Star Diary

Let's love them

A few days back, at a place near Ramkrishna Mission, Matijheel, I came across a boy sitting by himself. I asked him his name. He said his name was Rabbi. I realised could not be more than eight years old. I enquired about his parents and learned that after his mother's death, his father had left the family and married another woman. He usually can manage food only once a day and sleeps on the footpath at night. He knows a few Bangla numbers and letters but can not make words out of them. He dreams of going to school but in reality, given his situation, such an opportunity will never be available to him. Stories like this are a common and the harsh reality in our country and I hope that the young people will come forward to love and educate these poor helpless kids who are deprived of every single basic human right. Our country might be poor, but there is still a large number of people who can help these children easily. I hope that our humanity will soon allow us to contribute to our society the way we should.

Bipul K Debnath
Department of English
Dhaka College, Dhaka

 

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With a Conscience

	Photo: Zahedul I Khan

When I look out of my window I see road 10/A in Dhanmondi. For a few days I watched a cat family living on the footpath across the street. The mother and her four kittens seemed quite happy watching people go by and eating out of a nearby garbage can. I loved watching them and often fed them when I had time. Yesterday, when I was watching, a group of boys playing cricket on our road beat three of the kittens to death with a bat and injured the mother. Their only fault was that they chased after the ball when it came towards them, trying to join the game. I will never forget how that made me feel. Has our society become so empty and without conscience that children that age can kill harmless animals like sociopaths and go on playing like nothing happened? I wonder and am afraid of what these children will grow up to be.

Amir Hassan
Dhanmondi, Dhaka

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Volatile Times

I was walking to work today and noticed that a woman was trying to cross the street. For some reason, she waited till the signal turned green to cross and was almost run over by a car. Then all of a sudden a huge crowd appeared from who knows where, and dragged the driver of the car out of the car to beat him to a pulp. As a pedestrian, I understand the problems people without private cars face in this city because of the lack of traffic rules, but what I witnessed was just ridiculous. The driver of the car was not at fault and the woman clearly should have been more careful but no one stopped to assess the situation. This made me realise that at the end of the day, everyone is frustrated and looking for an outlet to vent. Otherwise harmless regular people just need an excuse to turn into a violent mob and commit heinous acts without thinking of the consequences. We are living in extremely volatile times and if people continue to be dissatisfied with their lives, things will get worse.

Shahin Quader
Dhanmondi, Dhaka

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