Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
বাংলা
   
Saturday | 11 January 2025 | Epaper

Sing the Blues

Published : Saturday, 8 October, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 980
Moinul Abedin
Sadman trudges around the lake carrying his school rucksack as heavy as his life getting incandescent with rage. It is a hot, sultry morning, and to dry his streaming sweat and get rid of the extreme exhaustion, after slogging sometimes he slumps on a vacant bench of the nearby park. He spits with all might as if to let free the little portion of his fury.

An unknown bird from its secret abode tweets twice which echoes in his languished ears as 'Sad-man! Sad-man! A guy in proximity is listening to music through his ear phone squatting down on the bench, swaying his almost bald head with the rhythm, and an elderly couple round the corner are gazing at eternity in sombre silence.

Sadman sighs heavily, wipes the perspiration of his neck and forehead in his school's trousers and blankly looks up at the overcast sky biting his salty lips.

Baba's hardy slaps rained down fearfully throughout his poor body last night.  Ma was an impeccable accomplice with all her harshest possible invectives. His tab was snatched and hurled into pieces by the cruel duo. The reason was his mid-term result and his subsequent neglect for the improvement.

He received F in Maths and English and D in the rest of the subjects. While playing his favourite game in the tab (his uncle presented him on his 15th birthday), ma began to scream at the top of her lungs from the kitchen, "How long will you play, eh? Can't you begin studying now? Just show us some mercy…"

"What is the use of studying all these ma?" Sadman retorted, still glued on the screen.

Ma was pouring onion and spice in the boiling oil and the sizzle intensified her yell and annoyance, "Shut your mouth Sadman, you shameless, will you remain illiterate?"

Sadman detests to be interrupted during playing games and he is provoked to roar back, "You told you studied in University and now you are just cooking, baba boasts he is highly educated but he can't buy a car."

Hearing commotion his baba from the next room lifting his face from the Facebook and his ma being oblivious of the curry on the stove rushed towards their unruly child instantly to teach him the best lesson ever. At this very moment his body in association with his tab bore the brunt of their due parental wrath.

Baba dictated, "Never use any smart device before your final term. Your bicycle will be padlocked. Don't go to play football."

Ma sobbed, "Why are you shattering our dream, Sadman? We want you to be an engineer,"

 His preschooler sister Mayesha began to cry her heart's out witnessing the distressing scenario and ma-baba left to pacify her leaving him alone to negotiate with this routine episode of trauma.

Today on the way to school Sadman changes his mind and ends up being seated on the bench of the park. Why will he go to school? Only for listening to the boring talk and talk of the teachers? He spits once more. The elderly couple rises from the bench and ambles past him after some time. The old man's crystal-white shirt is an exact redolent of his Maths exam script which he submitted without making a single stroke of pen. His Maths teacher on the result day shouted snidely in front of everybody, "Good for nothing fellow! Couldn't you do a single Math even?"

Some of his friends giggled.

Sadman again bites his lips remembering the incident and feels a lump in his throat.

The baldy who was relishing music now lies on the bench yawning several times stretching his legs and quickly becomes motionless. He doesn't have an exam or homework, Sadman presumes and grows envious.

It is almost noon and the heat escalates even though the occasional gush of wind from the lake side struggles to make it a little tolerable. Sadman feels dehydrated and famished. When he is famished he is more choleric. He grimaces at his heavy school bag kept beside him and looks around, seeing nobody except for the nonchalant baldy, he picks up the bag and flings it into the lake water with a sudden and huge splash.

Does the baldy startle? But Sadman feels as light as the scattered and withered leaves under his feet. Another surge of wind fans him. A milky pussy appears from nowhere, and begins to sniff around him. It looks precisely like 'Whisker', Mayesha's cat. Ma and baba give her everything she wants, they always compete with each other to make her on cloud nine, albeit his case is different. He wants to be a great footballer, Christiano Ronaldo is his icon. Baba flares his nostrils, "A Footballer doesn't have any future, don't neglect your studies. Try to be a scientist."

Ma bickers, "Study hard baba, be attentive, don't you want to glorify our family?"

Now he cannot go to the field before his final exam, in fact only when he plays he feels that he is the king. He was in his inter-school team, but his name was crossed out for poor attendance in the class. The lump returns to his throat and he tries to fight back tears.

The pussy roams around outrageously, Sadman finds it pretty vexing and anger gets the best of him. He abhors Mayesha and her cat in the same breath, so he chases it, facing and cursing him with a vanquished mew it disappears.

Sadman is outside the park now. He feels ill at ease watching the children returning from school in droves. He squeezes himself behind a light post. A vendor is selling fuchka on the other side of the road. Sadman ransacks his pocket, he has only a hundred taka note which baba gave him in the morning as rickshaw fare. He is almost broke except for this 100 taka. While he is about to cross the road with a rumbling stomach, a scarlet car screeches and halts just in front of him. Alvi, Muaz and Raihan come out of the car.

They are his previous school's buddies and now play football with him. Alvi hollered, "Hi bro, what's up? What are you doing here?"

Sadman's face flashes with delight coming across them. He grumbles, "Not really good, baba beat me last night."
Muaz drags him towards the car, "Chill out friend, let us roam around the city the whole day."
Sadman gets in the car. Alvi offers him sprite and chips, he winks at Raihan and sneers, "We will make you have something today you will only laugh and laugh."
Raihan guffawed.
Sadman instantly soaks his parched throat, swallowing the full bottle, and begins to gobble chips.
The car moves. He leans back against the seat, closes eyes, and is too feeble and apathetic to ask where they are heading towards.
The writer is a First Language English Teacher, DPS STS Dhaka





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