The Blurred Dream of Sassandra
(A Bengali Novel)
Original: Kazi Rafi
Translation: Manan S.
Chapter One
Those who go to war
Nobody came to airport to see-off Athoi.
Air filled with sweet silent music. April skies of Dhaka seemingly indicated something. Greeneries beyond the alternate side of the airport appeared aglow as if it was the crack of dawn or it was about to storm, whereas it was only ten at night. The sky was not even cloudy either. Though no one came for his farewell, he felt as if a lot of his close ones had their eyes lined up through that discrete radiance to watch him. The cluster of stars shimmer their lights through the facade of darkness vividly portraying (his) mother’s saddened eyes.
‘‘Athoi! Thinking something, son?
Athoi looked behind unexpectedly. As if, he sensed mother’s voice clearly. The earth’s blue-black stratum seemed mysteriously still. Athoi was diving into it. Clutching his chest with his hands, he closed the eyes inhaling deeply. His eyes and lips tasted a brackish emotion with utter sensation.
‘Those who lost their mother…’
Athoi settled his gaze on the Oriental Thai Airways’ aircraft, Boeing 747. This confined aircraft will fly him to South Africa one o’clock at night. Athoi reckoned the neon lit gargantuan machine peeping like an angel under the murky skies of Dhaka, to be safer than the grounds of Bangladesh. Perhaps it would not be as safe; maybe the next sixteen hours will be his life’s last few. Even so, it still felt safer. Bangladesh, a piece of green land created by The Creator; these green lands made by Him somehow felt perilous than the man-made aircraft. Athoi smiled.
“What are you thinking gazing at the sky? Did you become a philosopher? The specs of my defective eyes suit you better!” Raihan kept his hand over Athoi’s shoulder.
“I’m thinking nothing. When is your flight?”
“Can’t remember. I’ll email and let you know. Damn, my heart also got defective along with the eyes. Never mind. Give me aunt’s mobile number. To eat dishes cooked by her…”
Would Athoi explain Raihan that he’s going far away with his precious flag on his hand— the country’s pilots are not trained at all to fly the flawless aircraft made by Almighty. Or does not have any empathy for him – those pilots. Would Athoi tell Raihan about how devastating the last night of mother’s life had been? Would he tell, “Mother was staying at Jayed’s place in Dhaka that day.” Jayed was Othoi’s maternal cousin. A political extremist and his followers entered the house disguised as friends’ and mercilessly yet without conscience shot Jayed dead. And for witnessing Jayed’s murderers… Would Athoi tell all this?”
Athoi could not hear Raihan any further. Boeing 747’s engines’ blare mixed with the two friends’ sentiments breeding a melody. He had lost himself in that melody. Tonight, Athoi had deeply lost himself in the sweetest melodies word ‘Mother’, the forever borne and his treasured land “Bangladesh” somewhere deep in the core of his heart. All his feeling together storming up within him restricted him off his words . The aircraft built by the human intelligence seemed to have uncovered Athoi’s emotions. Roars of its engines rejuvenated the restless yet clandestine words of Athoi’s heart.
“Sir, thirteen of our pallets has been properly loaded.” Sergeant Kamal said to Athoi.
“Align the trucks outside. I’ll be at the immigration.”
He saw Mark Anthony coming forward. He moved towards Mark after bidding farewell to Raihan. Mark joined the United Nations a year ago as a Movement Control Officer. The Canadian youth came sweating towards Athoi and hysterically said,
“Hello Captain, I have rejected some of your items. Sulfuric acid was in the dangerous cargo list! Why should you carry it?”
“It’s alright Anthony. We will take the rejected materials by the ship. By the way, is it your first time in Bangladesh?”
“Hard time. Thrice in a month though. That way it’s the first time this month. The word poor does not become of you all.”
“Even rich or middle-class, these two words are also unbefitting. Like a pocket of thick jeans on a thin vest.”
“No man; I’ll show you the path sitting beside your seat on the Boeing 747 cruising through its flight path over the earth in daylight. Viewing from an immense altitude, populated places are mostly developed – you’ll have a clear notion of it. The entire earth is jagged. I’m enjoying Dhaka a lot.”
“You would have enjoyed even more out of Dhaka. …”
Sergeant Kamal exited the airport with his convoy after loading the packets of sulfuric acid on the truck. It was half past eleven when Anthony signaled the loading completion report with a mere raise of his nails and started walking alongside Athoi. Anthony said, “Athoi I’ll visit and return from Uttara within the time. Can you help me out with your jeep?”
