A Street Boy
It was a beautiful sunny afternoon when my friend Maliha and I visited CRB Park. The birds were singing and the gentle breeze was blowing through the leaves. It was an interesting moment and we were enjoying the natural view of the park. All of sudden a street boy came forward and asked,
“Apa, do you need nuts?”
I replied, “Oh! Yes, I was looking for something to eat. Ok, give me 10-taka nuts.”
He gave me the nuts.
I said, “Thank you, and what is your name?”
He looked surprised, so I asked, “Why are you surprised?”
He said, “Apa (sister), you asked for my name and said thanks. Since 2017, I have been selling nuts here, but no one has ever asked my name or said thanks. But I don’t have any name, Apa. Sometimes, I am called Pichi and sometimes, Cockhra (street boy). Other times, I am called Bikhuk (beggar).”
I asked about his age, and he looked at me with big questions in his eyes.
“I do not know, but maybe I am nine years old” he sounded confused.
I asked, “Where is your home and how did you come Chittagong?”
He said, “Apa, it is a long history, do you have time to hear it?”
I replied, “Yes, I have time to hear your story if you wish to tell.”
And so he recalled:
Apa, I had a happy family with a father, mother, and one sister. We lived in a small village. However, I forgot the name of my village. When I was five years old, both my parents died of malaria. I was then adopted by a rich family in Dhaka. My new parents did not have a child, so they took care of me as theirs. They registered me into a school and I was very happy. One morning in February 2016, my mother slipped and fell in the washroom. I was in school and my father was outside of Dhaka for his official work. There was no one in our home and she was there in the washroom until I came back from school. I was calling my mother, “Mom! Mom! Where are you?” There was no response, so I searched the whole house. At last, I peered into the washroom and saw my mother unconscious. I called my father and he told me to call someone to take my mother to the hospital. What the doctor said, I was not ready to hear. He said, “I am sorry, it’s too late.” He said that my mother was no more in the world. It was shocking news.
Pichi took a deep breath. I saw tears rolling down his cheeks and his voice was shaking.
He continued:
Sometime afterwards, my father brought a woman to our home and told me she was my new mother. I had no say. My father shifted his job from Dhaka to Barisal and it was difficult for him to come home regularly. My new mother unfortunately started to hate me. She gave me work to do when it was time for school. I had to do a lot of work but because I was a child, I did not always do the work as she wanted. To punish me, she did not give me food for the whole day. She beat me. She complained about me to my father. Then some of my stepmother’s relatives came to our house and we went for a trip. I did not know their plan and our destination. I did not know what happened that night. In the morning, I discovered myself in the street. From that day, I started eating from dustbins and sleeping in ditches. Now I realize that it had been their plan to abandon me. I do not know what she said to my father, but I am sure my father would have asked about me. So Apa, this is my story. But Apa, I wish I could go back to my previous life where I had a father, mother, and happy memories.
“Still, it is better being on my own than tolerating all the pain from my stepmother,” he said.
It was almost evening and we had to return to campus.
“Ok, Pichi. Goodbye. I have to go now.”
He said, “Ok, Apa. Goodbye.”
As we were walking away, he suddenly blurted, “Apa, I have a name! It is Rafi. Though it is just a memory now?”
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