Biography 292: Some memories at Barua Sir's home - D

 In our math coaching sessions, we often discuss many topics. One day, our external topic was how parents treat their daughters and sons. A girl is expected to learn and perform household duties from a very young age. On the other hand, boys don't work until they are old enough to go shopping by themselves; this duty might be once a week or sometimes just to bring something from the grocery store. Girls' chores are different, such as cooking, helping with cooking, doing the dishes, washing clothes, cleaning the house—including sweeping—and other tasks. These are not just single tasks; but they take time. So, when they are both students, girls have less time to study and find it difficult to concentrate. Meanwhile, boys only have one job each day—studying. 

When we discussed this, I knew our teacher was a man. He might agree or remain silent in front of us, but in his real life, he would treat boys and girls in the same way, which parents do. 

One day, we reached his house; Sir hadn't joined us yet. His maid was cleaning. She said, "Yesterday, Sir didn't take his dinner." We were surprised and asked why. She explained that his wife was giving an exam, so she wasn’t cooking anything. Sir had to go to his in-laws' house for dinner, but he arrived late and didn't go there. So, he didn’t have dinner. We were really surprised to hear that. In Bangladesh, it's quite rare for a husband to sacrifice for his wife by not letting her cook during her exam.

The description is almost correct in the song!

 Except for the lover boy, I agree with all descriptions ;)

Biography 165: Speaking in the class

 I have studied in combined (Boys and Girls) classes from nursery to grade 4. Then I went to the girl's school and college. I came in the combined classes at the University of Dhaka.

Did I miss boys in these years? NO. I had already decided not to marry, so I avoided being emotionally involved with any boys. I didn't care whether I was with boys or girls. I spoke with all in the same way. As I am a religious person. I don't touch or show my body to boys.

Before joining the classes, I decided to talk with everyone, whoever sat beside me. I knew I was an introverted person. If I keep quiet in class, people will misunderstand me. So, I pushed myself so that at least I had a classmate in the class with whom I could spend time.

Later I found this was a bad idea. In most cases, boys thought I started loving him, and that's why trying to make a conversation. No, this wasn't the university boys' situation. Whenever I talk with anyone, that person feels I am in love with them.

This way, I have had some conversations with each person in the class. So, the course became very comfortable for me. I could talk with anyone whenever needed.

Biography 28: Boys will be boys

 

We have got an invitation to join a marriage ceremony in Alkaseem (Saudi Arabia). My mother and 3 sisters went there. My mom later told me, she had seen, all expenses had taken care of by the groom. They send all foods and even the mat to sit the invited guests including the bride's expenses. That's why before marriage the groom has to save a lot of money. This situation makes a man a little older in Saudi Arabia get married. That's why some boys go to Egypt to get married because Egyptian girls don't have that much demand or to get married at a low cost.

I wasn't that older to understand these things. I remember a part of that party. It was a night party. In the wedding house, there were two yards for men and women. We took a seat at the girl's yard. There were no boys inside that yard. It was surrounded by a 1 or 2 storied building. In the middle, there was an open space. The girls who had long black hair stood up and let their hair open. These girls were very looking very beautiful. Then they start dancing. That's their traditional dance. In my eyes, they were taking their hair from one side to another. That's it. My mom has long hair too. Mom said, they let her hair open and ask her to join the dance. She felt shy, couldn't join them.

Then something happened. I saw girls fall down, actually, they hide behind all other girls. Some older woman stood up and told to let go of those boys first, who are sitted at the top of the buildings to watch the dance (Girls). I believe there were 13-17 old boys. When older woman shouted and some may go upstairs to bring them down. They went away. They were laughing.

Boys thinking

[English version has given below]

ছোটবেলা থেকেই একটা জিনিস আমি সব সময় লক্ষ্য করেছি, ছেলেদের সাথে আমার বনিবনা হয়না। ওদের চিন্তা-ভাবনা, কাজকর্ম, রিয়্যাকশন আমার ভালো লাগেনি। তাই সব সময়ই এদের সাথে কিছুটা দুরত্ব বজায় রেখে চলেছি।

আমার ছেলেকেও (৬ বছর বয়স) দেখি একই কাজ করছে। ওর ক্লাসে ছেলেমেয়ে একসাথে ক্লাস করে. তারপরও শাফিন শুধু ছেলেদেরই বন্ধু বানায়। আমি বললাম, তুমি মেয়েদের বন্ধু কেন হওনা ? ও বলল, "মেয়েরা তো জোরে জোরে দৌড়াতে পারেনা, বেশি লাফালাফি করতে চায়না"

