MY BOI MELA EXPERIENCE

Photo: Ridwan Adid Rupon

Being a wordaholic in an era where book lovers are considered as rare as needles in a zombie-infested haystack, the Ekushey Boi Mela was a must-go for me. So after a few days of constant whining, my mother decided to take me and my younger brother to the holy gathering of book admirers, set up in and around Bangla Academy. We jumped onto a rickshaw and headed for Doyel Chottor.
After arriving, we climbed off our ride, got my shawl stuck under its tire and then pushed ourselves into the crowd. I was awed upon seeing the number of people still in it for books. But my brother, on the other hand, kept glancing at the chotpoti and fuchka stalls, nagging to know when we were going to “stuff ourselves up” (Of course, my mother ignored him and said “later”). We peeked into different book stalls decked with their attractive offerings. Standing steadily at one place was a thing of luck here, and I'm not the kind to push people around; so I received my fair share of pushes, step-ons and nearly crashed into angry couples. And how my brother managed to step on my poor, poor feet six times in a row with his newly-bought sandals when he was walking in front of me is completely beyond my understanding. The one thing I learned is the law of “Push or be Pushed”.
Nevertheless, I later realised that stepping on peoples' feet for no good reason can turn into an awesome sport when I (unintentionally) pranced on some guy's foot. God, his toes were so hard I thought his foot was a rock and so I just stood on it. But then after a while upon hearing some weird dude screaming like a little girl about his foot being stuck under mine, I silently looked down and moved my heel off his -- now almost bleeding -- foot. He shot me a glare while jumping around in pain, and since I'm civilised (unlike some people), I apologised. But what did I get in return? The guy yelled out, “Oh yeah? Just step on my foot again and then apologise!” What is wrong with this guy? I apologised, for crying out loud! I actually tried to step on his foot again, but I lost him somewhere as I tried to keep my pace up with mother and my brother.
After wandering around the entire Boi Mela and buying a few books (most of which were forced upon me by mother), we feasted on fried prawns, grabbed a rickshaw, got ourselves stuck in an hour-and-a-half long traffic jam, almost got squashed by a bus which was in my opinion being driven by a sociopath (I pity the passengers), and eventually reached home. Safe. Hopefully, next year's Boi Mela experience would be a better one.
Oh, and don't eat the fried prawns. They taste as if they were dipped in kerosene and then thrown into a bonfire. Seriously. My mother actually vomited.

Nuzhat Tabassum Tahiya is a 7th grade student at Bir Shrestha Noor Muhammad Public College.