Unveiling
an unknown truth
I
was waiting for the bus at the Shewrapara bus
stop. Since the bus was late, I thought I would
have some nuts to wile away the time. I asked
a badamwala nearby to give me 50 grams of nuts.
When he handed me the packet, it seemed to weigh
lighter than what I had asked for. I jokingly
asked the badamwala if there was actually 50 grams
worth of nuts in the packet. I asked laughingly
to keep the atmosphere light. The badamwala smiled
back at me and, to my sheer astonishment, admitted
that there was only 35 grams of nuts in the pack.
Without any sense of discomfort, he added that
all badamwalas did the same. He said they could
not make any profit from selling nuts worth 50
grams for 2 taka and the customers wouldn't pay
more, so that was how it went.
Abul
Kalam Azad,Department of Law, Dhaka University
Heartless
man
One
day I went to visit my friend in Jigatola. On
the way there, I saw a man crying but no one else
seemed to care. I approached him and asked why
he was crying. He told me that he had carried
a passenger on his rickshaw all day. When they
reached the destination, the passenger told him
to wait there for five minutes and that he would
be back. Thirty minutes had passed and he hadn't
come. The rickshaw-wala was very shocked and started
crying. He had lost about Tk. 200 and his peace
of mind. He began to cry loudly. The rickshaw-wala
was helpless, but people who do this are heartless.
Zillur
Rahman,Green Road Staff Quarters
Grey
Days Ahead
We
live in a city where the signs of nature are disappearing
quickly. The only patches of greenery that we
can see are in the form of public parks. The other
day, while I was passing through Farmgate, a place
I seldom need to go as I live in the old part
of Dhaka, I noticed a strange thing. I was sitting
in a Mirpur-bound bus, and as I was looking out
the window, I noticed that the Farmgate Park,
a small patch of land, was being hemmed with cement
structures that looked like a beginning of a high
wall. We, the city dwellers, are deprived of civic
amenities. Whatever access we have to amenities
like parks, the last remaining source of our contact
with nature, are being annihilated and buildings
or other structures are taking its place. This
happened in several small parks in the old part
of Dhaka. The park at the Farmgate crossing had
a low iron railing and was open for all. What
spurred the authorities to have it walled eludes
me. It would only serve to block the view of the
passers by. What do the authorities have against
visual beauty?
Md.
Mokbul Hossain,Patuatuly, Dhaka
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