“Yes. But within this short time! Notify the authority about it. What’s such need within this short period of time?”
“Ooh Soma! The heart’s aching for her!”
“That’s nice. How did you fall in love this quickly?”
“Sonargaon… we met in the dance party on Wednesday. I’m doubtful. She’s an attractive teenager from an aristocratic family. I can’t believe a girl from a solvent family of this country could come to Hotel Sonargaon just for money.”
“Not for money. She just went to have fun.”
“Athoi, it was a girl hunting dance party. She was conducted by money. She abruptly started crying in my hotel’s bed. She was allured seeing other girls. Suddenly she said to me, ‘I’m missing my mother a lot.”
“And you left her? Is it? Should I believe that?”
“Yes; I dropped her home that night. She was a cute, innocent and lovely girl. You know, when she smiles the whole world smiles with her eyes! All adoration astoundingly accumulates in the dimple on her left cheek. It makes me crazy!”
Athoi comprehended from the way Anthony expressed, that even if he misses the flight must have to see Soma. With the waves of love on which he was floating it would mean nothing even if he misses the flight. He looked at Anthony’s eyes with gratitude. This foreigner did not exploit the mistake of a naive adolescent girl. Soma, standing on the verge of a wrong speck in life would have accustomed into a different life, with a trivial influence. A Bengali lady’s womanhood would have been blemished. She would have never understood the value of the virtue; the virtue that two hundred thousand women had lost in the liberation war. Athoi pictured a Bengali man in Anthony’s place, would he let Soma go? Even if Soma would agree to compensate the ten thousand taka she took by her fault with twenty thousand taka? He thought that the word “Bangladesh” would be insignificant for a man who could spend ten thousand taka just for a night to bring a teenager girl to bed. He had no reason to respect the nobility and chastity of a woman or the values and culture of the people of this country. They will not imagine their own daughter solitary, moving into the wrong path; the lonesomeness caused by (They will not imagine their own daughter drifting away solitarily as a cause of their financial capabilities and that loneliness casting danger over her dissolute ways….
Athoi felt swollen with pride about Anthony while he thought of the perilous manifest society.
“Anthony, I have a request for you.”
“Sure.”
“Now that you really love Soma – let not her body be the only reason for your love. Encourage her towards education… discover the depth of the passion of a Bengali lady. So wonderful they are!”
“Come on, Captain. I had lot of sex with women. Cheapest thing of earth. There is no love in it. Rubbish! I want the true love. I want loving her very madly. You know, when she looks at my eyes with her bashful eyes a shiver of happiness runs down through me… a shiver of bliss.
Athoi grabbed his hand,
“Yes! Go ahead, I’ll tell the driver.”
A United Nation’s batch hung by his neck, Anthony expressed the unfamiliar Dhaka to be facile. His easy-going, self-assured stance rendered that all the time. Athoi bid Anthony goodbye,
“Come back on time.”
Anthony took out a packet from his pocket and showed a thin white necklace to Athoi. Athoi laughed looking at the diamond necklace and said,
“Understood, you got a costly item.”
“Not more than… However I’ll return after giving it to her.”
The jeep halted at a distance. With a back gear Anthony returned. He called Athoi out, now without addressing him Captain,
“Athoi! I’ll tell you; I’ve applied to stay in Bangladesh as a MOVCON Officer. I don’t know, what’ll happen – but pray for me.”
“You’ll have to travel the whole world; that’s what your job is like.”
Anthony left with a smile. The nature of true love is parallel throughout the whole world. Athoi thought! People used to become fools when they fell in true love long time ago. It is still happening. It will continue to happen for eternity. Producing creases on his forehead with his attitude, locking his lips closed together, Athoi spawned a smile through his face. After his mother’s demise, he had clearly grown this mien; an endeavor to conceal the woe under his lively smile.
Airport-Ashulia road depicted the same scene this night… winter; monsoon; midnight or a spring afternoon. Always running on… and on. Settling his eyes on the motions of the countless vehicle and innumerable people for the last time, Athoi started walking towards the VIP lounge.
