Value of Imported Items

A couple of days back, my dad and I were out trying to purchase a present for a party my parents had been invited to. After a discussion on what to buy, we ended up at Gulshan 1 market. We entered one such store, stacked from floor to ceiling with various decoration items. It was already amusing to watch my father talk to the shopkeeper about the price of a certain item that we had chosen. What made it really funny was how the esteemed dokan walla kept claiming that most of the items were 'from Italy'. If I had counted, I am sure the word “Italy” must have been in his conversation at least fifty times. My father and I kept looking at each other comically as he kept elaborating on his line from Italy, compared to items from “China”! We finally got two lovely vases, apparently from Italy, at a very reasonable price, thanks to daddy's power of persuasion. But I kept thinking how much we hold sacred everything that comes from Europe and America. Maybe we should be just as proud of some of the products that come from Bangladesh instead of the venerated west. Let's hope that some day, when we enter a shop the shopkeeper and the customers are equally enthusiastic about things made in Bangladesh.
K. Sinha
Gulshan 2

Robbery in Daylight

A few days ago, I went to stay at one of my relative's house in Noakhali. At that time the S.S.C. examination under the Bangladesh Open University was under way. A cousin of mine was taking the exam and the day his exam was to take place, I was behind the school hanging out with a bunch of the local neighbourhood boys. During the juicy discussion, I saw three boys, between 13 to 17 years of age, appear behind the school. One of the boys started to climb up a coconut tree inside a local house. A woman came out from the house and was staring at the boys but she said nothing. Her eyes were soon full of tears. The boys took their time and left with a sack full of coconuts. I went up to the woman and out of curiosity, asked her about the mysterious coconut pickers. The woman said that the boys were members of 'Bazigar Bare' and all the people in the locality feared them. I told my friends about the incident and they relayed it to a police on duty near the main gate of the examination hall. He simply said, “It's not my duty.” It was only then that I started to realise why the locals feared these young people so much; they even had the police on their side.
MD. Azad Uddin
Chittagong University

The Luncheon 2

This is quite similar to the incident in the story “The Luncheon”
written by W. S. Maugham. A few days ago, a girl with a very nice voice called a friend of mine on his cellular phone and told him to meet her at a certain location at Fuller Road. Being single, my friend was overwhelmed with romantic thoughts and was counting the days and hours before he got to see her pretty face. The day finally came and he looked at himself several times in the mirror before he left for his blind date. When he reached the location, he was heartbroken to see the dark, ugly looking smiling face that greeted him. This girl would defeat the lady guest in the story “The Luncheon” in the race for fat and overweight. She was about 30 years of age. Out of courtesy, he took her to a nearby restaurant for some snacks. The bill came to about Tk. 50 but my friend only had Tk. 35 on him. Seeing that he had to ask the girl for money, he told her to split the bill in half and ended up paying only Tk. 35. I don't think he will be going on any blind dates again any time soon.
Lawrence