Idle thoughts on a rainy day

Rainy days are all set in, with the skies overcast, thickly eclipsing the blazing sun. Rumble of clouds shakes the air before bringing in torrential downpour pleasantly lingering for days. Nature takes a fresh shinning look with washing out all dusts and dirt gathered on herbs and meadows, leaves and foliages of the standing trees in the pre-monsoon days of scorching heat.

Severe blast of rain-fall of the season accompanied by s qually wind shakes the crow-nest cuddled between the branches of the towering trees and that often causes fall of rain-drenched crow-chicks on the ground. In the first day of Monsoon as we call it Asharoisshoy, Kadam phool bloom in abundance with its eyes open wide in the branches of shady evergreen Kadam tree to tell everyone who matters that the rainy day is now in place in nature.

With his inborn ingenuity and all poetic grandeur, Tagore wrote: "Badal deener prothom Kadam phool Koreccho daan. Aami ditey eshechi sraboner gaan". (The first Kadam flower made of Badal-day donation; I have come to give voice of auditory) Exotic sounds of rain drops create savoring symphony in the minds and souls with added pleasure of being immersed in the music of nature emanated from the croaks of frogs happily playing in the pool filled-in rain-water that they have been longing for; in their long and enduring hibernation time.

Humans with creative mind and poetic merit get themselves absorbed in their creative ventures and write poetry and lyrics in the eye-soothing ambience of light and shade with incessant rain fall cascading down the canopy of thickly cloud-laden skies. But how shall an un-circumspect novice of my likes, walking on the strange and undefined path of life without such a high faculty of mind, fall back on when nature takes a romantic turn in the wet rainy days?

A neophyte of my likes without such poetic and intellectual competence simply falls back on the most insignificant or seemingly irrelevant, strange and funny episodes of by-gone days which pop in through the windows of mind and venture to portray them in words as bi-product of his idle thought in a lazy rainy day.

An old saying goes "fact is stranger than fiction". Many strange and funny things either noticeable or unnoticeable happen in one's lifetime, no matter how insignificant they are, often worth mentionable in the strange tale of life. In order to narrate an event of such an insignificant nature, I now fall back upon a reverie with reminiscence of one sultry and blistering summer day when I was attempting to travel back to Dhaka from Chittagong, a couple of years ago, by a long distance Volvo luxury coach service. To my bad luck, I had missed the bus narrowly because of my inadvertently reporting late at the bus station. I asked the attendant at the bus station to stop the bus, by a cell phone communication, which had started its journey only around 10 to 15 minutes before my reporting.

The dutiful and obliging attendant informed me that he would try to contact the driver of the running bus over cell phone to stop it and further asked me to follow the bus quickly by the CNG scooter that had brought me down the station. I admired the good gesture of the attendant and started chasing the bus in full gear which was far ahead of me at that time. I was making a frantic attempt to catch the bus by a tri-wheeler CNG without the required speed, which resulted in the widening of the gap between me and the bus in motion further and further.

It was like a fabulous race between hare and tortoise that we had read about in our cheerful childhood days. After traveling about 20km by the tri-wheeler, at last I found that my designated bus was waiting for me along the highway. With a great sigh of relief I felt I had caught the bus the way the poor tortoise had caught the sleeping hare on the road side after a slow and steady race. With a sense of great accomplishment, I had alighted from the poor tri-wheeler with saying goodbye to it and briskly boarded the waiting mighty bus of my choice.

The moment I whisked in, I fell on a gloomy and unpleasant environment and noticed that a few passengers were seemingly disturbed for their wanton detention caused, by my late arrival. As an outburst of accumulated anger of last few minutes, the first volley of indirect attack on me came from a passenger who, presumably to his utter disappointment, having seen me alight form a poor tri-wheeler and my subsequent boarding the bus elegantly; expressed his resentment and asked the driver "Hey -you, is this the private that you had talked about? You told us that the late coming passenger was arriving by a private (read private car)"!

I at once got the message that I was not rated duly and was being sarcastically undermined because I was travelling by a tri-wheeler---the transport of commoners and not by a private car---a symbol of social dignity and pride. I expressed my deep regret to the driver for my late arrival which had caused inconveniences to other passengers.

After hearing from me words of apology, another co-passenger reacted sharply and asked me to say sorry to all the passengers on board. I immediately responded to his unfeeling call and again expressed my words of sorrow to all the passengers.

I further said that if my apology was not enough and accepted, then I was ready to be forced out of the bus on the spot to the (sadistic) pleasure of all the passengers. That perhaps had carried some message to a seemingly rational passenger sitting on the rear seat, who said, "Let us change the subject of discussion and travel with ease and pleasure". I expressed my thanks to that passenger for his kind words and kept myself seated silently. While traveling, both my inborn instinct and egoistic rationality induced me to give an impression that I was not a person they were thinking of, who was to be treated so basely.

My instinct was hammering my brain boldly and then consequently I resorted to an old funny and outlandish tactics to speak English all the way, like a TV commercial for the air traveler suggesting first class all the way! Consciously I was replying to my all incoming cell phone calls in English and was deliberately prolonging my conversation in a foreign language that truly I did not have much mastery over either.

After sometime I noticed that my tactics started working and the co-passengers who I had found a little harsh and rude a few minutes ago started talking to me on casual matters for making me a little easier. I was participating in discussion in 50:50 English-Bangla dialect, because 100% unalloyed English in that given situation would not perhaps last long for the obvious reason.

It is long seventy years since the British have packed up from this sub-continent, ending their rule of long 190 years. But, wisely, they have left behind them the English language for their former subjects to use it as a protective shield against any possible hazard the former subjects are likely to encounter in a delicate and flimsy situation as has been described above. As the proverb goes: 'All that glitters is not gold'.

At the end of the journey, the fellow passenger who I found rude and sat just next to my seat said with a little remorse, "Brother, I misunderstood you, please forgive me if you are hurt". Apparently I had no words for him. With a sardonic smile, I simply gazed at his face to fathom the degree of remorse he had in his mind.

That further gave me a feeling that his remorse and apology for his immediate past conduct on a flimsy matter were perhaps attributed to a casually English language practicing man without perhaps giving due vent and consideration that a non-English speaking man with purely a local get-up could be a better human being in the multilingual and multifaceted stage of life where every human being occupies a place as an actor/ actress for a certain moment of time to play a role. All that does not shine is not certainly lack-lustrous just the way all that glitters is not gold as I reason which brews from my idle thought of the savoring rainy day.


The writer is a former civil servant