Finishing the formalities of the airport took till one at night. There was no sign of Anthony returning. Everyone had left their mobile’s SIM cards. Eschewing Anthony’s thought he sat down on one of the lounge’s chairs solitarily. Fatigue from his feet spread throughout the body. Since seven at morning he had been briefing the troops, supervising the loading and keeping up with numerous other required works wearing this uniform and boots. His eyes were shutting close with somnolence. Dozing in a civil area wearing the uniform! The sleepiness vanished as soon as the thought stroke his mind. Athoi caught the view of a young girl coming out of the ladies’ washroom fifty gauges perpendicular in front of him. Closing near him, she abruptly halted and seemed to enjoy watching the weary Athoi.
She stealthily came can and sat on the chair beside Athoi without hesitation. The girl brought out a small diary from a pocket of her thin black jacket and offered it to him. With an interrogative gesture Athoi asked ‘What are you doing?’ She answered to his question with an innocent smile on her face-
“Autograph please.”
Athoi began to think with his eyes rolled up. Did the girl find any resemblance in his face with someone else? It was hard to believe for him that someone would ask for an autograph from an ordinary person. He asked the girl turning to her slightly,
“Are you asking me to give you an autograph?”
“Yes! Why, won’t you give it?”
“I think you are mistaken…”
“I’m not mistaken. Did you watch the movie An Officer and a Gentleman? Which one are you?”
“A Gentleman! But why are you telling me all this? Why do you even want an autograph?
The girl continued to address him like they had been acquainted for a long time with ease,
“I can recall about the movie Saving Private Ryan seeing you. Did you watch it?”
“Yes.”
“You know, you bear a resemblance to someone in that movie!”
“I see you have watched a lot of English movies on wars? Did you watch any movie on The Liberation War of Bangladesh?”
“Argh! I tried to watch it on television once. Those old wood guns! And the sounds of firing! Oh! How hilarious!”
Athoi realized; the girl was brought up in an affluent family within the covers of English erudition. The English words within her Bengali sentences were effortless. He mockingly said,
“Then should I write the name of the hero from the movie Saving Private Ryan?”
“Why would you write that? You are really going to war. The feelings of a soldier before going to war will remain in my diary. This autograph is way grander than that of someone who acts to be at war. Isn’t it?”
The girl was not a generation younger from Athoi’s. Probably she was five or seven years younger at best. Yet he felt as if he was talking to a person two generations younger than his. He felt good, seeing their progressive notion. And his heart filled with sorrow realizing that his pride had no part in any of the girl’s ideas; the pride that he held for the flag of this country. He perceived the girl not to be blamed for this, he was at guilt. He wrote on the diary-
‘Those who go to war!
Those going to war; and if they never return
Remember they still are resting in eternal peace
Somewhere in this earth;
Wrapped in the red-green flag
His proud heart commingled with grasses of the earth
Those who go to war!’
There was no time to read it. The girl hastily ran away as soon as Athoi had finished writing it. She ran back again; leaning towards his face she said,
“I’ll definitively watch if you make a movie on war.”
She vanished again like a dragonfly. Each and every people are so vivid; almost related. Although the people had no entity in the multitude, no one knew others. Athoi smirked; he thought to himself that from today onwards he would start greeting everyone, even unknown people with any of the salutations like ‘good morning’ or ‘good afternoon’, a smile or hello, or a wish. He will stand out of the selfish uncaring multitude. The girl being younger taught a good lesson. The words heard somewhere in a rural drama ‘I am fine’ rang in his ears. A snap of a rural scene of Bangladesh cleared up in Athoi’s mind.
Sitting on the seat of Boeing 747 two at night, Athoi relaxed opening his boots. He fell into deep slumber while thinking of Anthony. The air-hostess fastened his seat-belt and tried to straighten his head without waking him up. Waking up with hazy sight, he saw the face of the air-hostess right up close to his eyes. He never saw a woman’s face this close to him other than his mother’s. He exhaled very cautiously tilting his head. Smiling sweetly at him, the air-hostess said,
“Just a moment sir, please.”
Athoi checked the time. Half past three. Boeing 747 started proceeding towards the runway slowly and steadily. He glanced at the air-hostess’s name plate. ‘Maria’. The girl took off with a smile. Right then with a paper in his hands Anthony came and sat on the seat beside him. Skimming through the paper Anthony fastened his seat-belt.
“Recounted the manpower again! You go to sleep Athoi!”
“Alas, you made it back then?”
Athoi could not sleep even after shutting his eyes closed. The lights of Dhaka must be watched. Why did the pilots say ‘Dhaka is a dark city’ to him. He thought. The airport appeared enchanting (this last night) under the numerous bijou lights and luster of the flood light. Athoi illusorily thought the placid Dhaka bade him farewell this last night.
