Dhaka
Diary
The
Electronic Harmonium
I'm
a keyboardist and the worse part of being a keyboardist is
that you have to move around in the city with a huge coffin-like
keyboard case. People stare at you as if you are an extinct
creature in the zoo or something. A few days ago, I was going
to my friend's place in Banani with my keyboard in a CNG.
On my way, I was stopped at the police check post at the Tejgaon
link road where the policeman asked what was in the case.
"A keyboard", I replied. The official looked very
confused for a moment and inquired further, "What is
a keyboard?" It was then that I couldn't stop myself
from rolling my eyes and pondered for a moment as to how to
explain the object I was carrying with me, when it suddenly
hit me. "It's an electronic harmonium!" I quipped,
proud within for my quick innovative reply. Hearing this,
however, the police official got really excited and wanted
to see what this 'electronic harmonium' looked like. So he
made me get the huge case out of the CNG, open it and finally
had a look at the instrument with awestruck eyes. I bet he
had thought I had been carrying a bazooka or state of art
weapon inside the case in the beginning though!
Emran
Khan NSU
Child
Dadas
When
I was a student of class seven in Govt. Laboratory High School,
we had a school football team where I held a very important
position. I also had very good knowledge about all kinds of
football equipment. One day one of my friends, not so close
to me, told me that he wanted to buy a football from the stadium.
He requested me to go with him. Since I was considered to
be dada of my class, I naturally asked him to treat
me once the the football was bought. He readily agreed and
got the football that he wanted. The next day, he brought
some money to treat me, plus some extra money to buy a knife!
This time, some other friends of his went along with him to
buy the knife, however, mugged the rest of his money with
his own knife! They also happened to be dadas of
a different category in our school. Even though, the fact
that students bully each other and become dadas at
a very young age, many simply sympathised with the boy whose
friends turned out to be his foes.
GS
Shyamoli
Snake
in the Grass
A
fresh young lad all the way from Dhaka had arrived at our
University. He attended the Orientation as most FOP's, (fresh
of the plane), like myself, do. It was there where we found
ourselves getting acquainted, which is obvious considering
that my friend and I were volunteering at the orientation
to help new students. I was pleased to see this young lad
giving me respect as an elder and his youthful vigour and
enthusiasm were infectious as it helped raise my spirits after
a hard day's work. The three of us formed a friendship, which
naturally led to us extending an invitation to our new friend
to stay at our abode. Four others shared our residence and
one of them was an older bhai, also from Dhaka, who commanded
our respect. Naturally, our new friend had lots of money with
him so he needed to open a bank account. This elder bhai volunteered
to help him open it as a sign of good faith. How were we to
know that he pilfered the account number and the password?
Imagine my friend's surprise when the next day, one thousand
five hundred dollars were being transferred from his account
to another account right in front of his own eyes! Guess to
whom the other account belonged to?
MR
University of Windsor, Canada
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