Hartal Diaries
Marital romance and brain masala
0530: the cellphone alarm goes off and I clamber out of bed to silence the unearthly jangle that could wake up the dead! Out of the blue I'm reminded of the alarm clock that I used in university – that had to be placed in a metal bucket to amplify the alarm to wake me in my single bed cubicle and also my neighbour in the next room who was ever so grateful , as he slept soundly through the ringing of his fancy musical alarm clock.
I slowly consume my half litre bottle of chilled water, sit in the open balcony for a few minutes, then perform the wudu and say my delayed salat followed by tilawat of Surah "Mulk" – ("The Sovereignty"). As I boot the desktop to check on e-mails and facebook, Eva – my wife of 35 years – walks in groggily saying, "How about breakfast at Star? The driver is on leave, it is hartal today and tomorrow, may be the maid won't turn up and I'll be stuck alone in the house all day!" I say that would mean my giving up the morning jog, but succumbing to her incontrovertible (as always?) logic I agree, my mouth watering up to the thought of brain masala, crispy nan, golden paratha and the awesome milk tea served at Star Banani - not to mention the affectionate, chatty bearers/waiters that wait hand and foot on us with their winning smiles.
I tell her we'd move out at 0800 after I shower and dress (all the while listening to BBC Bengali). Then I remind her it will have to be by rickshaw as I daren't take the car out for fear of picketers who may chuck stones at the car as they did once more than a decade ago to shatter the windshield of my car then. At the thought of the rickshaw ride – Eva screws up her face – she hates rickshaws – but we have no choice – either the rickshaw or no StarBanani.
Five minutes to 8 – we are both ready and step out of our apartment building, leaving the flat keys with the darwan with instructions for the bua who comes in at 0830 to sweep and wipe the floors. The rickshaw wallah gives us a welcoming broad smile and pedals us to Star Banani in no time, as he can use the main road which on non-hartal days are off limits to rickshaws.
We order our pre-breakfast first cup of milk tea asking the waiter to go easy on the sugar as the regular milk tea here is syrupy stuff – he grins knowing that's our usual. Then I ask him for brain masala, chicken giblets with dal, one crispy naan, and one special golden brown paratha – to be served after we've savoured our milk tea.
Eva and I sip our teas, I glance through the Daily Star and Eva regales me with her reminiscences of her childhood and our early days of married life, snippets of long lost memories of our two kids (their favourite dresses, their first day at school), her own classmates in Islamabad, how she has lost track of them, her few short months at Dhaka University before she married me. These morning tête-à-tête's take me deep into this beautiful woman's labyrinthine mind and even after 35 years of marriage I marvel at how difficult it is to understand a woman, to try to know the answers to the eternal question – "What does a woman want ?" I snap out of my reverie – when the waiter serves the breakfast with a few slices of lemon and a couple of green chillies – the "salad". I fold up the newspaper, grin sheepishly at Eva, without letting her understand that I was inattentive to her, lost in my own thoughts - and we both dig into our hot breakfast with gusto.
All inclusive the breakfast costs us Tk. 222 including Tk. 29 VAT – that's under 3 US dollars for two people – I remind Eva that a few weeks back in LA – we were having sumptuous breakfasts with our kids at fancy joints like BJ's and Chili's costing US dollars 12 per person !
We head back home in another rickshaw and I ask Eva if she remembered when last we two had traveled together on a rickshaw? Neither of us couldn't recollect – may be decades ago!!!
Back home – the bua has arrived – she opens the door and greets us with a big Eid Mubarak and then I realize it's only the fifth day after Eid!
I have to head for work – we are open today – though because of the hartal and the long Eid holidays – business will be lousy. I don my NY inscribed baseball cap and walk down to Gulshan Circle 2 to a waiting CNG auto rickshaw – telling the driver to take me to my office at Bijoynagar and reminding him that because of hartal the roads would be deserted and it would take him only 15 minutes to reach my destination and hence I'd be paying him Tk. 120 only. He cocks his head at me, then gives me a mile-wide grin and says today is your day, other days I'd not go for a single taka less than 200. I tell him lackadaisically – all year round you guys overcharge us, only once in a while do we get a chance to get even with you! He smiles and retorts, "Well, for you there is some advantage to be drawn from hartal!". I sigh and say to myself, "If only you knew how badly hartal impacts on me as a businessman."
0832 – 0847, I am in office in 15 minutes – the normal ride on "normal" days in my comfortable car takes a minimum of an hour and I am again reminded, "there is some advantage to be drawn from hartal".
Sitting behind my desk – I am back to my usual grind, back in the rat race - I have 700 people on the payroll – may be 3000 mouths to feed – most of whom are yet reveling with their near and dear ones in their village homes on the long Eid holidays further extended by the 48 hours hartal. They don't have a care in the world as to wherefrom and when their next salary will be coming – they don't understand P&L accounts or balance sheets or debt servicing or have pressures from umpteen creditors.
Uneasy indeed lies the head that wears the crown!
Tanveerul Haque is a businessman who loves travel and books and is a member of The Reading Circle. E-mail tanveerhq@yahoo.co.uk
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