Dhaka Diary

Lending a hand…
This incident occurred a few days back to my Arabic teacher (I call him, Ustadji). He was at the Farmgate bus stop waiting in the rain to board a bus. He had an umbrella with him. As it was the peak hour, there were a lot of traffic and people on the road. Suddenly, two men came and stood next to him. As is the nature of my teacher, he offered to shelter them from the rain and asked to step under the big umbrella. They happily did so. They left as suddenly as they arrived and did not bother to wait for the bus.
As my Ustadji boarded the bus he felt that his pocket was much lighter. He had been pick pocketed by the two strangers! Fortunately (for Ustadji) or unfortunately (for the "picks"), he didn't have a large amount with him. However, his pockets always looked big because of the chits and little sheets of duas and surahs that he would keep with him. Of course, the thieves did manage to take his phone index!
So, a word of advice to our pickpockets, take care, before you steal!
Mushfek New Baily Road

Traffic rules in Bangladesh
Like everyday, I hailed a rickshaw to attend my classes last week. The rickshaw puller asked me to direct him to my university, since he was new to the city. As I was directing him, I thought that maybe I should also familiarise him with the rules and regulations of the roads in Dhaka and give him some tips on the traffic rules as well. I began with the traffic signal lights. When the signal turns red, the vehicle stops and when it turns green, the vehicle starts to move again, I told him as he seemed to listen seriously. As I was explaining the rules, we approached a red light and the rickshaw puller slowed down as per the traffic rules. However, the traffic police was waving his stick, asking the traffic to go on, in spite of the red light. I could feel my cheeks burning red, as the rickshaw puller turned around, smiled and seemed to ask the question. That was one question I simply did not have a proper answer to.
Manik On e-mail

The Djuice effect
A recent advertisement of Djuice said 'at off peak hours Djuice to Djuice calls are free after 1st minute' and I guess it made a great impact on our instructor's mind as he was seemingly obsessed about it. The other day in the university, he was taking a class as we were trying to show him our assignments and he was marking it. One of our friends was looking very tired and was literally drowsing in class, drawing our instructor's attention. "What happened?" he asked. Saad, the sleepy-eyed friend in question was not very organised to counter with such questions. After thinking for a while he infuriatingly replied, "Sir, I could not have a good night's sleep last night".
"Hmmm", he wondered aloud and sighed. "Djuice." He added, making us laugh out loud in the midst of the tensed class room environment!
Ziyaad Tahreem Zawad NSU, Dhaka

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