The Market of the Inedible

No tea. A tea stall. People lined up in front of the shop buying tea. Prepaid system. You had to pay for tea standing in line too. I showed my token in the queue and got my cup. A long line of cars on the street outside the shop. The clock was nearly touching midnight. And yet this tea stall had such a crowd even at this hour! The shop's in Gulshan. Looking at the queue, it seemed most of the people were from the elite class.

I bought masala tea—4 cups. Seventy taka per cup. How was the tea? (The tea, not the leaves; I drank the tea, not the leaves.) Let me review it.

After drinking it, I thought: seventy taka was wrong. Too little. Should have paid more. This inedible swill would be overpriced even at seven taka! If I'd paid more, at least I could have convinced myself I wasn't paying for tea—that the seventy taka was for this moment, sitting here with four friends, surrounded by beautiful women, watching the crowd drift past, chasing the cold away, lost in easy conversation. Surely this joy wasn't worth just 280 taka total. This hot drink at seventy taka makes no sense. If the price had been higher, this irritating sting of feeling cheated wouldn't gnaw at me now. If I'd paid for the moment instead of the tea, it would have felt right.

In Bangladesh, you can sell anything. You just need to know where to sell it, to whom, in what manner, what product to push. Quality doesn't matter here. If you know how to feed people properly, you could sell poison in this country like it was a pancake!

(I've altered the shop's name for obvious reasons.)