স্কুল ছুটির পর কখনোও কখনোও ওর ক্লাসের মেয়ে এসে আমাকে অভিযোগ করেছে, "শাফিন আমার বন্ধু হতে চায় না". রীতিমতো চোখে পানি চলে এসেছে মেয়ের।

আমি শাফিনের উপর রেগে গেলাম. ডাক দিয়ে বললাম, "ও তোমার বন্ধু হতে চায় আর তুমি ওকে বন্ধু বানাচ্ছোনা কেন?"

শাফিন বলল, "ওত আমার সাথে রেস করতে পারবেনা।"

আমি বললাম, "আগে তো বন্ধু হতে দাও, হয়তো ও খুব ভাল ভাবে তোমার সাথে খেলতে পারবে। তার না পারলেও বন্ধু হলে তোমার সমস্যা কি? ও হয়তো তোমার খুব ভাল বন্ধু হতে পারবে। ও তোমার অন্যান্য বন্ধুর (ছেলে) মতো  মারামারি করবে না."

শাফিন বিরস মুখে রাজি হয়.

From childhood I have seen I faced problem in understanding with boys. Their way of playing, thinking, work, reaction didn't match with mine. So, I always try to keep some distance with boys.

Now, I found my son (6 years old) is doing same. He is studying in boys and girls combined school. But I found he is only making friends with boys. I asked him, why are you doing this? He replied, "Girls can't run fast like me, they don't like to do jumping...”

Sometimes girls complain me about Shafeen after school that Shafeen didn't accept to make friendship with her. I saw tears in their eyes. This really gives me anger. I asked Shafeen, what is this, why didn't you make friendship with her?

Shafeen, "She can't make race with me..."

I, "How do you know that? If she can't, it doesn't mean that she can't be a good friend. At least she is much better than your current friends (boys) who regularly fight with you."

Shafeen makes agree to make friendship with girls with a sad face...

There are some connections between boys and tires.

My son turns over it to see the tires clearly and playing with it. Here he was 1 year and 9 months old.

There are some connections between boys and tires. I am not joking. It’s true. You will see from childhood they will be fond of tires. Whenever they look for any toy they will choose where it contains tire. Like car, bus, motor cycle etc. And when these kids play, the first thing they pull out is the tire. When boys grown up their main topic of discussion is vehicle, which has tires. I don’t know what psychology works with it, but they are like that.

One day my sister came to our house and Tameem (my elder sister’s son) shown her a car and said “see I have got a new car, it still has tires”. Means whenever a new car he got the first pull out its tire, so none of his car has any tire. But that new one was still with all pieces.

My son likes to see how tires move. His favorite playing style is lying on the floor and move cars. So that he can see clearly how tires moves.

My son turns over it to see the tires clearly and playing with it.

You don’t need to feel so important always

Sometimes for some incidence you felt very much important, sometimes actually you were wrong. Let me give you some example.

While my training was going on, one day our trainer gave us a URL and told us to browse. I didn’t know where I did the mistake in the URL, the site wasn’t coming in my pc. On that moment the class room was full of students, randomly I choose one who was sitting just behind me and request him to come to my pc and check the URL. For me that was the total situation. But for the boy the situation was just started… he started thinking why did I pick him, why not others, his friends started making joking with two of us, and as usual the boy started thinking of me. First, I didn’t notice that something is going on with this boys mind. From next he started to communicate with me every now and then. I get scared. I wanted to stop it, so I started avoiding him totally. But it took years to make him understand that there was nothing between us.

In universities, lots of young boys and girls do study. If a girl just smile to a boy, just for social manners, that she knows the boy or he is a student of her class, or department, he started feeling that he is the one. Otherwise why she gave me a smile, there are other boys were also available.

Sometimes we found some one’s face is matching with any of our relative or well known person, on that case you will try to notice the boy’s face twice to be confirmed… and what the boy is thinking on that moment, that he became a hero of that girl.

We girls when communicate with boys, we try to pick the safer one, like a married person or a person of other religion, so that love kind of thinking won’t come fast. But we are wrong, they also things the same way.

To friends I must say, please don’t force to think the boy that the girls started liking him. For you its fun, because you also know, it’s not the truth. But for the boy, it could be the life and death issue.