by Shazia Ahmed

I hate Dada though Ma says it isn’t nice to begrudge old people because one day we must all be old and then we’ll be treated with the same kindness we showed our elders, and also, I mustn’t use the word hate. Ma says one day I’ll have to take care of her since I’m her little boy and Lopa will be married. She says it makes her sad to see that I don’t like to take care of Dada. Of course I’ll take care of Ma, she’s my mother and I love her. I don’t love Dada. He has a bad temper and since Baba left us four years ago, he’s not even family anymore. Ma says it’s her duty and besides, Dada has no where else to go.
   This year Dhaka seems different. Somehow it’s bigger and brighter. There are more cars on the roads; huge white jeeps like the ones the NGO people arrive in when they visit our village. I don’t really like Dhaka, but we come every Ramadan because the city folks are generous just before Eid and they have a lot of zakat to give away.
   Ma says one day she’ll send me to driving school, then I can move to Dhaka and be a driver. I hope I’ll drive one of those white jeeps. I’ll shoo away the beggars at my window, unless they’re blind, then I might give them ten taka or maybe even twenty if they look really sad.
   The first time we came to Dhaka, after Baba left us, we came to stay with my Choto Khala who’s a maid at a house. Ma thought we could stay with her, since it was a big house, but the madam said her home was not a hotel for out of town guests and so we had to leave. The madam wasn’t unkind; she gave us 300 taka and Ma bought a blue piece of plastic with which we set up a tent next to other visiting beggars, by the railway tracks. Last year the cops made us pack up our things and leave a few times, but this year they haven’t come even once. Ma says they’re busy dealing with the garments riots that are taking place because the factory girls want higher pay since the price of rice has doubled this year.
   Lopa joined a garments factory after Baba left us, though Ma says it’s a shame because she was doing well in school. Lopa says it’s hard to stand all day but she has three friends whom she chats with during lunch hour and her earnings are almost enough for us to buy a meal every day. I wonder if Lopa is rioting. I don’t really know what a riot is, but I know it happens when people are angry. I can’t imagine Lopa angry. She doesn’t hate anybody.
   This year begging hasn’t been too hard because it’s October and it’s not too hot, but I still have to remember to drink lots of water because the sun can make kids sick. It’s ok though, I don’t fast. Ma says fasting is for rich people. She says they have to fast because God has asked them to, but He doesn’t ask us to. We fast all year round anyway, and He loves us more. Back home, we usually eat rice and daal after sunset.
   I like Fridays best because frequently Ma feels festive and splurges on a big bag of peyaju. Those are my favourites and all the rest of the week they make me grumpy because the iftar walla fries them every afternoon and the khoshbu lingers over our tent and makes my mouth water.
   At night the tent smells like sweat because there’s Ma and the baby and Dada and sometimes a few other kids, especially if the night is rainy since we have only one small leak in our tent. Dada smells the worst. He can feed himself, after Ma puts his food on his plate, but he usually spills daal on his shirt, and then that stench stays on him for the rest of the night. That’s why I sleep outside the tent, under the starry sky. I don’t mind, except that some of the gypsy beggars bring their cows with them since they can’t leave them back home, and so there’s cow shit all over the ground and you have to be careful where you lie down.
   Once when Dada and I were begging last year, a lady with a green teep on her forehead gave me a 100 taka note, a crisp fresh one, not a dirty crumpled one with tape on it. She also patted me on the back and said it was kind of me to look after my elders. I think she may have been an angel. Ma says there are angels and djinns among us and we must respect everyone we meet because you never know if someone is really an angel or djinn in disguise. I was so excited I started singing and Dada told me to stop attracting attention and tried to grab the note from me. Usually I let him keep the money because he has a pocket in his shirt and I don’t, but this note was so nice that I didn’t let go of it, but neither did he, and the note ripped in half. Dada smacked me across my head with his free hand and I got so angry I ran across the road, without him. I ran all the way to the sidewalk and leaned against the brick wall and watched silently as he stumbled around in the middle of the road alone. He’s really old and because he has no eyes, he had to walk really slowly and a bunch of cars honked and swerved to avoid him and one car almost hit him. I wish it had. Somehow he made it to the sidewalk and sat down in a crumpled mass and started crying. When he stopped crying, I slipped my hand back into his and he didn’t scold me or tell Ma about what happened.
