AMELA

The last time I saw Amela she was stark naked and screaming. I had just come back from office after a hectic day of trading at the bourse. An old woman came to Amela with a dirty piece of gunny sack and took her away. I was tired and hungry, it was already the middle of the afternoon and my body wanted replenishment without further ado. Exasperated to the hilt by her frequent antics, I wondered what she was up to now and decided not to interfere. I never saw her again.

Amela was a young woman of about twenty. When I first saw her I thought she was one of the common beggars one sees on the streets and who in many cases are nothing more than charlatans or scamsters. I thought she would come up to me asking for money with some soppy story of not having eaten in two days and a child who is home, lying sick and a husband who does not look after her and on and an on. She didn’t.

Amela with the speech of a five year old asked me to buy her a cigarette. I was taken aback and couldn’t give her my standard response to beggars which is to go somewhere else. I froze.

It was like two statues looking at each other for ages without a blink. She broke the spell and insisted on me buying her a cigarette. Gradually it became like a chant, give me a cigarette, give me money for a cigarette, come on give me give me…….

I gave her some money. Ever since that day she would spot me from afar and come to me and ask for a cigarette in her baby like manner of speaking, in drawls and slurps. I knew from our first encounter that she was mentally challenged and nobody looked after her. The thought of that scared me stiff. Can a five year old brain run a twenty year old body? I guess it has to.

I wanted to talk to her about her whereabouts, trying in vain to point out the ridiculousness of her existence but she would give me a blank stare and then waiting as if trying to comprehend my queries and of course failing to do so she made her usual demand. This was her existence and she had no clue about it.

The street outside my place is a hub of people, parked cars, tea stalls, and dumps of construction materials or garbage and stray dogs. Amela was friendly with the dogs, sat or rested on the dumps, had a quick bathroom between parked cars, went to the stalls for tea, a cake, a biscuit and of course cigarettes. People, however, were a different proposition. Most referred to her as ‘Pagli’ (derogatory term for women of unsound mind). They would poke at her with sticks, never pay any attention to what she was saying but looking at her bumps with leering eyes. At times I would a rickshaw puller talking in whispers with her. I soon realized that some of the crowd was taking advantage of her body albeit run by an underdeveloped brain. Her body had reached womanhood and the physical instincts did not need the help of the brain to manifest. She was a prey to the lustful eye.

My son, then about ten years of age, talked to her often. Somehow Amela got to know my wife and him and their relationship to me. My wife talked to her when possible and gave her money and told me with a sigh about Amela and felt sorry for her, I am sure. One day she found our son referring to Amela as Pagli. He got a lecture from her mother why that was a cruel thing to do. That conversation would seem absurd or even ludicrous, to many.

A blind man is Kana, A man hard of hearing is Kala, A dark girl is Kali, A fat man is Motu, An old man is Bura. All derogatory addresses but who has time for decency in a world where everyone is living a bare knuckle life. Have you ever seen a dog eat another dog? We like to use a cliché using the alleged cannibalism of dogs; it’s easier to go to sleep at night that way.

Amela went missing, at times, for several days. She had most likely been taken in the care of some bleeding heart social group but inevitably she came back after a stint. The abuse, sexual and other, that has plagued her life from childhood was probably detected by some human rights’ people but I guess she had already been too damaged and was beyond repair like the skeletons of old cars lying in the open, come rain or sunshine. She had become a “FUBAR” at the age of twenty.

Amela was getting more and more violent and started screaming in abusive language. People threw stones at her to dissuade her from showing her ‘lunacy’.

It is better this way. She is gone now, to who knows where. With the rich people, the glitzy cars, the tall buildings with shiny glass fronts, the fancy restaurants glorifying our area, there is no room for Amela. WHO WANTS AN EYESORE TO RUIN AN EVENING OF FUN AND FROLIC?

Dhaka, 21st December 2014.