Life, or something close to it.

"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.