So, Tonight I Log On …
…And I see someone is logged on in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Welcome to my world. My world is your world now. The world where everywhere is here and now.
I once lived in Dacca, East Pakistan. Another time and country that no longer exist. We all lived in places that no longer exist, though many of us maybe don’t exactly know that yet.
Dhanmandi. Dacca, East Pakistan. This is where, at age 8, I first saw a man without a nose. It was horrifying, but I was on the other side of the road, and he paid no attention to me, so I kept walking. I became used to lepers, but the beggar woman with the goiter and a baby at a particular intersection downtown, who’d stick her head in the car window, she terrified me. Dacca is where I was taken up on the roof at night to watch the Shiites in procession on Jinnah Avenue across Dhanmandi Lake flaying each other by wild torchlight to commemorate the death of Ali. Wailing, screams and fire reflected on the lake. For Eid at the end of Ramadan, there’d be flocks of sheep in the streets dyed pink and green.
We covered the English language signs that had our name on the gatepost on certain days of the year so they would not be torn down, and flew a black flag when angry students rampaged. At night, I’d hear the night watchman’s cry as he walked the streets and hear when he rang his bell. It was the loneliest sound I’ve ever heard.
When it rained, the snakes came out. When it stopped, the gardener would go out with a stick and beat them, hanging their long carcasses in the trees so we wouldn’t step on the poisonous fangs. Once someone saw a snake slither into the gutter that ran under the terrazzo porch. The cook brought the pot of hot water that was always simmering on the stove, and when that black and yellow snake came surfing out the other end on a wave of hot water, us kids beat the hell out of him with sticks. We kept dead crows hanging over the corn and the vegetable garden. The other crows got the message.
I remember wrinkled women at contruction sites, sitting on piles of brick in the noonday sun with their brats in the ditch, breaking brick in the relentless midday heat to mix with the concrete in this place with no stone.
We’d go to American movies at the USAID auditorium downtown. When we saw Moby Dick, we were very much impressed and took to nailing worthless 5 pisa pieces to posts. “Whosoever shall spy the White Whale … ” We thought they were worthless, anyway. Little odd-shaped bits of aluminum. Probably could have bought a meal for that woman on the brickpile.
The captain lived across the street. He took one of my brothers and me to the regimental headquarters of the East Pakistan Rifles, into the regimental mess where we saw the skins and heads of tigers, old sabers, polished silver, all of that. They let us play with rifles that had bayonets on them. We used the bayonets to pick up leaves, like it was a game. I remember seeing men holding up the heads of West Pakistanis who had been the officers in Time magazine a few years later. I looked real hard, but couldn’t tell if the captain’s head was one of those.
Dacca, the first place I saw a body covered with a sheet lying on the street. Most of the ones I saw after that weren’t covered.
It was a long time ago, and none of it matters any more.
Topics: Uncategorized
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 12:10 am on Saturday, December 9, 2006
4 Responses to “So, Tonight I Log On …”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
December 9th, 2006 at 2:31 am
I get hits from all over the world too. And from some .gov and .mil domains.
December 9th, 2006 at 10:11 am
Wow. Great piece.
December 9th, 2006 at 11:10 am
Au contraire, Jules. It does matter, as long as you can remember and tell the story. Our shared stories are our guidepost and anchor in this big, scary journey humanity is on. Sorry to be so airy-fairy poetical, but it’s what I believe.
December 9th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
“It was a long time ago, and none of it matters any more.”
Nonsense, and you know it :) All that helped make you who and what you are today. And it is why you are able to put things in proper prospective.