Life, or something close to it.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
Samuel Johnson

Everything happened so fast. There was no time to think, no time to analyze the pros and cons of the situation, no time to worry about what the repercussions would be. There was something to be done and he had done it. Later lying in a white bed, staring up at a blinding light he would wish he’d stayed back. He would wish he’d just let the boy die.
There was this kid, eight or nine, in the middle of the road. Was there a toy, a ball maybe, that he was trying to pick up? He couldn’t remember. Just a kid and a jeep rushing through, trying to beat the traffic light. So, without thinking he ran and he jumped. He pushed the kid. The kid fell down, away from the danger. He tried to pick himself up, hoped he would hear the screech of the breaks, but the jeep didn’t stop.
And then the pain. Unbearable, excruciating pain. There was nothing else in the world right then. Just him and this pain. No thoughts of poverty, of money, of joy or sorrow. It didn’t even matter if the kid was alive or dead. He just wanted the pain to stop. He screamed. A crowd gathered around him. He didn’t care, he screamed. He saw a pool of blood beside him. His blood. He screamed his lungs out.
It had been like any other evening. He was on his evening walk, trying to cool his head after another heated argument at home. Where could he bring more money from? Did his wife expect him to beg, to steal? He was doing the best he could. He loved his wife and his children but he always knew marriage was a mistake. He could barely feed himself. And that evening he told her. It slipped, and as soon as he said it, he wished he hadn’t. But when the words came out, they were venomous, filled with hatred, meant to hurt. “I wish I’d never met you.”
The sirens of the ambulance were loud. The paramedics were pushing people aside.
“Can you hear me?” they asked. He nodded.
“I need you to speak. Can you hear me?”
He wanted to scream into this idiot’s ear, he wanted to scream so loud it that would turn him deaf. YES, I CAN HEAR YOU. DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS PAIN. “Yes” was all he could muster.
They put him in a stretcher, carried him into the ambulance and hooked him up with an IV bag. The scream of the siren was louder from the inside. A hospital. They were taking him to a hospital. That meant bills. How would he pay the hospital? How would he buy his medicines? Would he be able to walk? He tried to move his leg, it wouldn’t. how would he earn any money without his legs? Why did he have to make that jump? There were hundreds of people there. No one else jumped. No one else tried to act hero. They were just spectators. They would’ve let the boy die. They would’ve cried justice. And they would’ve been furious. ‘Another rich bastard thinks he can do what he wants’ they would’ve shouted. They would’ve stopped the jeep and beaten up the driver. Perhaps they would’ve even felt good about themselves. And then they would’ve walked away and lived their mediocre lives. Why hadn’t he done the same? Why didn’t he think about his wife? Why didn’t he think about his own kids? What will they do now? He had destroyed their lives as well as his just to be a hero, to save a kid he didn’t even know. He didn’t even know if he had indeed saved him. The kid could be in another ambulance about to die, just like he was. And all of this would’ve been for nothing.
The ambulance stopped. They rushed him through the doors. A doctor asked him if there was anyone he should contact to let them know what had happened.
“No” he said, “there’s no one.”
What good would having his wife beside him do now? If he died then the entire cost of the hospital would become her problem. How would she pay the hospital? No. He couldn’t do this to her. He’d been selfish trying to save a stranger without thinking about his family. He would not do that again. His death would be an anonymous one. He would be an unclaimed body. They would do whatever they had to do to save him. But if they failed there would no one to pay for their efforts. He wished they’d fail.
I wish I’d never met you. Those were his last words to his wife. Oh, he loved her. He loved her dearly. He wished he could take it back. I love you. I’m so grateful to god that I met you. I’m sorry I couldn’t be better. I’m sorry I couldn’t do what I promised I would. I’m sorry I won’t be there to see the kids grow up. I’m sorry for treating you so wrong. I wish I could take back every harsh word I ever said to you. I wish I could back and start all over again. I would work harder. I would do all the things I said I would. And even though it’s not possible I would love you more. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.
She wouldn’t know what happened to him. He would be just like so many other men, who walk away from their families, leaving behind a legacy of poverty and shame. She would hate him. She would wish she’d never met him and she would mean it.
They took him inside a large room. There were five-six people with masks on. They shifted him from the stretcher to a white bed. He looked up. There was a blinding light shining down upon him. A man put a plastic mask in his face. He started feeling drowsy. He let go of all of his thoughts. He bid goodbye to his wife, his kids and embraced the oblivion and waited for death to come.

