Dhaka Diary

A crow's tale
While looking outside at the sulky afternoon, I saw a crow distributing some leftovers to her two babies, which she had collected from somewhere for their afternoon meal. While she stayed on guard and let her two baby crows have the meal, one of the started dragging the other one out of the nest to have the food all by itself. Seeing this, the mother quickly gave a gentle blow on its tiny neck with her beak indicating that the two should share the food equally. Strange indeed, that even the most neglected creature in our society knows to teach it's child morality, which we often forget to teach our children being human beings.

Naome Syed, Mohammadpur

Mugging the Poor
A few days back, as I was boarding a rickshaw, the rickshaw-puller told me in a melancholy tone that he was having a very bad day. Apparently, a young man with a mobile in his hand got on his rickshaw and told him to go to mall in Mirpur 1. When they reached the location, instead of paying the rickshaw-puller, the man asked the poor rickshaw-<>wallah<> to bring out all his money. The foolish rickshaw-puller only had sixty taka on him and he handed that over to the young man. Content, the man turned and entered the mall and never returned. The rickshaw-puller also informed me that he didn't even have enough money to pay the owner of the rickshaw as rent. I wonder how someone can rob a poor soul like a rickshaw-puller. "Appearances are often deceptive." The validity of this proverb became evident to me after hearing the plight of this rickshaw-puller.

Wajahat Anwar, M.A. in English, Dhaka College

Police Check point
The other day my friend was returning to campus from Farmgate. Upon reaching Khamarbari, the bus was stopped by a sergeant-escorted by a few other cops. The sergeant, kept on urging the driver for 'documents', to which the driver gave his astonishing reply, "Sir, please let me go today. Income has been very bad because of the storms and rain." Oblivious to the constant pleas, the sergeant still pressurised the driver for the 'documents'. Finally giving up, the driver took a 100-taka note and slid it with the documents for the sergeant. Upon getting what he actually wanted, the sergeant didn't even glance at the documents he had been asking for the whole time. I greatly fear that this has become an everyday affair for the police and there is nothing we can do about it.

ABM Shafiqul Islam, Dept. of English, Jahangirnagar University