Chapter 2 The Poor Man's Banker, Part I, Chapter 1, Chittagong, 20 Boxerhat Street (1)

Chittagong, the largest port in Bangladesh, is a commercial city with a population of 3 million.I grew up on Boxirhat Road in the heart of the old business district of Chittagong.A busy one-way street just wide enough for a truck connects Chaktai to the central workshop market. My house is in Sonapotti, where the jewelers gather on the high street.We live in No. 20, a small two-story house, downstairs is my father's jewelry workshop.As a child, my world was filled with street noise and the smell of petrol.Trucks and carts are perpetually clogging our streets, and all day long I can hear drivers arguing, yelling and honking, and it's always a carnival atmosphere.In the middle of the night, the yelling and shouting of street vendors, jugglers, and beggars finally faded away, replaced by the sounds of hammering, rasps, and polishes in my father's workshop.

We occupied only the kitchen and four rooms upstairs: the mother's room, the radio room, the main room, and the dining room, which had a floor mat three times a day for our family meals.The flat roof is our playground. When we are tired of playing, we often watch the customers downstairs and the goldsmiths working in the back room to pass the time, or just watch the endlessly changing street scene outside. No. 20 Boxerhat Street was my father's second business in Chittagong. The first one was destroyed by a Japanese bomb, so my father had to abandon it. In 1943, the Japanese invaded neighboring Burma and threatened the whole of India.However, Chittagong has not been seriously attacked, and the Japanese planes dropped more leaflets.We loved watching the leaflets flutter down like butterflies towards the city from the roof.But when a wall of our second house was blown down by a Japanese bomb, my father quickly moved us to safety—his hometown of Bathhua, where I was born at the beginning of the war. over there.

Batua is about seven miles away from Chittagong.My grandfather owned land there and the majority of his income came from farming, but he was more interested in the jewelry business.His eldest son, my father, Dula Mia, also entered the jewelry business and soon became the premier local manufacturer and jewelry merchant catering to Muslim customers.Father is a very soft-hearted person. He rarely punishes us, but he is very strict with our studies.He had three iron safes, each four feet high, built into the wall behind the store counter.He left the safe open when the store opened.The thick door of the safe was lined with mirrors and lattices, which looked nothing like a safe at all, but more like part of a store shelf.Before the fifth prayer of the day, at closing time, my father would close the drawers of these safes.To this day, I can recall the creak of the unoiled hinges and the click of each of the six locks on each safe.The noises were just enough time for my brother Salam and I to drop whatever we were doing and sprint to our books.Whenever my father saw us sitting there reading, he would happily say, "Good boy, good boy." Then he would go to the mosque to say his prayers.

His father was a devout Muslim all his life and made three pilgrimages to Mecca.He is always dressed in white, white slippers, white slacks, a white tunic and a white prayer hat.His square tortoise-shell glasses and gray beard gave him an intellectual look, but he never ate a book.Having a big family and a successful business left him little time to check our schoolwork, and he didn't like to do it.He divides his life between work, prayer, and his loved ones. In contrast to my father, my mother, Sofia Khatun, was a strong woman with determination.She is the disciplinarian in the family, and once she bites her lower lip, we know it's time to stop trying to change her mind.She wants us all to be as organized as she is.She has probably been the biggest influence on me.My mother was very kind and compassionate, and always gave money to poor relatives who came to visit us from far away in the countryside.It was her love for her family and the poor who influenced me and helped me discover my interests in economics and social reform.

My mother came from a family of small traders who bought goods from Burma to sell.Her father, who rented out most of the land he owned, spent most of his time reading, writing chronicles, and eating good food.It was the last hobby that brought his grandchildren closest to him.In my early years, I remember my mother often wearing a bright sari with gold trim, her jet-black hair always parted to the right in the front and tied in a full bun at the back.I love her so much, I'm definitely the kid who tugs at her sari most often for attention.Most of all, I remember the stories she told, the songs she sang, like the sad stories about the Karbala.Every year during Moharram, the ritual Muslims perform to commemorate Kabbalah, I remember asking my mother, "Mom, why is the sky red on one side of the house and blue on the other? "

"Blue for Hassan, red for Hussein," she replied. "Who are Hassan and Hussein?" "They are the grandsons and jewels of our Prophet - RIP him." When she finished telling the story of their murder, she would always point to the twilight and explain that the blue on one side of the house was the poison that killed Hassan, while the red on the other was the blood of the murdered Hussein.For me as a young child, the tragic story she told was as moving as our great Bengali epic, Bishad Shindhu (The Sea of ​​Sorrows). My mother completely occupied my early childhood.Whenever she was frying pitha in the kitchen, we would huddle around her clamoring for a bite.When she took the first pita bread out of the frying pan and was just about to cool it down, I always grabbed it. The whole family agreed that I was the chief taster of mother's cooking.