“Whose handwriting is this, can you tell?”
Anthony handed over a photocopied paper to Athoi. Sensing a heart-wrench pain he answered without looking at the paper,
“Is it possible to recognize one’s handwriting? How can I recognize someone’s handwriting?”
“But the person’s description the girl gave only goes with you.”
Boeing 747 started turning right with its high head piercing the ionosphere after take-off. Athoi turned his head to the right and looked Anthony in the eyes. Anthony responded,
“Hey man; what happened to you?”
Athoi awakened. The wrenching agony in his heart had pulled him far away from reality. Trying to put on a smile he replied, “No, no! Nothing!”
Anthony passed the paper,
“Why then, you look so gloomy! Is it your handwriting – ‘Those who go to war…?’”
Athoi was baffled to see his writing in Anthony’s hands. Photocopied from the diary. Athoi had written these words in the girl’s diary tonight.
“Did she take your autograph too?”
“No. I was almost running hastily. I halted hearing a girly voice call ‘hello’. She came in front, assertively checked my ID card and asked whether I was going with you.”
“Then!”
“I acknowledged. She handed me this paper merrily. Requested me to find the person who wrote this and inform her when he will return back.”
“Why?”
“Don’t know. She gave me her phone number.”
“Didn’t you ask?”
“I asked. She said, she’s in real need.”
“Okay, give me the paper and I’ll see whose handwriting that is. I’ll let you know.”
“You let her know yourself. Take this card.”
Tamanna Yeasmin Diba. The name was written in English on the blank side at the back of the card. The card probably, Athoi assumed, was Tamanna’s father’s. There was the home address, telephone number and e-mail address written below his name. ‘Now that’s a Bengali lady! Although dwelling in the midst of English her heart has not transformed into those of an English actress.’ With the unheard strange words of Athoi, Anthony asked while adjusting his seat accordingly to sleep,
“Did you say something Athoi?”
Dhaka was far away from the limits of sight by then.
2
Athoi embraced the daylight with his eyes. It was a refueling break of two hours in the Djibouti-Ambouli Airport. The night hours had increased due to flying westward for about two hours at the time of flying from Dhaka to three more hours. A small desolate airport standing on a coastland indulged with the limitless stretch of ocean touching the celestial skies at the horizon where the sun would soon peep through. He stretched out scrutinizing the heavenly seclusion of earth. The way dawn stretches out. He caught the sight of a section of armed and uniformed people lined under a two storied building at a corner of the airport; he felt inadvertently disheartened seeing them practice physical training while he himself wore a uniform. When God’s nature is bestowing its superlative splendor, a parade of His supreme beings seemed to have stood against it. Over the barbed wire fences, a strider walking over the sandy beach far beyond the runway also appeared as an amour of this grandeur to Athoi. The strider looked indistinct in front of the horizon where the sky met the ocean. Looking towards there, his reminiscence clearly pictured a few memories from his childhood. Mosharraf tried earnestly to cut off his kite string. It was stuck on a branch of a Sacred-Fig tree. A girl named Shahnaz veiling herself with the small dupatta unnecessarily. Shahnaz’s loping around seeking Athoi’s additional attention.
“The girl was highly courageous.”
Anthony interrupted Athoi’s thought. Startled, he asked,
“Which girl are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the airhostess.”
Shahnaz’s face dwelled Athoi’s mind in such a way it lead him thinking the little rural girl Shahnaz maybe become a mother by now. Thoughts of her impelled into thoughts of the airhostess made Athoi laugh out,
“What’s so extraordinary about the girl’s courage, may I know?”
“Airhostesses are frightened to come to the countries of Africa. Don’t you know Africa is most notorious in the world for raping airhostesses? Few days back…”
Athoi interrupted him,
“Anthony! You named it rape because it is Africa. Are the airhostesses much safer in Europe or America?”
“Come on Athoi. Armed rebels raided an airplane and raped all the women… did you muddle this up with the European-American’s entertainment?”
“I heard this from you first. Sorry for my comment. Rebels are grim. Their entertainments are discriminatory; they are always busy with themselves. Whereas, European high-born society had given so many dimension to their entertainment. Three star… Five star entertainment!”
“Have you symbolized your assertions? Are you trying to indicate something within them?”
“No. I’m trying to comprehend it myself.”
