PATC Diary: January 27

Dateline: January 27, 2015

This morning I woke to the cry of jackals. From afar, that sharp, hideous shriek makes listening unbearable. It's difficult to sleep through this ghostly wailing. Today's cry would have certainly roused even Kumbhakarna from his slumber—what am I in comparison! Wrapping myself in the morning's white sheet, I went to the reception and found red-yellow-white gerberas, chrysanthemums, and cosmos with soft petals wet with morning dew, their smiling faces waiting to greet us good morning. Looking at them, I thought, they are so good. A flock of white swans has begun moving, with rows of palm trees on either side. They wake before dawn breaks. As they welcome us, they gradually retreat. We walk. Dense green decorates both sides of the walking track. There, the whole morning atmosphere comes alive with birdsong and twittering. In their language, they keep chattering incessantly. How wonderful it would be to know what they're saying! At the very beginning of the book "Do Birds Have Minds Too?" I see: "There is hope that endangered birds will live well within these pages, unless millions of termites get hold of them, or your child pees on them, or you throw it into a river where all the fish have died and the birds have fled to survive, where there are no tadpoles either."

I too felt the melancholy tone of bird expert and explorer-writer Inam Al Haq when I visited Jahangirnagar University campus. The lake whose waters once hid beneath the crowd of bird wings now has bird visits that can be counted on one's fingers. We ourselves scared them away. They don't come as they used to. The youth who should have dreamed of returning to this Bengal in the guise of brahminy kites and mynas grows up in a melancholy-grey Bengal where no one grows up hearing bird calls. There are no birds, so there is no beauty either. In "When the evening breeze touched the banyan tree," Jibanananda became doubtful of this pain... as if storms came to the tired crowd of river mynas in Kalighat... In this time of famine, this morning's sweet cacophony of birds gave the day's beginning a different kind of significance! The rustling sway of leaves in the breeze, the lazy sweet sun caught between gaps, the dusty rural path—all these together seem to have adorned the bends in the road with the beauty of a hill park.

The clusters of ornamental flower plants in front of the International Training Complex and the boundary of thorny mehedi bushes surrounding it all repeatedly remind us... "Going there is forbidden, so one must go." After PT, we were laughing in such strange jackal-like voices that even jackals might have been afraid to approach. They would have thought, "Oh my! Who are these people again!" How childish we are! All of the father's children sleep within the father's heart...

My habit is never to bathe in hot water—not even in winter. The reason is that bathing in ice-cold water makes me feel brave. If I can 'successfully' bathe in freezing cold water, winter feels a bit less cold. There's such pleasure in entering the bathroom, flailing arms and legs, creating musical torture with my voice while pouring cold water all over my body as I please. The man who takes a shower in this winter and applies lotion to his hands and feet, lip balm to his lips—he is the truly industrious man. Despite my mother's hundred requests, I could never manage to do this task in my life. When mother calls at night, she asks whether my hands, feet, and lips are cracking. When I'm home, mother sometimes forces me to apply lotion and lip balm with her nagging. Tell me, don't any boys in the world do these things on their own responsibility? I leave my room for class a bit late. Almost every day, breakfast gets skipped due to laziness. Class is at 8:30, I leave around 8:15. At that time, no one is in the dormitory—everyone is at the breakfast table.

Our room boys, finding the entire dormitory empty, get into mischief at this time. They run around the whole veranda like children, mimic others among themselves, sing loudly in off-key tunes, recite dialogues from Bengali movies, playfully beat each other up, and imitate various animal calls. From my room, I listen to all this with amusement and laugh. When I come out and pass in front of them, they give embarrassed salams, some saying "Sorry, sir" for no reason at all. I look down, return their salams with a smile, and go down the stairs. The opening line of Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina" goes like this: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I think this applies not just to families but to all people. The face of 'happiness-joy-love' is more or less the same for all people in the world. At the bottom of the stairs, there's a huge mirror. Above it is written, "Am I looking fine?" Every day on my way to class, I check myself once in it to see if everything is alright. I believe in the principle of 'first impression matters,' so I try to pay attention to staying neat. Thanks to this mirror.

