Star Diary

SURPRISE!

Last Thursday, while I was buying groceries for my hospital in Kawran Bazaar, I met a wonderful elderly lady around 65-70 years old.  She was buying fish for her family. She was holding a heavy bag in her right hand full of grocery items and a bag full of vegetable and a small vanity bag in the left.  As there was huge crowd, she was being pushed around by people her. But she was not bothered at all. Assuming her to be a well behaved and soft spoken person, I asked her, why she had come to the market all by herself. "Today is my one and only son's birthday. I have planned that I will cook all the items that he loves to eat. That's why I am here to buy fish", she replied. "I wanted to do everything on my own, because it's a surprise that I planned for him!" she replied with a smile. I was really astonished with her plan. No other surprise plan in the world is as unique as our mother's plan.
Sayem Ahmed
Panthapath, Dhaka

The Passport Chronicles

The other day I went to the Passport Office to fix an error in my MRP. Upon asking the procedure to fix errors in MRP from the information desk, the person told me to get a new form and to follow the procedures for applying to MRP all over again. So I did as recommended and then halfway into the procedures, I was told by another official that I needed to use another form and get it signed by the respective authorities since I already had an MRP. Whoever gave me the suggestion from the information desk was wrong. I already had spent four hours to get to this stage and then again had to go back to square one. Upon completing the formalities and getting the signatures, and then another two hour course which comprised of walking up and down the stairs from third to sixth and finally eighth floor and then again to third floor, I stood behind a queue of apparently twenty women in front of me and twenty men on the other side. Then after spending another hour standing in line, amidst quarrels and heated up accusations with people for trying to break the line, I finally could submit my form and get a delivery slip and where I discovered that all these people were all being served by only two officials. On top of that, there were Ansars regularly intervening and giving extra forms to get them enrolled. While I was waiting in a line downstairs, a man (probably a middleman) was going around asking people whether they want to get their passport done in hassle free manner by paying him money. And they were probably in collaboration with the ansars who were interfering the lines and getting people inside. It is evident that everyone working in the passport offices has a hard job having to handle so many people, and there are many officers who behave really well and are quite helpful. Irrespective of all the troubles that we the citizens face, they do work hard. But these offices need to recruit more employees and need to find a way to get rid of the middlemen, to make the process easier.
Arshi Siddiqui
Dhaka