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A slap, a shove, and the end of fine art

Mahfuzur Rahman
IT is mid-morning. The small shopping centre is still quite, but a hectic day lies ahead. Eid is coming and by early afternoon the place, crammed with tiny shops, which in turn are bursting with wares, will be abuzz with shoppers. The long open space between the two rows of shops will fill up.
For now, the young shop assistant Abdur Rashid has a vacant look. He leans on the long glass and wood showcase. Behind him hang layers of punjabis, pajama trousers, shalwars, and kameez, laced, embroidered, or just plain, in a collage of shapes, sizes and colours. They will dazzle in the evening as the lights come on. They look surprisingly dull now to Abdur Rashid who was on his feet last night till closing time, which was close to mid-night. He is a little tired but happy. Sale last night was good. He hopes today will be a good day too. So does Akbar Ali, the owner, who is settling down to look through the accounts at the wall-end of the show case, under the hanging arm of a cream coloured punjabi waiting to be sold.
Abdur Rashid is new to the job. The nineteen year old has been here only a month. He has been in the city not much longer. He still misses his home in a Chapai Nababganj village: misses the mango trees, misses climbing them at this season of ripe mangoes. And what mangoes they are! He has not touched a mango here in Dhaka for fear of formalin. He sighs.
Someone has crept up to the show case while he was gazing at the crawling traffic on New Elephant Road and thinking about home and mangoes. The girl is perhaps his age, or a trifle older. And she is beautiful. The purple kameez she is wearing can easily match any in quality in Abdur Rashid's shop. Her slim shalwar, is a perfect fit for her slim body, the hem stopping an inch short of the fair ankles. Abdur Rashid feels she has been there for quite some time. Did she want something? He wondered. She does not seem particularly keen to buy anything. Perhaps she was waiting for someone and just killing time gazing at the shops wares. Better to ask.
Did you want something? Do you want me to show you a kameez suit? No answer. Abdur Rashid falls silent. But he cannot help looking at the girl. It is her turn to speak. What are you staring at? She asks. Nothing, just looking at you, the boy intones.
The girl's right arm flies into the air, away from her shoulder, the palm expands to its full width and comes crashing down on the boy's left cheek. His manhood under assault, he shoves the girl. Perhaps she was not prepared for this. Perhaps she was still reeling from the swing of her own arm. She falls.
A panicked Akbar Ali rushes in. A few other shopkeepers too come running. Someone helps the girl to her feet. Ali apologises for his shop assistant. He tells him to apologise to the girl (maaf chaa haramzada!) which he does. Reluctantly. After all it was she who hit her first. And for what? For saying he was looking at her,
What happened? He was beaten up, mangled. But how can artists be so cruel? They are supposed to be delicate creatures creating delicate things. Like flowers. Or gently flowing rivers. Or beautiful women.
which was in response to her silly question, and after she had been staring at nothing in particular in front of the shop, and just hanging around? Still, he apologises. The girl storms out, towards the premier school of fine art in the city, a couple of blocks away. In the melee she had let it be known that is where she was a student, a budding artist.
The turn of events perplexes Abdur Rashid. Such humiliation. He did not ogle the girl. He was not following her. In fact she was not even on the move. He did not whistle at her, as he was told city bokhates sometimes do to passing girls. It was an innocent phrase of his, and that too And how come she was an artist and she resents an admiring look? Back home he had said to his neighbour's daughter, young Amina, and said it to her face, that she was beautiful, and that
resulted only in a heavenly smile from her. And here?
A dozen students from the arts school burst in, led by the aggrieved artist. A stretched finger, straining with rage, picks out Abdur Rashid. A dozen fists descend on him in a hail storm of blows. Someone pulls at his hair and they start to drag him out of the shop, while Ali and other shop keepers try in vain to stop the assault. The group is now on the footpath, its victim between the feet of the angry students of fine art. In a moment the horizontal Abdur Rashid's head hits the concrete road with a thud as he is dragged from the high foot path. Some more students from the art school join in. They drag Abdur Rashid by the legs, his head now sweeping the potholed road, while kicks and lathi blows land all over him, all the way to the school.
On ardent appeal, and offer of remuneration, from Ali Akbar the police rescue him. He is barely alive. Every bone in his body seems to have been broken. A swollen, mutilated Abdur Rashid is taken to his lodgings. The kindly Ali Akbar does not sack him and promises to take him back, if he survives.
The young shop assistant groans in his bed. He tries to think. Now he has time to think. What happened? He was beaten up, mangled, for just saying But how can artists be so cruel? They are supposed to be delicate creatures creating delicate things. Like flowers. Or gently flowing rivers. Or beautiful women.
And how come the students returned the next day and demanded money from the shopkeepers of the market. Or they would burn the place down, they warned. How much money? Five lakh. Three lakh. It was the Eid shopping season. The shopkeepers would not like to miss it for anything. They could not afford to see the busiest shopping season of the year ruined. So, three lakh, shall we say? Three lakh then. And this is going into good hands. Delicate hands of buddingartists.
Abdur Rashid groans.
The writer is an erstwhile UN economist in retirement in New York.