Athoi relentlessly gazed at the earth under daylight from beyond thirty six thousand feet for the next few hours. Mingle of blue skies and silver clouds had him driven into an abyss where he found himself the sense of closeness to mother’s soul. The aircraft impelled him sitting on the left seat, into the blue skies as it steered right. As the wings of the aircraft levelled with the horizon, even God seemed to have caught motion from within the vast blue skies; the clouds whooshing pass vanished at the brisk of the blue sky. Atlantic down below. Ships on the Atlantic appeared like specks! Way above it the smoky cloudy stratum of ionosphere veiled the earth. Athoi thought that the cloud-filled layer of ionosphere had mother’s eyes and the unspoken words of her concealed somewhere within it.
Ships afloat the Atlantic turned blemish and although, the languages of people of the earth may be numerous, only one language prevails at this elevation from earth. The silent Godly vernacular lives in the lifeless stratum of blue, blue-deep blue luminance. That subdued jargon… somehow from somewhere converse mother’s eternal soul with him.
‘What are you looking for with your glittering eyes dear?’ Athoi clasped the sense of mother’s propinquity closely. Yet his eyes remained still. For the first time after mother’s demise, he had sensed such affectionate emotions deep in his own self out in such great elevations.
The emotions will accurse if his eyes are drawn away. The delicate converse between a mother and son will be lost. Waking up, Anthony saw Athoi dreamily glued to the glassed window and said:
“You’re still like this…! One would be astonished to see your zeal of sight and patience; it should be praised, you are such a lovely character. So how did the jagged earth look?”
Still Athoi did not turn. Just about to hear what Anthony said, turning his head slightly without blinking his eyes, Athoi felt a twinge in his shoulder that strained his muscles. He kept muted although attempting to answer Anthony. The nostalgia of a monsoon evening made his memory lane tempestuous.
They visited their hometown once on a summer vacation. He goes to play football with a group of boys in the muddy village terrains. He screeches being hurt below his ears by an elbow blow from Humayun who was older than him. Returning home, mother scolds him, bathes him and lays him down on the bed to give a massage with mustard oil. A window was just above his bed from which the large garden was completely visible. The touch of mother’s hands, the light from his village house, together with tinkling raindrops in the darkness outside… rendered mother’s scolding into a sweet affection. The jagged garden seemed to look at Athoi under the barely luminous light through the window. As if the garden waited to share mother’s scolding and her love.
“Would a decent boy play in the mud like this? Why do you turn into a naughty ape when you come here Athoi?”
“See you are sitting here and adorning me for so long. Didn’t you see in the zoo the apes get more nuts… and…”
Mother bending down over to his face, kissing his forehead and saying,
“You don’t have to break your bones to get love from me. How foolish! I will love you if you simply just ask me, don’t I?”
“Then you’ll only want to go away. You only have your works. What such works do you have? You used to stay beside me when I studied! And now! Why are so busy mother?”
“We have very limited time in our lives dear. Don’t I have to prepare myself to become a mother-in-law as you grow up more?” Anannya was saying so and smiling mischievously.
Athoi trying to hide his head and face while hugging mother out of embarrassment. Said,
“You don’t have to prepare for anything. I need you only. Marriage is a worthless matter. I don’t understand, a girl leaving her parents…”
“Everyone does. Didn’t I? Does mother stay forever for anyone?”
Athoi took out his handkerchief. He put it over his eyes as if something went into them. The gargantuan wings of the aircraft rapidly sliced through the clouds. He watched the silvery clouds hastily run by. The Boeing 747 started rapidly descending tilting its nose downward. The grassy and forest-filled view of the long terrain began to clear up in front. The solitary terrain almost filled by grassy-jungle began to clear its beauty in front. The green land being clear in front seemed to welcome Athoi with its absolute greenery the way the airhostesses welcomed all the passengers with her smiling eyes.
3
Athoi had been kept waiting in Abidjan after getting out of the airport in order to hear the briefing from on behalf of Bangladesh. The SRSG (Special Representative of Secretary General (of United Nation)) have been appointed to brief the military and non-military staff by the High Secretariat Office. Athoi intricately studied the maps entering the vast operation room before anyone else. Meanwhile a second person, the Joint Logistic Operation Control Officer from Uganda spoke as he entered seeing Athoi
“Good morning, Capt! I’m Danish Ibeenu, JLOC, Sector West.”
(“Good morning, Capt! Ibeenu! I’m Danish Ibeenu, JLOC (Joint Logistics Operations Officer of Contingents in UN).
Good morning sir. I’m Athoi from Bangladesh.
