PTAC Diary: February 5

Dateline February 5, 2015

"I bought Bengali with my own money / it wasn't anyone's gift..." Abdul Latif's song plays every day as we walk during PT. It's a favorite of one of our colleagues—he plays it every morning during his walk. This dawn I watched a plane fly by with red and blue lights blinking. In this quiet morning it competed with the birds as it passed—in flight and in sound, making that tremendous noise that used to startle me as a child. As children, whenever a plane would fly overhead, we'd throw our heads back and stare up at the sky, wondering: is it really that big? Then how does it fit between my two fingers? I'd trap it in the small distance between my index finger and thumb in childhood's measure, and tuck the entire plane into my pocket. At that age I wasn't old enough to understand noise pollution, so there was no noise pollution then. What we don't know, don't understand—how much does it really exist?
Something happens. When I write or think about something, suddenly an old thought or memory peeks out from a corner of my mind and disappears again. It just happened a moment ago. I'm writing yesterday's diary today. Writing about the plane and wondering if coffee will be available at the coffee corner on Friday. In the midst of this, the thought came and vanished again. These lost thoughts are worth lakhs of rupees. How much gets lost in a moment's inattention! How does that feel, tell me?
Over there where lights are blinking on and off, some cars are parked. Behind the lamppost stand three red brick buildings. Life flickers on and off in those lights. Did they become different this morning? I see them every day. But it never happens like this on any other day! So are some days just different? Or are some things different on some days? The yellowish moon is rising. How many days it's been since I met this moon! The spell of brick and stone is such a wretched spell! How many days since I laughed looking at the moon, bathed in moonlight, lost myself in the night's enchanted embrace! The morning sky clings to the moon's body. Whether light will break or not—watching the quarrel between last night and the morning sun, a group of white-clad people moved ahead on the jogging track. We're walking beside the high walls topped with barbed wire. Beyond the walls, giving the finger to dawn's silence, monster trucks race along. When I was small, didn't we used to climb over such barbed-wire fences to retrieve cricket balls? How many times I tore my shorts, scraped my knees. I'd fall asleep crying after getting beaten by mother. Where are those mischievous days hiding now?
On the other side of the park, a pile of stones. As children, didn't we collect stones while walking along railway tracks? If we found a couple of unclear, bright white stones, what joy! Our pockets would tear from the small person's "priceless" treasures. Bringing them home, I'd feel like I'd returned with the wealth of seven kings!
Singing Chaplin's "Autumn Rain" as I walk, I notice the scattered, thin trees in the leaf-strewn forest—their twisted portraits look at me and chuckle, saying "Mischief, eh?" Passing by the residential area. A colleague reminds us: residential area, stop singing! Walking, I see a kind of greenish melancholy spread across the leaves of the drooping trees that touch from both sides above. The wind carries strains of sulking. I told them, don't be sad, I'll sing again soon. At my feet, beside the path, the touch-me-nots have spread themselves out, waiting to be shy. I touched them. How delighted they were to feel shy! Their joy is in that curling up! With such eager anticipation, how long they sit waiting for this little bit of shyness! In the fields of radish, cabbage, and pumpkin, winter's dance has awakened. The rough leaves of bottle gourds are wet with dew. The urge to eat hot rice like flowers with tender radish and climbing perch curry cooked by mother died instantly in the tennis court's wild gesticulations of front-back, left-right.
Today is Thursday. No sports this afternoon. Today everyone goes home. During PT sessions, the trainers anyway make suggestive remarks. They've named the exercises for stomach, waist, and thigh "secret exercises." Such things are said that would make any normal person's ears burn. Fortunately, our ears are already hot from warming up during PT, so hearing all this doesn't make them any hotter—I mean, the ears don't get hot.
I went to the first session in the golden morning sun, falling in love with the crowd of fire and silver trees. These past few days I've noticed that Bengali officers are very shy creatures. We're connected on Facebook, exchange occasional hi-hellos in the inbox, yet when we meet face to face: "Why should I speak first?"... that attitude. I think, what's the harm in saying hi? They also think, what's the harm in saying hi? The train of unfamiliarity stops right at that little station of hesitation. Who will start it moving? I was born with the infinite memory capacity of not being able to remember people's names. I remember faces, but where names go, I have no idea. Luckily, everyone wears name badges on their chest in class, otherwise I'd have to manage with just "hey brother." In my own case, I still remember my father-given name and continue repaying that debt to my father.
Nirad C. Chaudhuri's last book came out when he was 99. Khushwant Singh wrote the novel "The Sunset Club" at 95. Great people maintain their creativity even in their final years. Those who are even greater want and remind others so that others become creative about them. Like George Orwell's Animal Farm: all great people are great, some are greater than other great people. Thinking this, I'm dozing in the back row. The course coordinators are walking around, gently tapping shoulders and backs to wake anyone who falls asleep. I'm mentally mapping what the sir might say after each point. Funny thing is, quite a lot matches up. Ah! I'm thinking, should I ask a "groundbreaking" question to make sir happy? But where do I get so much oil? It's been almost a decade since I put oil in my hair. Sitting here I've discovered a theory. The theory is called the relativity of time: "In interesting classes the clock runs fast, and in boring classes the clock runs slow." Leaving the burden of proving this to the sirs, I started attending class while stealing glances at a beautiful girl. Ah! I don't understand how God made such a girl!
