When you start walking home from the office,
I'll become a giant monster of a snack-seller
and come before you hawking chanachur.
Hey chanachur...r...r...chanachur...r...r...hot hot chanachur...r...r...
In my tattered robe I'll stand right before you and make you laugh for sure.
...will you laugh...?
You'll look at me with tired, weary eyes, not even a glance, and as usual
you'll shoo me away...!
You'll say...go away! I won't buy chanachur! Go...go...
Then, suppose you call a rickshaw.
I'll quickly don the rickshaw-puller's garb
and appear before you just right.
So simple, no? A torn vest...and holey mobile pants...rolled up to the knees...won't that work?
Pedaling hard I'll come right before you on a rickshaw painted with colorful alpana designs.
Where to go? No fare needed, sir! Hop on! Let me take you part of the way?
You'll wave me away from afar...
You'll say, don't need it...go, go!
Rather you'll walk today...won't get on my rickshaw after all! Humph!
When you start walking absent-mindedly, then...?
I'll come dressed as a flower-selling girl. Face smeared with soot...dupatta tied at the waist...will that work, hm? In some dirty salwar-kameez? Oily hair...braided tight?
Buy flowers, sir...flowers?
Red roses—just ten taka for a few...will you buy?
They'll look so good in sister-in-law's hair!
I'll eat rice...with your money...take some, sir!
Go away, go! What will I do with flowers? Eh?
...get away from me!
You shooed me away? No matter!
You'll probably stop at the grocer's for a bit...
There...you've stopped...I can see clearly!
I'll dash into the shop's storehouse...
You told the owner, Brother, give me a seer of sugar!
I, the shop worker in cap and punjabi-pajama, went to weigh sugar on the scales and immediately...
the sugar sack fell and stuck all over my body! ...What to do, tell me! I've never weighed anything!
You, indignant, curled your lip in disgust and said, I don't want your sugar!
You didn't even buy sugar because of me!
How utterly useless I am!
You've started walking again...
toward home.
You've come quite close now...
There...opening the front door, going in!
I'm your courtyard's quiet cat now. Pitch-black body, ash-colored round eyes rolled up, watching you.
You're so very close to me,
your two feet right before me.
You came to the doorstep and knocked,
from the other side your wife says, Comiiing...
Here I am just watching you...watching you...staring and staring...
How beautiful your hand is...you're wearing a watch...lavender shirt, its sleeve rolled to the elbow.
In your other hand perhaps some papers.
You stand quietly with tired eyes.
Now your wife opened the door.
Now I'm a rushing wind...
I tousled your wife's black hair and went to your three-year-old's soft white cheek;
kissed him and lifted him into your arms.
Papa...oh papa...golden papa...darling papa...
How happy you look! How unburdened! How utterly tireless!
Ah, how comforting to see even another's child in one's own person's arms!
Chanachur...chanachur...
Chanachur? Do you eat chanachur now?
Since when...eh?
Alright, I'll bring some tomorrow...
Chanachur...chanachur...