A story by Tarek Khan
In the morning in the kitchen house, we were
eating flavored rice with mashed eggplant, potato mess, and omelet; including
butter.
This time our
cousin, Khalid Mahmud, came running and reported that my younger grandpa gone
mad.
We fell from the
sky.
Just a few minutes
ago a sound man walked out of home holding my younger sister’s hand. And now he
is mad?
Though we can’t
believe, my father and uncles left eating and ran for, my mother and aunts too.
How can I eat yet.
Almost a hundred
meters far from our home away, a group of health workers in the field of
school, pushing vaccines lifting the arms, and the toddlers blubbering,
baa…!
I heard they would
push me too. In the past year I escaped from home. Later my father caught me to
the hospital. So, no way. God damn the vaccine!
However, where is
the symptom of madness to my grandpa?
A mad always crazy
to shout and scream out. Four to five young men get in a sweat to chain him. At
least six young men attend to take him into a pond in order to cold him enough.
What about that, if he is mad?
I couldn’t
understand, but the folks in groups crowding right away, curiously.
My father went to
grandpa, “Father, what happened?”
“What would be?”
“The folks are
saying, you are talking a lot of bunkum and balderdash and everything
nonsense?”
Grandpa was
indifferent. He said without any reaction, “I just said that why do you give
the vaccines only to the children? You should give it to the rivers, plants,
canals too, for a good result. Then the folks began to treat me crazy. What the
fucking stupid folks are, huh?”
“Listen to him!
Listen to h-i-m-!! Did you listen? Fully gone!”
In this situation
it’s necessary to take an immediate action. One of my elder grandfathers came
with a big range, “Hey, brother, what happened? Let me tight a little.”
“Hurry up! “Hurry
u-p-!! “Going ruined completely!”
“Tell me, what
happened?” scolded elder grandpa.
By this time younger
grandpa shouted angrily repeating his own speech, “Do you the stupid folks
think me gone mad? You must give the vaccines to the lands, rivers and plants
like the children, okay?”
Elder grandpa is
silent. His face turned pale. He was so frightened that his legs began to
shake. He looked at my father and uncles, “There is no way to tight. The screw
is not only loose, but also lost already.”
My uncles cried out.
My father is
trembling. He’s the elder son of younger grandpa. So he should not cry this
time. Raising some courage he told, “Oh father, why do you tell this?”
Grandpa shouted out,
“I felt like to tell. So I told.”
“Are you okay?”
asked grandma. She smiled, “If you like to marry a young girl, just tell me.”
The crowd is growing
more. More and more. The whole village is coming running to see the mad.
Original in Bengali.
Translated by Writer, February 2017.
—The End—