Home  -  Back Issues  -  The Team  -  Contact Us
     Volume 7 Issue 45 | November 14, 2008 |


  Letters
  Voicebox
  Cover Story
  Current Affairs
  Writing the Wrong
  Follow Up
  Interview
  Environment
  Economy
  Reflcetions
  Human Rights
  Achievement
  Perspective
  Making a Difference
  Musings
  Sci Tech
  Health
  Star Diary
  Book Review

   SWM Home


Star Diary

Crazy Animals Let Loose

As I was returning home the other day, I saw a crowd in Banani. I approached the crowd to see what was going on, and found that an owner of a car was beating up a CNG driver. It seems that the CNG driver had shoved the car in the middle of traffic, though no damage was done. The scene was indeed very indecent especially since the car owner was swearing aloud in English as he was beating up the poor driver. Before he left the place, he made sure that he wounded the driver and made enough damage to the CNG. This proves that education in our country is really not changing much. We still go on behaving like animals on the street and beat up poor people in the open.

Molay Kumar Chakraborty
Department of English
Southeast University
Dhaka


The Old School Way

A few months ago our four-stroke (CNG driven) vehicle, upon a wrong turn on the road, was caught by a traffic sergeant. I went to the sergeant and saw that he had already filed three cases against the vehicle. I humbly requested him to reduce the number of cases, but he bitterly shot back at me, saying that he would not reduce the number even at his father's request. After a while, I met the sergeant at his office with the help of a low-ranked officer to talk to him about the cases. I just needed him to reduce the number of cases. What I heard from the sergeant shocked me - ''Mal Deo Dhara Kati'' (Give me money and I will reduce the number of cases). I see this man manning the streets even today. So much for ending corruption.

Md. Tarik Ali Chowdhury
Department of English
Leading University
Sylhet


Call of Nature

The other day after finishing yet another hectic day at the office, I got down from the public vehicle and was walking on the lane to my house. As usual, children were playing along on the road, the hawkers were calling out to the people to buy their products, a rickshaw or two were loitering around here and there and there was a black cab with no driver inside. Nothing appeared out of the normal to my eyes. But then a lady from a house was shouting at a man below on the road. I realised that the man was probably the cab driver, who was sitting at a corner and peeing. This scene is an everyday part of life and so accustomed am I to it that I subconsciously choose to ignore it. To my amusement, she was ordering the driver to get up and leave. “Ai utho, utho bolchi! Shahosh kom na to" (Get Up, I said Get up! How dare you). The poor driver was probably having a minor heart attack as his face went totally pale. He was looking around to see if anyone else was there witnessing this incident. He got up sheepishly, fixed his zipper and made a dash for the car, driving out of that lane as quickly as possible. The incident did provide some hilarity and worked a great deal to reduce my exhaustion but then I realised that we all must be stern and alert like the lady so that we can induce some civic sense into people who otherwise lacks them.

Ayas Ahmed
Mirpur 11, Dhaka


Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2007