Short+Story+Conflict+Between+Person+and+Non-Person

October 3rd, 1994

I arrived at the train station at a decent hour in the morning. They were adorned with a typical Bangladeshi colorfulness, and shifted around me gracefully in deep, heated breaths. I had come this far on my own, but I wasn't lonely. Through crowds of white shirts and darker skin, I reached the end of the station, and opened up to the market place. Sunshine blinded just as everyone struggled to complete their own stories, and already I was offered several items and received some screams from the desperate merchants across the ground.

I was here in Dhaka to visit Zahid Shaha, who had been a close acquaintance to my friend Robert, who had been here on the hippie trail (or the neo-hippie trail) to study hinduism in India and Bangladesh. He had stayed in India for 10 years, and another 7 in Bangladesh. Shaha was contacted as a family member of one of Robert's contemporaries, and allowed him to stay in his house for several years, providing his own food and clothing through independent work of Shaha.

It was steamy, and growing closer towards noon. I was surrounded by the chaotic claustrophobia of the poorer sections of town, those buildings with patched roofs and unkempt streets full of inevitable trash. I finally found his place after a few hours of lovely heated travel, and knocked on his door to say hi. It was a small house, and in matching disrepair to the rest of the community. There were greatly pronounced cracks in the building, dirt marks upon the concrete, which is what his house was mostly made up of. He opened the door and at the same time his character. The first impression was a bright eyed look I saw from under his thick black eyebrows. A great smile came upon him.

His English was surprisingly a little less than perfect. "Welcome! I am honored to have you finally make it. It is great to have my expectations realized. If you are tired come inside and sit."

The confused impressions of the situation disturbed me. He was in a very bright mood, but it contrasted to everything around him. As I drifted in, I absorbed the almost complete absence of furniture, dirty floor and simple house structure. There was a great pot for cooking food submerged within 2 feet of the ground in one of the two rooms of the first floor. Upstairs was another room almost empty, that jutted out a small balcony from its front whose only feature was its barren platform.

I had talked to him on a phone three months earlier, and we had agreed that I would start working the day after I came. Every day he takes a bus ride with 30 other laborers to the farm fields outside the city. It's mostly the work for large scale food companies, although there always is an independent owner of land who keeps his plantations up to date with the employment of workers and the direct merchandising of his products.

He called all his family to greet me. They were Hindi, and included 5 children and a wife. Most of them were small, very cute and playful, giving me that excited look of wonderment when they see a foreign visitor. The Bangladeshi were a very fair looking people. Their smiles brightened up every situation, especially the solemn one they were in. I received a small meal that evening. I was extremely grateful, and would have been happier to go without it. I slept on the floor on a mat with the rest of the family that night.

October 4th, 1994

The morning had came, and we began walking to the bus station. It was a laboring bus, funded by the company, but badly kept, expectedly marked with dirt and rust. 'This is what he must do.' I thought. 'Every day, to support his family.' We arrived in the fields 2 hours later. There was still a lot of traffic, and the metropolis was all around us, with poor communal villages perched on the hillsides with their thatched roofs.

The 30 workers stepped out of the bus, and most were sore from yesterday's work. We were handed hoes, and I took a look at Zahid.

"Time to start." he said.

So I took my tool and buried it into the ground.