"Our people are good people; our people are kind people. Pray God some day kind people won't be all poor. Pray some day a kid can eat." - John Steinbeck (The Grapes Of Wrath)
It was unusually cool for a June evening in Dhaka. An indication perhaps of the approaching monsoon but most definitely a welcome respite from the cruelty of the sun and the heartlessness of the humidity, that Dhaka is cursed with. A breeze, cool and calm, gently blew and whispered a reminder of how wonderful Dhaka can be. But Suman wasn’t listening. His biggest problems with his city wasn’t the heat or the humidity (though it wouldn’t be bad if Dhaka was this way always), and a breeze, no matter how wonderful or amazing it was, wouldn’t even come close to making Suman forgive this merciless land he was unfortunately born in. Though, there were times when his anger wasn’t just because he was born in a unforgiving land but because he was born at all.
She is cruel. She is unforgiving. She is a city of segregation. A city of chasms. A city where the rich are ridiculously prosperous and the poor staggeringly abject. She is unjust. And for all her cruelty, her deceptions, her betrayals, and her discriminations she offers a breeze as an apology? No, that will not do. Suman, would never forgive her. He was the forgotten son. He hated her. And as he walked, in this cool calming breeze, he looked at the lights the lit up the night. Not stars but wedding decorations, fluorescent declarations of the rich peoples’ opulence. Thousands after thousands spent on useless light bulbs while people like him struggled to survive on hundreds and tens. A lot more than what they need for some, a lot less than what they need for many. She is diabolical, this little speck of a city. Heartless and spiteful. She doesn’t deserve forgiveness. But perhaps she doesn’t even care.
Suman needed his walk. This was his respite from the arguments that inevitably happened every night. The same story every night, the same reason every night. Money. Money for food, for clothes, for electricity. Money for survival. Everything depended on money now. Happiness, love, life… everything. And he didn’t have enough. That was why it was strange that when he found a thousand taka note lying in the streets he didn’t just pick it up and walk away, but instead looked ahead at the rich bastard who’d dropped it. He didn’t walk up and give to him right away. What good would that have done? He would’ve taken it, uttered a simple thank you and then spent it on something extravagant, something useless. No, Suman waited. He waited to let the whirlwind of thoughts in his head to settle down.
A thousand taka was a lot of money to him. It was disposable income to the rich man. What would he do with it? Spend it on a single meal in some high priced restaurant; buy himself something he didn’t really need, lose it in a game of cards? No he didn’t need it but Suman did. He could do a lot with that single piece of paper. A hungry child waited at home. A sick wife, an old mother. He needed it bad. But it wasn’t his. Would it be right to just take away someone else’s money and keep it as his own? Ah, conscience. When Dhaka was taking away his fortune, his happiness, his everything couldn’t she have taken away this unwanted ‘quality’ that plagued his heart. If only he didn’t have to hear the nagging voice that told him to do the right thing. But what was the right thing? Was it right to let his family starve just so that he could have the satisfaction of being an honest poor man? Was it not right that he would willingly carry the burden of knowledge of his misdeeds, that he would forget the boundaries of his ethics and risk being scarred forever just to see his family happy for a few days? Suman knew what was right. The conventional teachings that have been drilled into our souls from the day we were born are very hard to ignore. All of this was just an attempt to deceive himself.
So, if he were to return the thousand bucks and feel good on having done the right thing, but with full knowledge that his wife and kid in home are miserable didn’t that also make him selfish? Conscience didn’t care. There were no grey areas for conscience, everything was black and white. You either do right or you do wrong. It never was and never would be of any help.
He wondered if the problem lay in the magnitude of the crime. Because every crime in the world is judged in magnitude. Steal ten bucks, nobody cares, steal a million its unforgivable. It all depends on how it affects the victim. Kill a man, you’re a murderer, kill a bad man you’re a hero, kill a monster you’re a God. Nobody cares that fundamentally these are all murders. Every crime has a criteria, an unspoken guideline on which one could judge if it was right or wrong. A crime wasn’t automatically immoral, its immorality awaited analysis. Therefore had it been little, he wouldn’t have thought twice about what to do with it. He would have given or he would’ve kept it, either way it wouldn’t have bothered him much. Had it been a lot more, he would have immediately walked up and handed it over. Yes, that’s what he would have done. That is exactly what he would have done. But a thousand taka note lay right in the middle of the two. It wasn’t small enough that it would do nothing to change his fortune and it wasn’t great enough that it would make the rich man notice twice.
