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Dhaka Day by Day

Travails Of Lending And Leasing

by Fayza Haq
When I returned home to Dhaka after five years, I found my collected works of Shakespeare and Shaw missing, along with my favour-novels by PS, Buck and Maugham. "What's happened to them ?" 1 naturally asked my mother. She calmly Informed me that members of the family needed them for theatre re-hcaraal and other reasons, and I have since then never seen those books.
1 myself have lent prized books to friends , which 1 collected with great difficulty over the years, and which are not available in Dhaka today . Like the naive individual that I am, I never kept a record of these books. I did get back quite a few of the books. But the rest remain untraceablc. I could not get them back even with a crowbar.
There was a time I lent a treasured French book, complete with casettes to a friend .when I needed the item myself badly . My friend — busy with her schedule of nine- to -six Job at a busy Dhanmandi commercial establishment , and the housework at Hatkhola to tend to later — never had the time to really use the book. But I finally got the items years after 1 had lent them to her. She still hankered after a last glance at the book and a final hearing of the tapes, when 1 fabricated the talc of how my bag was packed for Melbourne, with the French book included in the essential luggage, and that 1 had inadvertently lost the keys to the bag. One has to sometimes resort to such white lies to protect one's own property.
Lending books, clothes and other personal items can really break up friendship. J know of a friend of mine who lent her gorgeous embroidered "sari” to a colleague, and got It back only covered
with turmeric stains. Although this item was eventually sent to the laundry, it was never the same. This same friend has lent out her 'shalwar-kameez' and "kurta-pajama" sets, only to have them returned stained, torn and faded. T dare not refuse," she confessed to me. 1 am new in the city and need friends. "
1 know of my sister lending her best French chiffon "saris’ to my cousins, with whom she was apparently hand in glove. When the items were returned after months, after repeated reminders, the hooks were missing and there were tears in the entire body of the "saris". But my sister's lips were scaled. She dared not rebuke the cousin who had caused her so much □f misery. How people get off Scott free because someone else is too polite or gentlc-natured to reprlmandl
1 myself have lent items like typewriters, heat-ray lamps, and baking trays to get the typewriters and the other Items, busted, cracked or the essential non-stick base missing. I obviously have lent them to people I was friendly with and trusted. It was only because I dared not annoy my friends that 1 resorted to parting with my prized possessions. Yet do you think these friends and acquaintances remember that you ever lent them anything in the first place?
Recentty when a friend of mine, working at a Naya Paltan office, asked me to lend him my typewriter — admired and trusted him as I did — 1 am sure J annoyed him no end by flatly refusing to lend. In taking the step of not lending. I also kept in mind that he could easily afford ten typewriters, with his present income, and what was he to do with a piddling manual contraption? It had, moreover sentimental value to me — as it was a birthday gift from my husband.
If it is a matter like lipstick, eye-shadows or Cncil-hecled court shoes, I have had them ck as stubs, with the leather nicked off , or the friend simply forgets the entire matter of ever having borrowed your entire range of make-up set, and then ensues the embarrassment of wondering to oneself, "Shall 1 remind her or Is her Job at Motijhccl running her down and she needs the set Just to boost her ego?"
It's not Just books and clothes. Sometimes J have known people to 'borrow radios, tapcre-corders, VCRs and even cars and to return them tn a damaged condition. The father of a friend of mine in Purana Pallan lent his brand new car to his business partner, and got it back with paint removed and the back smashed up. lie dared not say a word for fear of incurring the disfavour of the partner. Not being of a Muslim origin, he feels somewhat insecure In Dhaka, and gives in to the whims of his colleague.
I have the experience of lending money to my male colleagues who have come up with comments like "What do you as a woman require money?" I would have to manufacture all sorts of excuses, when trying to get the sum back. 'I owe my brother money since ages
and he is flying down from London next month . So buddy, you must return my Tk 2000," were the lines my girl friends taught me.
I have so far only narrated incidents of slippers and slips. When there are more serious matters such as getting rent from the tenants, to whom you have leased out your house, the situation is more grave.
We happen to lend out a small cottage with a corrugated tin roof to a well-to-do and well-known member of Dhaka society, he flaunts swanky cars and his wife sports the finest "saris", and he himself creates a stir, with his canyons, of late, in the Sangsad Bhaban. To get a petty sum of rent from these tenants has always been a Herculean task. 1 would have to Uy from Melbourne to Dhaka, before any due payments were ever paid. There was invariably some lame excuse. And to think I had once coaxed my father to rent out the cottage to them because I considered them my close fricndsl
Our aunts and uncles too have constant problems with their tenants. Even though they have all the money in the world, and live tn exclusive places in Bananl, Eskaton, and Dhanmandi, and can afford gala parties twice a week, getting the rent out of them is like getting blood out of a stone.