Civil servant Ashok Mitra wrote "Three Score and Ten" about his life and work, another civil servant Annadashankhar Ray wrote "Life and Youth." Reading these books I learned how "un-boring" they were in their colorful lives. Their profession was for life's necessity, not living life for profession's necessity—that's why we still remember them. The same applies to this side of Bengal's Shahidul Zahir, Hasnat Abdul Hai, Abdus Shakur, Akbar Ali Khan and others. The tradition of bureaucrats writing is quite old. It began with Geoffrey Chaucer, the father of English literature, in the fourteenth century. It continues. It will continue. Why am I thinking all this? Why am I writing? I don't know.
I'm remembering bougainvillea. There are several trees of this flower in PATC's garden. When we walk in the corridors, they seem to welcome us with great affection. I like thinking about them. But why in class? I don't know. Just then came the Q&A session. So many questions! Ah, some people seem smart right until the moment before they open their mouths. Listening to questions and thinking, such questions can also come to mind! Would these come up if you searched "stupid questions" on Google? But happily, the quality of questions is improving day by day.
In the next class, sir got extremely angry with us. He's normally a very calm person, but he was literally trembling with anger. There had been some misunderstanding. Whatever excuse we gave, none pleased sir. Sir's stern eyes and face showed tremendous anger and hurt. Watching sir, Al Pacino from "The Godfather" came to mind: "Only don't tell me that you're innocent. Because it insults my intelligence and it makes me very angry."
Next class. Something sir said reminded me of an experience from my Korea trip. There isn't a single piece of litter on Korean streets (literally). No one there could even think of throwing trash on the street. I would wait, looking for a dustbin to throw a tissue or chewing gum. I'd wrap the gum in tissue and carry it in my blazer pocket. Yet when I returned to Bangladesh, I felt no shame throwing litter anywhere. I'd roll down the car window and toss out biscuit packets. I'd think, everyone does it. I didn't think that I'm not everyone. Bengali intelligence has different conditions in different countries. In other countries we remain gentlemen, but returning home we revert to our old ways. Foreign dogs are good boys and local dogs are bad mutts. We bathe them with shampoo and these with rotten soap. You're a gentleman. Well. A gentleman by choice? Or, a gentleman by force?
Today's class was on environmental pollution. We were questioning sir as if sir himself was responsible for all pollution and if he wanted, all problems would be solved. When asking questions we forget that sir has come to teach, to address problems, not to solve them. I noticed something funny in today's class. Sir was showing an air pollution video clip on the projector screen. Its background music was playing—the music from the final scene of Soumitra-Suchitra's "Bound in Seven Knots." I watched and wondered: is this simile? Or metaphor? Or proper allegory? Or just horse's egg? Dozing, I heard sir saying that the picture of research in Bangladesh is: they start a project, bring money for it, divide that money among themselves; while doing this they create another project with some part of it, bring money for that too, then that money also gets divided. The money-making scheme continues this way. The project never gets completed. We wake up while sleeping—how will we progress? Hearing this, my ears perked up. I whispered: sir, not everyone is like that, some sleep while staying awake.
There's an exam next Monday. The post-lunch session was about that. A short session—how the exam will be, what type of questions, which modules—sir talked about these things. This session was quite a silly one. At the end, everyone was asked if they had any questions.
Even about this session, I never imagined the question-bank gentlemen might have queries. Proving all my assumptions wrong, the questions came:
# Sir, I have a question. Well, it's not absolutely necessary, but asking this seems important to me... (Hearing this preamble to the question, I silently panicked! Oh, you fool! Why so much ceremony...??)
# Sir, will the question paper and answer sheet be together? Or separate?
# Sir, do we have to write the answers maintaining serial order?
# Sir, you said we can write answers in either Bengali or English. Can I write one in Bengali and another in English, like that?
# Sir, will seating plans be provided?
I was thinking questions like these might come, such as: "Sir, can we answer with any ink pen?" "Sir, what color ink pen is recommended for writing answers?" "If we need to pee during the exam, can we go, or do we have to hold it in?"
Sir went one step further. In response to one question, he said you'll have to answer any 5 out of 7 questions. If someone answers fewer than 5, their paper will be evaluated based only on however many they did answer.
I'll end this piece with an imaginary Q&A:
Question: Who wrote Rabindranath Tagore's poem 'Sonar Tari'?
Answer: Sir, why is it called 'Rabindranath Tagore's' here? Because he wrote the poem? Or because it was in his collection?
P.S. My five-year-old daughter Mini cannot remain silent for a moment. Having been born into this world, she spent only one year learning language, and since then, for every moment she's awake, she doesn't waste a single instant in silence.
. . . We are all Minis in this realm of our Mini! We are all Mini-officers.