and a ball. The field hosted several small matches such as ours simultaneously. I had the bat and my friend, Nayeem, was going to show his skills with the ball. When he was bowling my bat was failing to make any contact with the ball. Some of my class mates decided to gather around, and it was starting to become a matter of pride.The ball flew high in a random direction. For some reason, I decided to raise my bat to my class mates who had come to watch. As I focused all my attention on them, a tennis ball from another game crashed into the back of my head and I fell headfirst into a soft spot on the field. My face sank into the soft ground. As I lifted my head up, I felt every ounce of my dignity evaporate, as all my classmates burst into wild laughter. Sand stuck to my face, and made me look like an underground creature, and that is how I got the name "mole man''.

Adit Hasan Khan
North South University, Dhaka

Jibber Jabber

In school I was well known for my restlessness. I was a good student and won awards for sports regularly. Most of the teachers knew me for this reason. During classes, our teachers would take quizes on everything we learned in our previous lesson. Somehow the teacher never came around to asking me any questions and I always ended up being relaxed. But one day some of my competitive friends complained to the teacher that it was unfair that I would not take the quiz and tested on whether I was prepared for the lesson or not. So, they urged the teacher to quiz me. Unfortunately, I was not prepared that day. I spoke utter gibberish and I spoke fast so that no one could really understand what I was saying (also hoping the teacher would not either). When I stopped she called me to her and asked “do you think I am stupid?” in a low voice. I was so ashamed that I could not even look at her. But surprisingly, she was smiling at me and let me go without yelling at me. I was so grateful to her for not embarrassing me in front of the whole class! My classmates ended up not knowing what had happened!

Sharmin Akter
Dhaka University, Dhaka.

End of My Prank-Playing Days

I was always the prankster throughout school and university. Why I never stopped? Well, because my pranks never back fired…till my last semester. There was this girl in our class who always used to show off her English accent, saying she picked it up while she lived abroad. Sadly, I never believed a person pick up a totally new English accent in just three months. I decided to punish her by planting cockroaches in her bag. I went to class early so that I could make my move in secret, and I did. There were very few people in class and our professor was busy checking some papers. When the class started I saw her opening her bag and to my surprise she didn't react to the cockroaches. And just then I realised that my professor was using the same bag the girl was using. And before I could warn my professor she saw it, reacted, I got my share of punishment and my prank pulling days came to an end.

Risalat Chowdhury
BRAC University,
Dhaka.