Life, or something close to it.

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.

‘A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets’ -Napoleon Bonaparte.


How far astray can someone wander before he is deemed unsalvageable?
There is supposed to be a fire in our soul that rages with great fury whenever a situation calls for a revolution, an uneasy feeling that gets stronger and keeps getting stronger till we have found the courage to stand up for what we believe in. But somehow I am unable to find anything in mine, there are no enraged flames, no stirring of soul. I have become a docile pet to society, my soul has become obedient and calm. I can see that a change is needed and yet somehow I am able to dig out excuses to not be a part of that change. I can complain, that I do very well, but how is it that my heart is not furious, that my blood doesn’t boil when I see what I see around me? All I can muster is a sense of disappointment and a few words of pity. And yet the books I read want to help me free my mind and songs I hear want to help me strengthen my heart. How wrong is it that I do not follow what I know is right? Were it not for acceptable hypocrisy, perhaps I wouldn’t even read or listen, because if I am to be honest I know I am doing great injustice to those who write what needs to be written. A writer wants his ideas to be understood and acted upon. What good is a life changing book if you don’t change your life after reading it? What good is a revolutionary song if it doesn’t strengthen your rebellious intentions after you hear it? Is it fair to the writer, that I appreciate what he writes and yet do nothing what he says?
Che Guevara was a great man, to me the greatest. His thoughts were profound and his actions courageous. What he wished I wish the same. What his thoughts were, so are mine. But what he did I never have. I have wishes and thoughts but no actions. And actions are the most important. If I do not act on what I’ve read am I more than a punk who thinks his duty is done if he puts on a Che Guevara t-shirt or gets a Che Guevara tattoo? That was not what he wanted. He wanted to inspire revolutions, not marks of the decadence of our materialistic civilization.
When he said, “I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.” he understood that he was no more than a soldier and the revolution was bigger than him. It should not end with his death. If such a time should come in my life will I be able to give up my life for a higher cause. Will my selfish self even let me believe that there is such a cause? Will I be able to pick up a pen to write when it is imperative that I write? Will I be able to pick up a gun when it is imperative that I kill? Right now as I sit in my cushioned chair, with a warm cup of coffee to my left and a cellular phone to my right, I would have to say no. I will not. I am a product of my society, my civilization. I worry not about the blisters that I will get on my foot if I walk too much. Such savage days are behind me. I am now accustomed to the backseat of a four wheel drive. I now worry about the air condition in my new car. The injuries I am afraid of are not a torn muscle or a fractured bone because of a hard day’s work. I am no longer a barbarian toiling under the harsh sun. I am now diseased with asthma and numerous other allergies, the allergens to which I helped create and branded it a side effect of development. What is it that I’m becoming? A slave to technology, a placid example of a good citizen, a follower of everything that I am supposed to follow? I know that a burning desire to do what must be done isn’t enough. One can’t dive in headfirst into an enterprise on the whims of a wronged soul. But to begin such an action that will lead to profound reformations there has to be that immense want to say “Something needs to be done and it is I who will do it.”
It is bad to be a conformist. To accept everything without asking a question, to compromise whenever faced with adversity, to accept weakness, to be an indifferent passenger waiting for someone else to create the changes and ready to accept such changes even before they are a faction of reality, to not have opinions and ideas, to easily accept self-imprisonment. But what is worse is to be a renegade in soul but a conformist in body. To understand what must be done and yet not do anything about it, to vehemently oppose every wrong policy in our hearts and yet obey all they tell us with insignificant murmurs of dissatisfaction, to know what is wrong and yet do nothing to right it, to know the taste of freedom and yet accept the prison of slavery and be disgruntled about it and to accept such blasphemies under the excuse that it’s the way everyone else does it. What good is being an educated student only to later become an impotent annoyed citizen?
But what reason can there be for me to be writing all of this? Shouldn’t I be doing what I say everyone must do? The books I have read apparently aren’t enough to raise in me such actions of great revolutions. I still have many books to read, many thoughts to sort out, many lives to understand. And all that I have read and understood till now compel to me write this small article just to realize that these thoughts are circling in my head, that I know what needs to be done, that I cannot plead ignorance anymore. But to you its different. You can use this insignificant little piece of writing anyway you want to. You can mock my hypocrisy, you can just go through it and not give it a second thought, it could be your first step towards becoming the liberator your soul has been waiting for or it could be that final push that sends you over the edge into the immense possibilities of unknown freedom. It can be whatever you want it to be. And I leave it incomplete in a hope that if I have a conclusion that ends in failure, may it not be the same for you. May one of us have a triumphant end that brings back things to the way we know it should’ve always been. May there be an absolute victory. A victory for you and me. A victory for our unborn revolution.
Che said, ‘Hasta la Victoria siempre, (forever onwards until victory).’ May it be so with us.

“I am not a liberator. Liberators don’t exist. The people liberate themselves.” Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara de la Serna.(1928-1967)