Finding the Unseen

by Taj63622

  Chapter 29

  His Baba left without seeing an engineer in his son. He did nothing to redeem his Baba from poverty. In poverty he was born, and in poverty he died.

  Suddenly, he had the sole responsibility of his mother and grandmother.

  Once, as he was heading for home, he bumped into a university friend, who was the son of an industrialist. The friend was smartly dressed, leaving a building in which he applied for a training position. After an initial difficulty in recalling his name, the friend finally recognised him. Each asked after the other’s health, their conversation finally leading to employment.

  His father got him a training position in that firm. The chief of the firm is a good friend of his father, who supplies the cement for this firm’s projects.

  He did not get this job on his merit. It was a business deal, and this boy was the negotiated price of his father’s cement. They entrusted in this boy’s hands the planning, the design, and the safety of a building.

  When the friend asked after his own job status, he reddened in embarrassment, admitting to working in a garment factory. The friend looked shocked and amused, and questioned that was he not a topper in his year. His friend advised him not to lose heart. It is a bitter truth of the world. It matters not what one knows, but whom one knows. “This is why I never bothered with studying,” his friend reasoned. He knew his father would get him a decent job somewhere. The other boys in his year did the same. Some of their parents were trustees of the university.

  That day, many truths fell to his understanding, but meeting his friend proved to be of great benefit. The friend promised to arrange some position for him within the firm he worked. It was not his desired way to acquire a job, but it seemed as if this was the only way.

  He never met the friend again. Once, he stood outside the firm, hoping to see him and get an update on the possibility of getting a posting. The watchman became suspicious, and demanded the reason to why he keeps this eager observation at the site. He explained, and becoming helpless, asked the watchman to bring some news of his friend’s whereabouts. The watchman obliged, adding that the friend is no longer in Rajshahi. The firm had won a contract to build a five-star hotel in Sylhet. His friend was one of the engineers in the team.

  He felt no shock or pain. Perhaps he was accustomed to hearing bad news. The only encouragement that kept his faith alive in humanity was the old man’s wise words. He must verily with hardship.

  Scarcely did he manage to gain a positive outlook on life that he received fresh insults to his injuries. Fowzia’s parents had fixed her marriage. Her suitor was a British Bengali, who has come to Bangladesh at his parents’ bequest to marry. He knew not what to feel or think anymore.

  ‘She wanted to wait for me,’ the Shahiraj of Rajshahi says in a whisper. ‘She did wait for me, but she is but a girl. She has little authority over her marriage. Her parents were overwhelmed that a British suitor had chosen her as his wife. He was a solicitor in London. He came from a good family and was of a gentle disposition. After marriage, he will take her to London, where she will spend the rest of her life as a Londoner. Her parents did not ask for her agreement. They had decided already.’

  He stops speaking, as if he was reliving the pain of losing. The silence ensued for a long while as the recollection refreshed his wounds. A tear rolled down her cheeks, followed quickly by another.

  He was a guest at her wedding. He saw what could have been his become someone else’s. His heart took its time to mend. He took a break from sending out any new applications. The factory saw him work longer than usual hours. When his mother pressed for the reasons, he would give some excuse or other. Sometimes she believed him, other times she would just walk away, feeling equally dejected.

  He had to bury the desire to develop a career beneath the need to keep the household running. The desire to become an engineer disappeared. Within two years, he lost his grandmother and his mother. ‘That was bound to happen,’ he says with a small laugh. How long was that mother going to survive, who saw her own child’s funeral? How long was that mother going to survive, who saw her son bury his dreams and desires?

  ‘The house became too quiet,’ he says into the surreal quietness. ‘Sometimes I would even hear echoes of my Baba laughing, or of the pots and pans that my Amma would use in the kitchen, or of the nutcracker that Dhadhi would use on her betel nuts. One day those noises would not stop. I kept hearing their voices. So I fled. I fled that empty house.’

  He ran and ran aimlessly, not knowing where to stop or go. Then, there, not too far from him, he caught sight of the train station. His feet came to a sudden halt. He got on the first train departing Rajshahi. He had no clue or care to its destination. He just wanted to get out of Rajshahi.

  Hours later, he learnt the terminus stop was Sylhet. The train’s journey had ended, and his journey was only beginning. He was on his own, but he was not alone. He was quiet, but he was amongst noise. He was wandering, but he did not feel lost. He explored the city in a trance. He did not want to wake up. It was becoming darker, but he was not scared. Perhaps if he were, then his stomach would not have complained of hunger. He could not silence those complains. He had no money to satiate his hunger. When the azaan for the sunset prayers commenced, he followed the call to the nearest mosque. There, he surrendered his future to Him. He no longer had the will or strength to continue. Men finished their prayers and headed home. He had no home. He sat helplessly, leaning against a pillar of the mosque, when fellow attendee approached him. “Why do you look so defeated in a place where Man’s prayers are answered?” the man asked almost cheerfully.

  His prayers have not been answered.

  “What do you seek in your prayers?”

  A reason to live.

  The man looked at him sceptically for some time. When he eventually spoke, he said, “Where there is no reason, there is freedom.”