My mother also made some jewelry and sold it in my family's shop.She often adds the finishing touch to earrings and necklaces: a little velvet ribbon, pompoms, or bright braided silk ribbons, and I always love to watch her delicate hands make those beautiful pieces. ornaments.It is from these jobs that she earns the money she gives to those relatives, friends or neighbors who are most in need. The mother gave birth to fourteen children, five of whom died young.My eldest sister, Momtaz, was eight years older than me and married in her teens.We often go to see her at her new home on the edge of the city, and the eldest sister treats us with sumptuous meals.Salam, who is three years older than me, is my closest companion. We imitate the sound of Japanese machine guns to play wars. When the wind is suitable, we make colorful kites out of gem-like pieces of paper and bamboo poles.Once my father bought a few failed cannonballs from the street, and we helped my mother transform them into flowerpots, placing them on the roof with the wings down and the big head up.

Salam, me, and all the children from working-class families in the neighborhood are studying at the nearby Freedom Primary School in Lamar Bazar.Schools in Bangladesh instill good values ​​in children.The purpose of the school is not only to enable children to succeed academically, but to teach them pride in citizenship, the importance of spirituality, an appreciation of art, music, and poetry, and respect for authority and discipline.Both primary and secondary schools are co-educational.There are about forty students per class at Rama Bazaar Freedom Primary School, where all of us, even the teachers, speak the Chittagong dialect.Good students win scholarships and are often invited to national competitions.But most of my classmates dropped out of school very quickly.

Salam and I voraciously read any books and magazines we could lay our hands on.My favorite is detective thrillers. I even wrote an entire crime novel when I was 12.But satisfying our reading hunger isn't easy.To meet our needs, Salam and I learned to improvise, buy, borrow and steal.For example, one time our favorite children's magazine, Shuktara, held an annual contest in which the winners of the competition received free subscriptions and their names printed in the magazine.I picked a winner's name at random and wrote a letter to the editor: Dear Sir: I am so-and-so, the contest winner.We have moved.From now on, please send me a free subscription to Boxer Hart Street so-and-so.

Instead of my house number, I gave a neighbor's address so my dad wouldn't see the magazine.Every month, Salaam and I eagerly await the free magazines that will arrive in our mail.That was a dream come true. We also went to the waiting room of our family doctor, Dr. Banik, just around the corner every day, to read his various newspapers.This kind of free reading has benefited me endlessly for many years.Throughout elementary and middle school, I was often the top student in my class. In 1947, when I was seven years old, the "Pakistan Movement" reached its peak.All over Muslim-majority parts of India, there is a struggle to become an independent Muslim state.We know that Muslim-majority Chittagong will definitely be included in Pakistan, but we don't know what other areas will be included in Muslim Bengal, nor exactly how the border will be drawn.

