GATE 27 - Sadiq Samad

GATE 27

Sadiq Samad

I was the youngest in an affluent family of my parents and four brothers. we lived in our  own house in Gopibag, Dhaka,Bangladesh a typical para(mahalla) neighborhood.

This story goes back since I was in class 8. Life was so colorful in my youth with endless dreams……….
dreams for the future with all the 7 colors of the rainbow. I was at an age and time when anything seemed possible. Life was all fun, adventure, excitement and laughter all around, never a dull moment. Life was a great cup of the finest drink and I drank deep from it.

I loved school, and its huge playground and basketball courts, like minded friends, and interesting teachers. Home front was as exciting or more, football every day after school in the afternoons in the neighborhood playground was something we looked forward to as earnestly as ever, but had to be back home by dusk. We played a lot of cricket but only in winter. Television watching was allowed for an hour at the most, I liked Robin Hood, Invisible man, The Saint (starring Roger Moore), Danger Man and so many more.

There were numerous ponds lakes and water areas in and around our beautiful city Dhaka with sparkling clear water and plenty of fishes of different variety. During summer holidays, we went fishing and swimming in these ponds for hours at length. After such exertion lunch was often with deep fried Hilsa, spicy beef and boiled rice with milk and sweet mango for desert. This type of meal makes you very sleepy and I would go into a deep sleep until it was time for afternoon football.

 Apart from these I loved to hangout in the neighborhood lanes and by lanes with my friends, scale all its walls, trespass through houses just for a shortcut, steal fruits from most neighbor’s trees, I was an excellent tree climber and some of my friends called me “monkey” for this. I also had equipments for reaping fruits, a catapult made of bicycle tube and guava tree Y shaped branch and used glass marbles for ammunition, this was for Bangladeshi berries, called “Boroi”. The other one was a bamboo pole with a Y shaped hook tied at the top, this was used for reaping mangos, lichis’etc. I often got screamed at, chased but never caught. In one occasion, I had to run away leaving my bamboo pole behind, which of course was impounded. But never mind, I made a new one the next day. I was notorious for all these activities and everybody knew me well, and complains to my parents was a daily affair. I got punished in many ways, spanked, grounded, pocket money stopped and many more.

But I was very popular among all my friends and all youngsters in the neighborhood because I was the centre point and best organizer for all recreational activities and readily available for friends in their times of need. I and some of my friends often got injured, (cuts and bruises) mostly from football, tree climbing, fish hook and wall scaling but never let our parents know and first aid was mostly done by me and with the help of the local pharmacist. Even today numerous cut marks are visible mostly on my legs, knee and elbows.

Our next-door neighbor was a small family of 4. Husband, wife and 2 daughters. The elder daughter a girl named Sweety was about 2 years younger than me. They had a small tin shed house with a big compound with lots of trees like mango, grapefruit, guava, berries and a lot of fruits from these trees were stolen by me. I once overheard Sweety’s mother telling her “Some guavas are ripe, get them in from the tree before Showki eats them up. The common wall between Sweety’s and our house was very low, about 3 feet and jumping to their house was easy.

Sweety used to learn singing rather early on Sunday mornings with a Music Teacher. It disturbed my holiday morning sleep and I mimicked loudly whatever she sang, after a while she was furious and her teacher left for the day. She complained to my uncle who lived with us and my uncle asked me why I mimicked her, I told my uncle that I too wanted to be a singer and was singing for myself, the excuse did not work and I was compelled to say sorry to Sweety and promise to her that I will never disturb her singing lessons again. It hurt my ego and I started thinking of revenge. Soon an idea stuck me. Sweety had a white cat called Mini which used to come to our house also. Next day when the cat came to our house I put it in a sack, took it to a far away barber shop and dyed it black and quietly released it back into their house. By evening I could hear a lot of commotion in Sweety’s house about the cat. How Sweety’s white cat disappeared and a black one arrived. It took Sweety quite some time to figure out what had happened but she could prove nothing, but cursed me saying ‘if you have done this Allah will never forgive you’.

On another occasion, I was up in Sweety’s mango tree thinking she is sleeping when she suddenly appeared shouting, while trying get down from the tree hurriedly I cut my palm deeply by a sharp edge of the bark of the tree and was bleeding profusely. Seeing me bleeding like that Sweety’s attitude suddenly became sympathetic, she took my bleeding palm saw it for a moment, told me to wait, quickly ran inside and appeared with some antiseptic Dettol and band aid and dressed my palm saying ‘look what you have done to your palm, what a mad boy you are ‘I said please don’t tell my mother.

 I had nick names for many boys and most girls in the locality like Blackie, Shortie etc. My relationship with many of them was a teasing one. I used to tease or taunt many of them whenever the occasion arose, mostly during disputes and at one point it became a habit.

Life went on like this until 25th of March 1971 when the Punjabi Pakistan Army attacked the unarmed Bengalis of East Pakistan, later Bangladesh, and committed one of the worst genocides in history killing about 3 million people. The Bengalis declared Bangladesh Independent from Pakistan, formed a liberation army with India’s help and started the war of liberation for Bangladesh which lasted for 9 months. I was 17 then and along with my 3 brothers joined the Bangladesh liberation army. After a bloody war for 9 months the Pakistan army surrendered on 16th December 1971 and a new nation “Bangladesh “was born.