“Your capital is Delhi…”
“Oh no… It’s Dhaka, Bangladesh near Bay of Bengal and Sundarban.”
“Very nice. Glad to meet you.”
“Me too. But you should be more careful asking the heritage of a human being.”
The operation room slowly filled up. The Austrian SRSG welcomed everyone and threw the first question:
“This country is better cultured than any other country of Africa. How do you feel, the newcomers?”
None showed any reaction, as if everyone were prepared to come across this question. Astounding everyone, Athoi answered,
“My feeling is very good, Sir. But I have grown a feeling within this very day that they are nurturing this culture forgetting their own heritage.”
“What do you mean?”
“Can this discussion be a little bit lighter, please? Out of the formalities?”
“Yeah, sure! Tell us what gives you these feelings?”
“There is a statue crafted here which does not represent this country’s culture yet the cultured people of the country have no reactions, or no citizen of this country has the qualification to live in the capital.”
“Which statue are you talking about?”
“I cannot specify the exact location, but I stood by observing it for a while after I was done parking the car. A black woman with her body bent asking for something. It could be assumed that she was asking for food. Whereas, I have seen that lands here in the capital and along the 300km road way are highly fertile. The mangoes are ripening and rotting while attached to the trees.”
Everyone laughed out. Sitting at the back Athoi unexpectedly noticed, a girl sitting in the front with her head turned around has been scrutinizing him with her sharp eyes. There had been stagnant bull’s eye around the audience. Such arrangement was done in order to focus on the computer’s data screen. The view of the girl’s bright face from within the dimmed radiance seemed as if there was a disparity between the attire and the words her eyes spoke. Or perhaps Athoi thought that the military uniform and the girl with such wonderful eyes were playing hide-and-seek. Smiling and praising the vigilance of Athoi, the SRSG changed the topic to his main speech.
“So gentlemen…”
Athoi noticed the girl to be busy gazing at him trying to notice his reactions ignoring the SRSG’s speech. Instead of asking further questions he lost his aspiration as he looked at the simple soothing stance of the girl’s eyes. He thought instantaneously to be silly enough to ask such question in this forum.
However, the girl showed a contrasting reaction to Athoi’s idea, with a glass of juice during the tea-break she came and sat beside him.
“Elma. Elma Hussain.”
The French-English pronunciation made each of Elma’s words buttery smooth. Before Athoi could speak up, she added,
“You are very sharp in thinking. It’s wonderful.”
“Not thinking but feelings.”
“What’s the difference between thinking and feeling? Feeling, sensing all this are actually directed by the brain…”
“You’re right. However, thoughts are of the rich and feelings are of the world’s poor bearers of words. That’s why the heart of the rich are so very elevated; that researches are on it. On the contemporary the feelings of a poor; are similar to the word ‘poverty’. It doesn’t get popular; it doesn’t get any media coverage. It tends to remain within, stale and decaying.”
“It’ll probably be easier for me to understand if you state some examples.”
“I was watching a video sitting at the American school in Rivera yesterday, watched innumerable human being murdered in front of the roars of yours tanks and machineguns. The people you killed alleged for the pillage and terrorism in Abidjan; you didn’t seize off only by killing them, you filmed the scene of brutally pulverizing the instantaneously dead bodies by running your tanks over them!”
“Are you talking about the November incident? The fourteen November 2004?”
“Yes”
“But Mr., you do not know the history behind it. People of the whole capital were fleeing away out of fright and terror. The revolts spread such frenzy and pillage…”
“My example is here. It’s your thought to become the savior of this country by killing them; it’s your triumph. And the punishment for pillaging their own country is being crushed under the tires of a foreign country’s tanks. The punishment doesn’t end even after dying! Their eyes, carcasses, torsos, fleshes and bloods are mashed together and that scene is videoed. For those who don’t have the right to have a say in it, their notion is not a ‘thought’ but a ‘feeling’. The earth is not in a position to uncover the truth behind this. The expression of distress of the people was the acts of pillaging and mugging. The way this earth understood the actions of your tanks, it failed to realize the grievance of the ravenous people equally. That’s why they tend to take revenge on the neighbors of their country. Thoughts of the mighty foreigners ooze out…”
“No… No… It’s alright. By the way, do you write?”
Athoi looked at Elma with a bit of surprise. He kept quiet. Elma summoned Athoi over to the lobby before leaving and said
“The earth you dream of is amazing. Only a writer can think this way. See you later. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.”
