Star Diary

The Smart Rootless Boy

Last Friday, I met some of my childhood friends after a long time. As it was the weekend we decided to meet at the Chandrima Uddyan, a place that is close to my home. As soon as we got together, we got much discussing various issues. All on a sudden, a street child, aged between 5-6 years old, came to us and begged for some money. Lost in our conversation, we did not paid any attention to him. When he noticed that we were talking about our studies, he smartly said in English, "Sir, please give me some money. I have been starving since yesterday. I have a little sister at home who is crying for food. Please help me by giving some money." Hearing his words spoken in such accuracy and confidence, we became astonished. One of my friends asked him how he could speak such good English. He replied that a student of the University of Dhaka had taught him these lines. As there are many foreigners in Dhaka city and they don't understand Bengali, it is a better mode of communication to approach them for money. He also added that the foreigners give much more amount of money than we do. Being happy with his answers, we offered him one hundred taka to buy food for him as well as his family. After that he left the place with the money. But we kept talking about him for a long time.
Habibur Rahman
Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka

An Honest Mistake

The other day I accompanied a friend of mine to a restaurant in Dhanmodi. We went there during the lunch hour, so we had to face a big queue there and it took us around half an hour to get to the cash counter. We placed our order, paid for the food and took the changes. Feeling tired we didn't bother to count the cash which we received and returned to our table being unaware that the cashier had given him less than what we were supposed to receive. He probably wouldn't have realised this till a long time afterward, if we did not need to order some more food and discovered that we had lesser amount of money in our hands. The amount was not very significant but the cashier apologised profusely and returned the money right away. My friend was dumbfounded by the honesty of the cashier.
Selina Alam
Dhanmondi, Dhaka