He wondered if his indecisiveness was religious, that whether this was a test from God. If God wanted to see whether his son would follow what he had always been taught through his many messengers on earth. Or, if this was finally God’s way of saying that he hadn’t forgotten him. That even if he was poor and insignificant in everybody else’s eyes, God remembered him and that God loved him. And this thousand taka note was just a small gesture to help ease his sorrows. Even Suman didn’t believe that though he desperately wanted to. It would’ve made everything easier. But God wasn’t merciful and God wasn’t helpful when you needed him. He wouldn’t suddenly send a reminder of his love. He had had plenty of opportunities in the past to do something. He hadn’t. He’d refused every single time. When his daughter was dying of pneumonia, when his child had to go hungry for three days, when his wife had to wear the same dress for seven months, he’d kept quiet and put forward every difficult scenario as a test. God wasn’t kind. If this turn of events was God’s doing, it was definitely a test. And the only way to pass was to walk to the rich man and hand the money over. Suman, wondered if God ever tested the rich men. Why were they so fortuitous, why didn’t God need to see if they were fulfilling his orders? It couldn’t be that all the rich men were impeccable in their religious duties. So why was it they received all the happiness in the world. Why was it that they kept getting richer? Why was it that they dropped thousand taka notes on the streets and not even notice it? Why wasn’t there the just world reflecting the image of our just God? Why God? Why?
The thoughts wouldn’t stop. He needed a cigarette. He started walking. A small shop lay ahead and standing beside the shop was the rich man. He didn’t know what he was about to do. His conscience was screaming out loud for him to do the right thing. He bought a cigarette turned towards the rich man and asked him for a light. With the cigarette tightly held in his right hand and his left hand in his pocket playing with the thousand taka note he walked off into the cool Dhaka night. The poor can’t afford to have a conscience.

The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life. – John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Along the boisterous streets of central Dhaka, on a footpath vexed with potholes, every evening at five-five thirty, Shakib, a twenty six year old student of Dhaka University opens his small tea shop. It’s more of a tea stall than a shop, just the same as hundreds of others littered in every corner of this metropolitan. His working hours stretch till nine, sometimes ten in the night. He then heads home, freshens up and begins his studies. He studies for three hours every night, just the three hours even if an important exam awaits the next morning. He’s not lazy, he just can’t afford any more time for academic excursions. The next day he attends his classes at midday and after his school day ends, his workday begins. And the same story repeats the next day and the day after that and the day after that, a never ending cycle of a life born in the lap of poverty. There is no time for a luxurious night out. There is no time for a relaxing evening at home. There’s no New Year’s Eve celebration. There is no time even for a disease. He can’t afford to get sick, not under these harsh times. He is shunned by more than half of his class mates because he is a second class citizen not worthy of friendship. He looks upon his ‘friends’ not with envy but with amazement that two people who study in the same University, who look the same, follow the same God, can have such contrasting realities. While others come to school in their fuel consuming, air conditioned, loud motor vehicles, he has to squabble every day over two rupees with an equally poor rickshaw puller. He future plans include complete abandonment of education and venture into foreign lands to find any semblance of a life worth fighting for, a life worth living. How much youth have our nations lost because the people high above do not care about the people down below? We are either rich or poor first and only then, after said division, we are human beings together.
“Had I know this would be my life, I would have refused to be born.” he says.
“That is a horrible thing to say. Your life is just as important as the lives of your rich class mates. In fact they are exploiting the financial prowess of their fathers while you are working for your life. If looked upon with an objective eye, you are a better man than any of them.” I say.
He smiles. The world doesn’t understand such philosophy. The world doesn’t care about who the better person is. It’s easy to say such things. A working man has to account for every paisa spent, he has to keep track of every rupee increase in the price of rice, he has to think and rethink about every taka he wastes on a cigarette, he has to look upon every tear in his clothes as a major catastrophe, every utensil broken is a calamity. He puts me to shame. The world doesn’t care about justice. Our society, our civilization is a sham. A society is supposed to care for its members, a brotherhood is supposed to ensure equality. Where can Shakib find fairness in any aspect of his life? This collection of unevenly blessed individuals is a deviously set up organization to help the rich get richer while the poor, well who cares about the poor? Some people risk their survival, venture into unknown lands for years on end without any news from home, while others enjoy video calls on their new 3G cellular phones. It’s shameful to hide under the refuge of the phrase that the world has been made this way, that life is unfair. If the world is this way, then it is us who made it so. If life’s unfair it is because we do nothing to ensure justice. How can we be proud of this society which makes young individuals choose between education and survival? Shouldn’t our warm luxurious jackets feel unbearably heavy when we see a fellow man shivering while he fights the cruel winter wind? Shouldn’t our extravagant meals become nauseating when we see an old lady emaciated and begging for a few bucks to buy a basic meal? Equality, brotherhood, justice have become words without consequence. What we are is prejudiced, greedy, exploitive. Animals base their lives on survival of the fittest. How are we any different? Our civilization is based on the strength of money. And in this society Shakib is undeservingly unfortunate to have been born in a poor household. What future does he have to look forward to? Where can he look for progress? His environment has rendered him powerless to get the academic qualification the big people of the world demand. He is condemned to follow what our society decides he should. He’s just an insignificant member in a crowd of uncountable unfortunates.
And after all this injustice, the one thing he feels he can be proud of, he says, is that he is a Bangladeshi.