The Tears of Strength
Sayan Islam
It was a gloomy day - not like one of those you find on the eve of dew-kissed mornings or the ones trodden with raindrops during monsoon days, but those rare ones who would ostentatiously meander its way to turn those usual upright sunny skies into blotches of unfamiliar murkiness. I woke up at the usual shouting of my parents whose voices echoed from the corridor. I shuddered; having just acquired half a decade of experience of my life, I was in no circumstance to fully comprehend the occurrence of the start of that day.
I stepped out of my room and dawdled to the dining room, where the origin of my parents’ unpleasant rampant lay and, upon sensing my presence, my parents abruptly drew an end to their morning brawl. This move of theirs made me even more nervous;
my mother looked at me, streaks of guilt covering her countenance. “Get ready, we are going out,” she softly ordered.
My father instantly imploded, “Where the heck, are you going?”
My mother snapped, “You don’t need to know, today I will go out and have fun with my son.”
I quivered with shivers rattling down my spine as my mother took my right hand and guided me to the washroom. She helped me brush my teeth and, upon wearing the new clothes she had bought for me, we were set to leave the house.
My father once more asked, but this time with a more nervous tone, “Where are you going? Please do tell.”
“I am not answering you. I told you I am going to spend this day with my son because today is Eid and it is meant to be enjoyed.”
Eid is the religious festival for the Muslims and, according to our religion, we have two sets of Eid: Eid-ul-Fitr - which is celebrated after a month long abstinence and sincere prayers to the Almighty and Eid-ul-Azha - which is celebrated by sacrificing a beast in honor of the deed of Prophet Ibrahim (Alayhi As-Salam) and his son Prophet Ismail
(Alayhi As-Salam). It was the eve of Eid-ul-Azha and we all knew the streets would be piled with sacrifices right after the Eid prayer.
I meekly spoke out, “Shouldn’t we go out after the Eid prayer?”
My mother sighed. “No… child, your father isn’t holy enough to pray in front of the
Almighty this year, let’s go.”
Being constrained by my lack of experience in this world, I wasn’t able to properly digest her words; and neither did she wait for me to do that as she literally dragged me out of the house with my father scurrying behind us to the door.
In those days, cell phones weren’t common among of the people of Bangladesh. Only the upper-class knew of their existence and their functionalities, while the middle and lower class had to satisfy their desires with the rumors of a device capable of calls without having a wire dangling from its bottom end. So there was no way for Father to contact Mother while we were out; I felt a sense of pity as my father’s face curtained away with the closure of the front door.
We took a rickshaw and headed to Shahbagh.
The Eid prayer was done and people were busying themselves with their sacrifices. My lungs dropped as I smelled the raw odor of fresh blood across the streets; and just as the dying heart of the sacrifices, my heartbeat too felt dead.
At the rickshaw, the only question I managed to utter was, “Where are we going?”
My mother plainly replied without even looking at me, “Somewhere fun.” The manner of her reply was well enough to shut me up for the rest of the trip.
A part of me kept on blaming myself for this entire predicament. It was attempting to convince me that I was the root cause behind the discord between my parents; and this formidable fantasy even went to the wilds to such an extent that I even started to believe that my mother was taking me out just to sell or dump me so as to acquire some fun in the process. I was indeed notorious in my early age and, even if it came out to be true, I couldn’t be blaming her as I supposed I deserved it in the end; but the imagination of losing and living without my parents traumatized me to the very core of my youthful heart.
The rickshaw finally came to a halt and to my relief we weren’t in front of “children selling mart” rather Shishu Park, the local amusement park. I felt confused. Mother helped me get off the rickshaw. After paying the fare she buried my tiny hand in hers and went to the ticket counter. Normally, any child would be overhyped with euphoria upon visiting any amusement park but for me at that time, I felt a clear mixture of dolefulness and confusion.
To my surprise, Mother bought a bunch of tickets enough for a lot of rides. In Shishu Park, the tickets were marked off with money amounts like Tk. 2 and Tk. 5; they didn’t have any specific ticket for specific rides, so to go on a ride priced at Tk. 10, you needed to pay out 5 pieces of Tk. 2 tickets or 2 pieces of Tk. 5 tickets - that was how it ran.
I rode the Carousel and the Airplane ride with a dry heart. Then my mother and I rode the Haunted Train. During other usual times, I always felt scared with sparks of joyfulness ingrained in my heart but that day, my heart refused to feel anything. I rode a couple of other rides in the same manner. My mother tried to cheer me up giving away an array of artificial smiles each time she looked at me, lightly brushing my hair with her hands; I knew for sure that she wasn’t feeling herself as well but she refused to give in to her inner self. Then we decided the Trampoline was going to be my last ride and we would return home. As I placed my feet on the waving rubber of the large trampoline, I felt the earth below me crumbling away as the other children beside me hopped without any care in life. Then, out of suddenness, my eyes caught a glance at my mother; and what I saw will always remain a scar imprinted in my heart for years to come. She was hysterically trying to hold in her tears, desperately trying to cover her pitiful face with her hands but with no success. Upon catching me looking at her, she attempted to calm herself down; wiping the corners of her eyes, she waved at me with an attempted smile across her face stricken with fresh tears welling across her eyes.
Had she always been crying like this upon placing me on a new ride? I kept on guiltily asking myself… here I was, blindly enjoying my time or rather, attempting to enjoy myself
without batting an eye on my poor mother while she attempted to relieve herself only to give in further to her undried tears during each new ride. I auspiciously felt nothing more than a criminal.
Two decades after this event, my mother finally got to disclose this incident to me. Even though shame and abhorrence is preventing me to reveal the entire details of what gave rise to that incident, what I have decided to disclose is enough to make my readers feel disgusted.
Two decades ago, a week before that incident took place, my father blew off his entire savings with which he was supposed to buy a beast for sacrifice on Eid day at a brothel; and even though my mother had proof of his infidelity, he refused to accept any form of charge made against him. That was what my mother meant when she implied that my father wasn’t “holy enough” for the morning Eid prayer, and that’s all I can bear to disclose. And I wonder even to this day what went through my mother’s mind as she decided to cry in my absence choosing not to present her sorrows to her own son. Many would think she cried due to her weakness, but for me those were the tears of her strength; concealing her suffering to no one, refusing to give in to the immorality and the injustice done to her, but rather, choosing to hold on to her hopes and see through the process of witnessing her son growing up and becoming prosperous in life.
***
As I was returning from the doctor’s chamber, crossing the Shahbagh region with little
Alyssa on my lap, she screamed - bursting her lungs out in the process - “Daddy! There’s an amusement park here, let’s go!”
“No dear, the amusement park is closed.”
Alyssa nonchalantly bellowed, “But why?”
As I looked at the large red signboard with its printed pitiful letters placed in front of the desolate park, I replied, “Because they are going to build a new one pretty soon.”
Alyssa enthusiastically cried out, “Can we go there once it’s finally built?”
I clearly felt the trickle of tears welling up my eyes. Embarrassingly, the first drop managed to seep out from the corner. “Yes child, of course, we can,” as I delicately brushed her hair with my hands.