Life is not life in a city. I feel very uncomfortable even breathing there. People seem heartless in town. Whatever you do, no matter how gently you behave with them, they will surely show their heartlessness to you. This feels very shameful and pitiful to me but what can we unfortunate people do without tolerating this anguish? I have four children: three daughters and a son. For supporting my family and my children’s education, I have been working in Dhaka for the last 4 years as a rickshaw puller.
In the beginning of my rickshaw pulling life, a boy aged between 22-25 years old, the same as my elder daughter, slapped me in front of lot of people
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because I wanted my fair charge. Being vulnerable, I cried in disgrace and shame the whole day. I could not ride the rickshaw that day anymore after that incident. After that, almost every day lots of incidents were happening and since we are rickshaw pullers, people don’t think we are also human. Now I have accepted my fate and I am accustomed to cruelty and humiliation from the city people every day.
I am taking my grandson Abir’s photo. I will leave for my work tomorrow and I want to take some good memories with me for the next full year. I came home here to my village last week after a year to see him. He is ten months old and has never met me before last week but it seems like he has known me for a long time. I wanted to return to my job two days ago but for him every day I have been taking a day more break in order to stay here in this heavenly village where I certainly belong. Here I can take some extra oxygen into my lungs; something I will not find in that loveless city where people painfully breathe in the dead air_Abbas Uddin