Beloved Strangers by Maria Chaudhuri

Author:Maria Chaudhuri
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-04-02T04:00:00+00:00

My father had a white car, a 1969 Toyota Corolla that he bought the same year he married my mother. Mother always said that the car was his first love and she wasn’t too far from the truth. There is an old sepia photograph of my older sister, ten months old, held upright on the hood of the car by a radiant Father. The car was then almost two years old but it looked brand new. Our patience and good feelings towards the car ran out about ten years after its introduction into our family. We wanted to live up to the times, keep up with the Jones’s. Not Father. He would not hear of buying a new car. ‘This car is in perfect condition,’ he insisted every time one of us broached the subject.

Part of the reason the car was in such perfect shape was because Father hardly allowed us to use or even touch it. He laid down the rules: No leaning against the car. No eating or drinking in the car. No loud music in the car. Car would not enter any narrow streets or crowded areas (how was this possible in a city like Dhaka?) Car could not be driven above the speed of sixty kilometres an hour. Car could not be driven by anyone but himself and most certainly not by a paid driver. Rickshaws were to be used for journeys under thirty minutes and baby-taxis for longer trips. The last rule made Mother so angry that she often turned down invitations and refused to go anywhere. ‘What madness is this? Do we have a car or an invalid?’ she’d scream, and rightfully so.

My father was as solid as a rock in his resolution to preserve the car as one might a family heirloom. It was at first funny, then annoying, and ultimately an embarrassment. Each time there was a friend’s birthday party or a lunch or dinner we’d have to ask other friends for a ride. Even going to school or out to shop became a nuisance. We were perpetually at other people’s mercy or suffering through the hazards of Dhaka public transportation, despite the shining white (ancient) car supine in our garage, like Sleeping Beauty. We gave it up and went about our business, my father being incorrigible when it came to his beloved car.

One evening, Father agreed to pick up some sweets from a neighbourhood store as we were expecting guests. He let me come with him. On our way back, we saw, about fifteen feet ahead of us, the slow progression of a mob. In Dhaka, political rallies and public protests were routine scenes. They were carrying banners and flags and the people in the front lines were chanting loud slogans that the whole procession zealously repeated after them. Traffic was halted as the mob filled the expanse of the street. Cars honked impatiently, knowing full well that on Dhaka roads, it was far more important to endure the workings of an excited mob than the breaking of traffic rules.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.