From the Graam to the Gram

6 AM

Alone on the outskirts of Cumilla city is the home of Hamidul Faader, an up-and-coming politician.

As the rays of the sun make contact with the solitary mansion, we get a glimpse into the bedroom of Faader through the window. He is asleep.

Within a few minutes, a woman enters the room. She nudges Faader in an effort to wake him, and as he begins to stir, she takes multiple pictures of him using her phone.

She leaves the room, no longer interested in waking Faader, instead, she is engrossed by the contents of the phone. She seems to have the Instagram app opened, but instead of randomly scrolling through her feed, she is on Faader's account preparing the pictures she just took.

Finally, she finds the perfect one and captions it #bedhead #earlymorning #earlybirdgetstheworm #willdeletel8r.

Pleased with the final product, she posts it online before retreating into a different corner of the mansion.

10 AM

The woman returns once more, this time, equipped with an air horn.

This time Faader doesn't fail to wake up.

"Ugh—Sonia, what are you doing?"

"It's already 10 o'clock sir, we need to get your day started," she said, before adding, "Your followers are waiting."

There's only a few other words that could have such a profound effect on a man.

Faader jumped out of bed, ready to carpe diem like never before.

After a quick shower and an extended session of playing FartKnight on the can, Faader was finally ready to go live.

He looked at himself in the mirror; he looked tip-top, a bit too perfect. Faader knew that in the world of social media, being relatable was in and perfection was out. He quickly messed his hair up and swapped out his RoleggsSeedmaster with a QwakioZ69.

12 AM

*LIVE SESSION STARTED*

"Ayy fam, whaddup? It's Faader aka the Brown Faad comin' to you live from muh crib."

He spun around showing the viewers a fake room resembling a tin shed er bari.

"Ya boi is working real hard to make sure y'all get your rights and [email protected]££T. So remember to vote for me in the next polls, and keep it real."

"And don't forget to follow me on Twitter, Facebook, and Soundcloud, where I'm going to be dropping the hottest migztaep this week featuring Weeb Khanz. PEACE!!"

*LIVE SESSION ENDED*

Faader sighed deeply. His line of work wasn't the same anymore. If you didn't have an online presence, you were "irrelevant", as the kids called it.

He missed the times when all you needed were some catchy campaign songs and a few.

"Good times," he thought, slowly beginning to reminisce.

At that moment Sonia stepped onto the set.

"Sir!!"

Her words pierced through the best part of Faader's day, and he couldn't help but sigh once more.

"Yes?" he asked.

She held up a box of Faaka Shaaban and Shonar Harvest homemade bread.

"It's time to do your sponsored posts, sir."

Faader sighed for the third consecutive time that morning.

Faking an online personality, a relatable one at that, was a lot of work.

As he began stretching in preparation for his photo shoot, he thought of all the other disingenuous stuff he had to do on a regular basis to keep his viewers and voters with him.

"It's all part of the job," he thinks out loud in an effort to console himself.

Aaqib is stuck in an existential crisis loop. Send help at [email protected]