At 20 Boxerhat Street, family and friends debate endlessly about the future of an independent Pakistan.We all realized that it would be a most peculiar country, with more than a thousand miles of Indian territory dividing it into eastern and western halves.My father, a devout Muslim, had many Hindu friends and colleagues who frequented our house, and even as a child I could sense the distrust between the two religious groups.I had heard many reports on the radio of violent disturbances between Hindus and Muslims, which, reassuringly, rarely happened in Chittagong. My parents' position was one of staunch support for separation from the rest of India.When my little brother Ibrahim was babbling, he called the white sugar he liked "Jinnah Sugar" and the brown sugar he didn't like "Gandhi Sugar".Mohammed Ali Jinnah was the leader of Pakistani separatists and Gandhi of course wanted to keep India intact.At night, my mother lulled us to sleep with stories of Jinnah, Gandhi and King Louis Mountbatten.My older brother Salam, who is almost ten years old, is jealous of the big boys in the neighborhood who carry small green flags with white crescents and stars and shout "Pakistan Zinbabad" (Long live Pakistan) in the streets. At midnight on August 14, 1947, the Indian subcontinent, which had been under British rule for nearly two centuries, declared independence.I remember it like it was yesterday.The whole city is covered with flags and green and white festoons.I heard the loud voices of political speeches in the street, often interrupted by chants of "Long Live Pakistan".Before midnight, the streets were packed with people.We set off fireworks from the rooftops, and I saw the silhouettes of my neighbors looking up at the firecrackers filling the night sky.The whole city throbs with passion. As midnight approached, my father led us downstairs onto Boxer Hart Street.Although his father was not politically active, he joined the National Guard, a Muslim group, to show his determination.That night, he proudly donned his guard uniform, complete with his signature 'Jinnah hat'.We even brought our two little brothers, two year old Ibrahim and baby Tunu. At 12 o'clock, the electric switch was turned off, and the whole city was plunged into darkness.The next moment the light returns, we will already be a new nation.The high-pitched slogan "Long live Pakistan! Long live Pakistan!" resounded in every corner of the streets and alleys of Chittagong.I was seven years old, and that was the first time I felt national pride running in my veins.That was intoxicating. After Momtaz, Salam, me, Ibrahim and Tunu, the mother had four more children: Ayub, Azam, Jahangir and Moinu.But by the time I was nine years old, my loving mother began to be irritable for no reason, and her behavior became increasingly erratic.When she was quieter, she would talk to herself inexplicably.She would pray for hours on end, read the same page, or recite the same poem over and over again.When agitated, she cursed loudly with vulgar words.Sometimes she hurls insults at neighbors, friends, or family, but at other times she yells at politicians, even long-dead people.Sometimes she would fight back against imaginary enemies in her head, violently without warning.She would often cry out suddenly at night, punching and kicking, and I would have to help my father hold her down, or try to shield my younger siblings from harm.After a crisis like this, she would often revert back to being the sweet, gentle mother we remembered, giving us as much love as possible and caring for our young children.But we all know this is only a temporary recovery.As her condition worsened, she gradually became unable to understand our school situation. My father tried his best to cure my mother, paying her for the most advanced medical tests in the country.My maternal grandmother and two aunts were both mentally ill, and we speculated that her illness must also be hereditary, but no doctor could confirm it.In desperation, my father turned to heretical remedies such as opiate treatments, spells, and even hypnosis.The mother never cooperated with these remedies, and none of them worked anyway. It was us kids who found the therapy interesting.After seeing a famous psychiatrist administer hypnotic cues to my mother, we conducted our own hypnotic experiments with each other.We also invented a certain kind of humor to treat her condition. "What's the weather forecast?" we asked each other as we tried to anticipate Mother's mood in the hours ahead.To avoid provoking new episodes, we assigned code names to everyone in the family: number 2, number 4, and so on.My brother Ibrahim even wrote a skit in which he called our house a radio station where my mother was always "on the air," broadcasting her sermons in every mood, with "backup dancers." Dad has been a shining light during this sad time.He adapted to this upheaval with grace and tenacity, caring for her in every possible way and under every circumstance during the thirty-three years of her illness.He tried to act like it was business as usual, as if she was still the same Sofia Katun in 1930, when he was only 22.Until his mother's death in 1982, during the fifty-two years of their marriage, he was always loyal and loving to her. Although my father didn't mind spending money on our education and travel, he kept the house modest and gave us very little pocket money.When I was in high school, I was given a small monthly stipend for winning the competitive scholarship exam in the Chittagong area, so I had some pocket money, but it was never enough.I made up my shortfalls from my father's change drawer, without my father even noticing.Besides our interests in books and magazines, Salam and I developed a habit of going to the movies and eating out.We are not particular about taste.My favorite is the "potato nugget", which is a piece of baked potato stuffed with fried onions and sprinkled with vinegar.Salam and I ate these over a cup of jasmine tea at the humble tea stand on the corner of the street not far from home.My father never knew about these outings. The first camera Salam and I bought was a simple box camera that we carried with us everywhere we went.We plan and study our subjects like professionals: portraits, street scenes, houses, still lifes.Our accomplice in photography was the owner of a neighborhood photo studio called "Magic House Studio".He allowed us to use his darkroom to develop our black and white film.We worked hard to get some special effects and even colored our photos. A poor man's banker I became very interested in painting and apprenticed to a commercial painter whom I called Ustad, or Guru.At home, I carefully arranged my easel, canvas, and crayons so that I could quickly hide them away if I heard my father return.As a devout Muslim, my father didn't believe in copying human figures.Some art-loving uncles and aunts at home became my accomplices, helping and encouraging me. As a by-product of these quirks, Salam and I also became interested in graphic design.We also started collecting stamps and convinced a neighborhood shop owner to allow us to display our stamp boxes in front of his shop.We used to go to the cinema with our two uncles to watch Indian and Hollywood movies and sing those romantic songs that were popular at the time. Chittagong Mission School is much more urbanized than my elementary school.Most of my classmates are the sons of government officials transferred from various places, and this school provides the best education in the country.But it was the Boy Scout program that particularly attracted me, and the Boy Scout Division became a hangout for me.Together with boys from other schools, I participated in training, games, art activities, discussions, hiking in the countryside, various programs and many assemblies.During "money-making weeks," we raised money by hawking wares, shining shoes, and working as waiters at the tea stalls.Besides being fun, Scouting has taught me to have compassion, to have an inner spirituality, and to value my fellow men. I especially remember the train journey across India in 1953 to attend the first Pakistani National Boy Scout Convention.Along the way, we stopped to visit many historical places.We sang games along the way, but in front of the Taj Mahal in Agra, I found our Assistant Director, Quazi Sirajul Huq, sobbing silently.He did not weep over the monument or the famous lovers buried there, nor over the lines carved on the white marble walls.Quazi Sahib said he was weeping for our fate, for the burden of history we shoulder.Although I was only 13 at the time, I was deeply moved by his passion.With his encouragement, Scouting began to permeate all my activities.I've always been a natural leader, but Kwachi Sahib's moral touch taught me to think higher and channel passion in an orderly manner. In 1973, during the turbulent months following the Bangladesh Liberation War, I went with my father and brother Ibrahim to visit Kwachi Sahib.We drank tea and discussed the political unrest around us.A month later, Kwachi Sahib was brutally murdered in his sleep by his servants.He was already a feeble old man, and the servant robbed him of his little money.The police never caught the murderer.I was consumed by grief.Looking back, I begin to understand the tears he shed at the Taj Mahal as a prophet of his own misfortune and the future misfortune of the people of Bangladesh.