We returned from the battle fields, but not my eldest brother. He was killed in a Major Battle at Rangpur on 20 th November 1971 only 26 days before the war ended. He was in command of a contingent of Bangladesh liberation army and was the only casualty that day. He was Shaheed Lt. Ashfaqus Samad and was awarded the 2nd highest gallantry award “Bir Uttam”. He  was a 6 feet tall handsome man ,22 years of age and a brilliant student of Statistics Department of Dhaka University.

Life for our family changed drastically after that. My mother a Principal of a big school in Dhaka was totally devastated as was rest of my family. As there were many beautiful drawings and paintings by my brother in our house in Gopibag, we never returned to that house until much later.

When I returned to that house in Gopibag everything was very different from the life that I lived there before the war. I found that Sweety and her family have sold their house and gone away and was not in touch with anybody I know. I felt a strange pain go through me. I realized that I missed her terribly now. I was wondering why I was feeling this way for someone I always teased,taunted and disturbed so much. I felt life won't  be the same with me without Sweety around.

In a newly born country, changed life, I completed my studies, started my own business and prospered.

I got married and migrated to Canada but kept my business in Bangladesh going. My family started living in Canada and I kept travelling between Bangladesh and Canada. On one such trip I was going from Dhaka to Toronto and was going via London. I had transit at London Heathrow for 4 hours. I was walking through the transit lounge when suddenly at a distance I saw a lady with a little girl and a trolly bag who was also staring at me with a strange passionate look. It took me a few moments to recognize her, it was Sweety, I was looking at her after 20 long years. I slowly walked towards her until I was only a few feet from her, we stood speechless, just staring at one another for , can’t tell how long with so much going through my mind. Then finally I said ‘aren’t you Sweety? Thanks, I was afraid if you will recognize me, she said. I learned that Sweety was also in transit in London and will be flying to New York in 3 hours. It was 2 pm in London and I asked Sweety if she would care to join me for lunch, she was happy at the proposal and we sat down for lunch. Sweety introduced me to the little girl who was her daughter. Sweety got married, has 1 daughter and lives with her husband in New York. I asked her about her husband and her life, she said it’s OK, her relationship with her husband is very formal, he is a very disciplined,methodical  person and talks very little.

 Do you have that cut mark in your palm,she said, I held my palm on the table ,'wow that cut mark is  still so vivid'. Are you still like that? I said, no but my son is. No doubt, like father like son, she said. I showed her my son’s picture in my cell phone, ‘wow what a handsome boy, looks much like you though ‘she remarked.

 Sweety was not eating her lunch and was just moving the food around with her fork, sometimes looking up at me with shy eyes and trying to say something. Then finally she said ‘are you happy'? 'I mean happily married?’ I said yes, I am OK, I am fine. She gave me a sarcastic smile and said, ‘men are so different, they forget and ignore the past so easily’ I said ‘why do you say that’. Then she said, did you get my letter? I said what letter? The letter I gave to your cousin Mina to give you, I said no, I never got any letter. Sweety said, I gave a letter to your cousin Mina during the war, I knew you were under cover and covert, the Pakistan Army raided your house twice and you would stay away from that area, I knew that Mina is in touch with you so I gave her a letter to give to you, and if possible get an answer . “O” I am so sorry, but Mina didn’t give me any letter. But I would love to know what was in it? It was about how I felt about you, she said, and how much I missed you when you were in the battle fields and weren’t coming into our backyard and the fruits kept growing and ripened with nobody to take them, I didn’t realize I would miss you so much. One guava grew big right in front of my window and started to ripen, I kept looking for hours every day at the fruit and it reminded me only of you, and how intensely I longed for you to come and take it and I didn’t realize that my eyes were wet until I touched them.

Months passed by and we didn’t pick the guava until it rotted away and was eaten by crows. During these months my mother never told me to pick any fruit from any tree, rather one day asked me if I have any news of you. I am sure she missed you too. The despise and annoyance about the most naughty and mischievous boy in the neighborhood changed to great respect and concern for who was now a Valliant freedom fighter. As for myself, I only wished that nothing should happen to you and you come back alive .We heard with great sorrow and sense of loss about your brother’s death in Indian Radio……….. how much I wished to be beside you that day.

 During this time I didn’t know exactly when I started loving you until I wrote that letter and gave it to Mina. It took me great courage and effort to write you that letter and when I met Mina about a month later, she told me that she gave you the letter, you read it and you said to her that you didn’t have anything to say to me.

Mina is my distant cousin and went to the same school that Sweety went to. I never liked her and knew that she had a crush on me. But Sweety didn’t know any of this. Mina never gave me the letter and lied to Sweety.

Sweety said, I took it that you didn’t feel the same way about me and I buried my childhood love deep into my heart and went away to the United States. But the irony is no matter how hard I tried I have not been able forget you for a single day in the last 20 years. I probably never will.

Our flights to Toronto and New York were being announced and we got up and prepared to leave, we moved towards the departure gates, moving slowly side by side , both deeply thoughtful but speechless , in a while Sweety stopped near Gate 27 and said ‘this is my gate’, she was about to leave, disappear from my life once again,  perhaps never to meet again. This time I gathered the courage that Sweety did in 1971 to write that letter to me, and grabbed her and drew her into my arms and held her in a tight hug ,touching her for the first and last time and whispered into her ears, while her soft tender hair and neck caressed my face “ please try to be happy my dear”. Sweety melted into my arms, desperately wanting this last hug and not letting go and lovingly whispered back  ‘Thank you…..Thank you so much’ , then slowly, quietly and elegantly walked and faded away into gate 27.

Sweety will never know that I will never be able to forget her as I will never forget gate 27.

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