Ah! How many false consolations a mirror gives! Everyone sees themselves as Shahrukh-Aishwarya in the mirror. How terribly angry we get if this mirror doesn't lie! Only this one mirror's lying doesn't anger anyone. Every morning, a song gets set in my head. I keep humming it, and it surrounds and envelops me throughout the time. Today it's Manna Dey playing. "Ei achhi besh"... In my opinion, this is Manna Dey's most 'smart song.' Well, 'smart song' doesn't mean anything. It seems smart to me, so I made it up. While listening to this song along with a few others, I spontaneously start smiling mischievously. Let me give another example. Shrikanta's "Dhin ta na na na" also seems smart to me. Kishore Kumar's "Pari na soite" is also a smart song. Whenever I hear Manna Dey's song, I spontaneously start smiling sweetly, feel like looking around with mischievous glances, the surroundings seem beautiful, and who knows what else happens! I started walking down the corridor. "Ei achhi besh"... Uff! Why is this song so amazing?

The first class was the Rector's. A common session for all sections in the auditorium about etiquettes and manners. I remember some things, such as:
# When going to the boss's room, if you're taking another colleague with you, you must get the boss's permission beforehand.
# I've seen in police that one person from the same batch became Commissioner while another remained Deputy Commissioner. In the BCS exam merit list, the Deputy Commissioner was ahead, but the Commissioner superseded him. Yet I never saw any anger or resentment in him about this; rather, he always gave the Commissioner his due respect.
# A junior shouldn't extend his hand first for a handshake with a senior. Seniors should always be respected.
# Don't remember everything all the time. Don't say everything all the time.
# When a junior colleague talks about his wife to a senior colleague, he should say "my wife," and when a senior colleague talks about his wife to a junior colleague, he should say "your sister-in-law."

What did we learn in the etiquette class? During the break in the middle of class, we go to the washroom in groups and processions. There, lines form for solid-liquid-plasma disposal. Today, standing in line, someone was saying that a junior using the bathroom before a senior is unmannerly behavior. You let your senior use the small bathroom one day earlier, and your senior will give you the opportunity to use the big bathroom one day earlier. Understand the situation! After the session, the usual question-answer period follows. Sometimes there's a flattery competition there. Who can do more sycophancy than whom with more elaborate sweet talk. A few people, under the pretense of asking questions, keep flattering in an extremely annoying way. Their way of questioning and commenting embarrasses us. Can't such flatterers be stopped with a Rector's Medal? We want PATC to open a blacksmith shop. Medals will be needed from time to time. (For my friends' information, whoever comes first in PATC gets the Rector's Medal.)

The field attachment program starts after a month and a half. We have to work hands-on for two months in various organizations in any district of Bangladesh to gain experience. At the beginning of the next class, we were given a form each. It lists the names of 32 districts. We have to write 1, 2, 3 next to three district names based on our priority. We can't choose our own district, workplace, or in-laws' district. My priority was: Cumilla, Sylhet, Mymensingh. Class started, sleep started. Some of us have become born sleepers. Leaning back or sitting straight, mouth open or closed, waiting in blissful sleep while being 'present' in class for when the hour will end. Those who wear glasses get some extra advantage in this task. They can't be caught easily. Of course, most of those who feel sleepy in class are generous-hearted and don't say anything if you sleep. They know very well that students sleep in their classes. Let whoever is sleeping sleep! They're not bothering anyone. What's the need to say something to them and let everyone know that people sleep in my class? A household becomes happy through a woman's virtues, and a class becomes sleepy through the speaker's virtues. Though the case of born sleepers is different!

I'll end with a quiz for my batchmates. PATC teaches us to be right-wing. I mean, in the corridor, in the syndicate building, in the lecture theater—everywhere we have to walk on the right side. There are arrows drawn at intervals on the right side. It would look awkward to walk the wrong way. Well, in one place in the corridor, an arrow has been drawn in the wrong direction by mistake. Tell me, where is that arrow? Let's see who can tell!