Dhaka Diary

A ghostly encounter
I was studying late one night, as my semester finals were going on. Suddenly, I heard someone crying. It was a woman, crying her heart out, in the middle of the night. Why would any woman cry and whimper in the middle of the night and that too at the university campus? I didn't get up from my chair, but turned around to see through the open window as to what was going on outside. I saw a middle-aged lady, covered in a white veil, screaming and crying like she had lost a dear one. This frightened me, since I could not comprehend the fact as to why a lady would cry outside my window in the middle of the night. There are no such things as ghosts, I told myself and shone my torch light in the direction of the. There was no one there! The crying stopped immediately as well. It was simply impossible for the lady to move away so quickly. What was it that I saw? Was I hallucinating or was it something eerie that no one can explain?
MAAM (340) SSHH

Brush your teeth twice a day
I wear braces and have to go to Dr. Zakir Hossain at the Ortho Dental Clinic in Dhanmondi for routine check ups. Two interns, who work under Dr. Hossain usually check my teeth and give me instructions as to what to do and how to keep the braces clean, especially after meals. I actually dread these interns, since they always seem to find something or the other wrong with my teeth, or how I maintain them. "You should always brush your teeth twice a day," they always say. At this age, it's very embarrassing to get lessons of brushing your teeth from the dentist, which is why I would dread my routine check-ups.

So before going to the dentist for the last check-up, I made sure that I brushed my teeth at least six times, so that the interns would not have anything to say. Even then, the interns found a little bit of a guava stuck to my teeth that I was munching on my way to the dentists. "You should brush your teeth properly, Jiti."

How was I going to make him understand that I did brush my teeth that day, and that too quite a number of times? This was probably the most embarrassing visit to the dentist ever.
Jafrin Jahed Jiti VNC

Bribing your way out
While waiting for a friend at Malibagh the other day, my eyes caught a traffic police officer, standing with a sharp object in his hand. He was moving from rickshaw to rickshaw and puncturing tires. When my friend finally arrived, we got on a rickshaw. I asked the riskshaw puller what exactly the officer was doing. He replied that whenever a rickshaw enters into that particular alley, the officer in charge of that lane charges the puller Tk 2. If any of the pullers fails to pay up, the officer just pokes the air out of the tires. We were silent after hearing this.
God Bless the law enforcers! Was all I could mutter to myself.
Md. Jabed Amin (Juwel) ICAB

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