Act 1

Enter the protagonist

It was already midsummer. The July sky was bright and clear blue with a few patch of white clouds roaming around. The twelve o’clock sun was furiously burning the asphalt roads that intertwined the whole city of Dhaka like a sticky spider web. Heavy and stagnant traffic here and there, the perennial problem of the city, was adding fuel to the fire. Seemingly countless public vehicles were lining up one after another. The atmosphere was grim from the exhaust fumes and incessant honking of horns. But the worst was the situation in the inside of the buses from carbon monoxide, sweaty and smelly armpits, bad breath of smokers, and people with coarse voices shouting over cell phone. The traffic police officers were at complete loss. Well, at least it was not raining, or else……

In one such traffic jam there was a number twelve bus standing somewhere on Manik Mian Avenue and waiting while loading passengers in an already overcrowded vehicle. Inside the bus Shahin was sitting at a corner, looking blankly out of the window with almost lifeless, fixated eyes. He was totally unaffected by all and every commotion around him. Like a few others who were sleeping even in this condition, he also was tranced from thinking of the present full of frustration and a future full of uncertainty.

An already thirty year old young man Shahin was the eldest son of his family. At his age he was supposed to look after his family, have a well paid job and perhaps married to a fine woman. But unfortunately he was lacking in all of those fields. His father was a retired person and mother was a house wife. His younger brother was earning money already. Frankly speaking Shahin didn’t have a social status. With an unfortunate nine years of study break and a B.A certificate from a mediocre university, he was already on the verge of break down because of a series of failed job interviews. Slowly he was losing interest in living. He had long forgotten the reason for his existence. What could he do to make a break through? Not a single employer in this god damned country was interested in making a decent conversation with him which would last more than two minutes. He was in such a dead lock which only a divine key could open. But it seems that Almighty somehow threw the key away to some distant place with no intention of recovering it.

“Boss! Bus fare!” the conductor broke the chain of his thoughts.

“How much is it?” Shahin brought out a ten taka note hoping Motijheel to Mohammadpur would cost as usual.

“Fifteen taka only, boss.”

“What?” just by hearing that Shahin’s blood started boiling,”Oi! Oi! How come it is fifteen taka? Yesterday it was ten taka only.”

“Boss, price of oil increased, so we had to increase bus fare as well,” calmly said the conductor with a smiling face.

Shahin instantly remembered yesterday’s news about an oil price hike.

“Haaaaahhhh!!! What can I do? It can’t be helped then. But should it be increased by five taka?”

“Boss, it should have been more but we are considering public sentiment as well,” the conductor lied with a straight face because there was no way in hell that he would reduce bus fare for the sake of the passengers.

“Heh! What a hypocrite!” thought Shahin.

“The government sure is taking its time nice and easy. And here I am being the filling of the burger and squeezed from the both sides. The people in the authority don’t really care about the unemployed youth of the country. Where can I vent my anger?” Shahin kept thinking. An unimaginable anger from frustration was eating him up from the inside. He felt his heart pounding madly as his blood shot to his head just from thinking how helpless he was against all these social circumstances. While the people in the Government office took decision in an air cooled room, the general people suffered the consequences between the heavens and earth.

“Damn, those people!!”Shahin muttered.

Suddenly the bus started moving.

“Gawd!! At long last it has started to move!! Bloody traffic!!” Shahin looked outside of the bus.

Author's Note

Please let me know of any grammar mistakes or spelling. Suggest any social problem which can be voiced through the protagonist.