   The prime minister’s son lives just beyond the tracks and he travels in a big white jeep too. I saw him last year. He didn’t give me any money, not even when I told him Dada was blind and I was hungry. I don’t think he heard me; his windows were rolled up to keep in the AC air.
   I saw a girl once, with a skinny tv on her lap and I kept tapping at her window asking for money but really I was just watching her, because she kept pressing buttons like she was playing a harmonium with both hands and as she did so, little black scribbles like the letters in the Koran, came onto the white screen of her tv, and it looked beautiful. Maybe she was an angel too. When she finally looked up, I asked for money and she frowned and went back to her buttons.
   The city beggars don’t like us, they think we’re intruding on their business. I tried to be friends with the other boys but they don’t talk in the same Bangla as I do, and they have their own games, and I’m never included. I don’t really care, at least I’m free and they’re not. They have to give their money to the older folks who in turn give theirs to some neighbourhood mastans. Ma says we’re lucky to keep whatever we earn by the end of the day, especially because our earnings from this month have to last us for an entire year.
   Last year a mastan came to demand ‘taxes’ from us and Ma told him we were from out of town and not subject to his laws. He grabbed Ma by the shoulders and shook her up. It made me really mad to see him treat Ma that way. I told Dada what was happening and he told me to keep quiet. He said Ma could talk her way out of any situation. I tried to keep quiet but my eyes were burning and I couldn’t really see straight and Ma was so small next to the mastan. I grabbed a pile of cow shit from the ground and threw it in the mastan’s face. He got really angry. He let go of Ma and grabbed me instead and he shook me the way he was shaking Ma, only he had grabbed me by the neck and I could barely breathe. I kicked my legs around like crazy and I got him in the stomach. He threw me onto the road really hard and my head started to bleed and he walked away cursing, wiping shit off his face. Ma was mad at me, she had to take me all the way to the mosque where there was running water to wash the blood and shit off of me. She said I was being silly, not brave, and I must never use force to intimidate men. I asked her if I could do it when I was a big grown up man, and she said, no, not ever.
   There’s a girl who begs on our street, she wears her hair in two braids. Sometimes she sells candies or garlands of flowers, and sometimes she walks around with her baby brother in her arms and that’s when she gets the most sympathy, especially from the foreigners. There are many foreigners in Dhaka this year, more than there were last year I think, but they like the little girl more than Dada and me, so I usually let her approach them first. Sometimes if they are generous with her, I chase after them for their leftover change. The girl has a dead butterfly. She keeps it in a tin can with the rest of her scanty belongings. She says she loves the colours, but one day she’ll make a necklace out of its wings and sell it for a lot of money. Maybe I’ll buy it for Lopa, if I can save up some money by then.
   When we come to Dhaka, I miss the rolling plains of green where I am king, and the freedom I have to play all day with my cousins and friends, and the lake I bathe in, it’s so cool in the summer. But most of all, I miss Lopa. She always gives me a good night kiss, even when she comes home really late from the factory, even if I bunked Arbi class or was naughty that day, even if Dada was in a rotten mood and left no food for her, she still gives me a good night kiss.
   When I am a driver, I won’t have to lead Dada around the streets of Dhaka for money. I’ll buy him a house in our village where he can rest all day, and I’ll build him windows, even though he won’t see them, because the wind might feel nice. Lopa won’t have to work anymore and Ma won’t have to wear torn saris, because I know she feels ashamed, though she won’t admit it. She says I shouldn’t think so much about money, God has given us what He knows is best, and we must be content with it, because we don’t understand His reasons. At night, lying on the hard mud outside our tent, I try to remember the songs Lopa taught me. That’s when I feel like God’s not so bad and maybe I am quite blessed, because after all, I can see with my eyes, and I like to gaze at the stars twinkling in the sky, and they’re really quite beautiful.