  The man said little, but it had a profound effect on him. “Alom,” the man introduced himself, having noticed the positive reaction of his words.

  Freedom is that path bereft of fears and obligations. He found many good friends along that path. Alom was one such friend, and the owner of the dhaba.

  ‘The dhaba,’ the Shahiraj of Rajshahi says somewhat absently, before falling into a silence. ‘This flat,’ he nods towards the building, ‘is merely an address. My home is there, at the dhaba. My own left me, and strangers there made me one of their own. Sat there, in the dhaba, I came to many realisations. My job as a Street Entertainer is a result of one such realisation.’

  The Shapla Hotel opposite the dhaba was a construction site five years ago. He was at the dhaba one afternoon, contemplating the direction in which he wished to take his life, when a car pulled up in front of the building site. A group of smartly dressed men came out, amongst them being a familiar face. It belonged to the friend who promised him a job at the firm he worked in. One of the construction workers distributed safety helmets amongst the group, and he realised at once that the Shapla Hotel must be the project that called the friend to Sylhet. He could not quite understand why, but shamelessly he made a hopeful approach towards the friend.

  The friend was shocked to see him, said nothing, not even a greeting. Despite addressing the friend with his name, the friend looked at him as if he were a stranger. When other men of the group questioned his association with him, the friend shrugged at a loss. The group entered the site and he spent five years watching rubble and sand blossom into the five-star Shapla Hotel.

  The Shahiraj of Rajshahi fell silent again. Perhaps he was trying to come to terms with the refreshed despair. She said nothing either, quietly wiping those tears that trickled down her cheeks every so often. It was doubtless easier to accept the death of a loved one than it was to become a stranger to a friend. He walks over to the oil lantern resting on the ground, and lifts it off the ground. The moths, still entranced by the light, follow the elevation, flying wildly around the glass enclosure. ‘Men and mo
ths,’ the Shahiraj of Rajshahi says studying the lantern intently, ‘are the same. They are attracted to that which looks appealing. They become so foolish that they do not consider that there is no light without heat, and getting too close to heat can burn one. Like I have.’

  Two moths have already been destined to death by flying into the heated glass.

  ‘Maybe if I were the son of a rich man then I could have bought a job. Maybe if I were an Englishman, then Fowzia’s parents would have married her to me. I have lost everything. My dreams, aspirations, desires, have become ashes,’ the Shahiraj of Rajshahi states, placing the lantern on the ground again. ‘I no longer had a purpose to pursue a career. Who was I to make proud? I have failed against my circumstances. Like a coward, I have given up hope. I am human. I can endure so much. First, love left me. Then, family abandoned me, and then friends forgot me. Why,’ he asks helplessly. ‘Because I foolishly studied hard in a country where education is of no value? But I did learn something very useful,’ he adds as an afterthought. ‘In the end, I learnt that it is not what you know, but who you know that can help one to find betterment. I may be a first-class degree holder, but the grades are a few letters and numbers of no consequence. There is no dearth of talent in the country. There is a lack of discipline, of governance. Everything is about making more money, of obtaining power, of manipulating the weak so those born into wealth stay wealthy. The cement of Shapla Hotel carries the whiff of corruption. The rich become richer, and the poor abandon their homes to seek betterment elsewhere. The landlord of this building is one such man.’

  He is the living evidence of defeat against this country's poverty. Education is only knowledge and knowledge is awareness. That is all. It is the truth of this country. If he were the only unfortunate man to have experienced this misfortune, then he would have made his peace. But he is one of many. A girl is married against her will because an Englishman has come from somewhere to offer her a better life. A son must leave his parents because someone somewhere said there is a big opportunity to make money in the West. All the opportunities are elsewhere. Everyone leaves the unimproved for betterment. Is there no one that can leave the improved to make things better here? Is there truly no hope here?

  ‘Verily with hardship,’ the Shahiraj of Rajshahi repeats the wise man’s advice. ‘I have!’ he suddenly yells into the night, looking at the black sky as if he were looking for the Unseen. She becomes worried at once, conscious of the disturbance his yelling will have on the neighbours. ‘Where is my relief? When will better come?’

  She looked about the flats and houses around her. None peeked or glanced at the commotion. Everyone seemed to have slept through the Shahiraj of Rajshahi’s yells, as if they were aware to the reasons behind this disturbance. Finding no answer, he looks away from the sky, and turns around abruptly at her.

  ‘Will it come?’ he asks her innocently, his eyes bloodshot and tearful. ‘Will they ever stop playing the blame game and fix the problems?’

  She had no answer either.

  ‘Will change ever come?’ he asks her again. ‘Will better ever come?’

  She stood silent, watching him through her tears. He shook his head disappointingly at her silence. His gaze still on her, he retreats towards the flat, stumbling dangerously as he moves away.

  She kept her position, helplessly watching the Shahiraj of Rajshahi until he disappears completely. Any reply she would have offered him would have sounded like a pitiful reassurance. She did not feel pity. The tears that left her eyes were not of pity. He has lost much and many. Yet, he was not alone in his despair. The struggles were not unique to him.

  Beneath the night sky, she stood alone. How she wished to have confessed that better does not come, but betterment does.