I long to see those days again
When houses had double-panel wooden doors
Instead of sliding crystal and glass
That would turn into blackboard
For a kid’s primary class
Where the teacher be the little girl
In white cotton shemij, at home
Playing during summer
And a red gamcha tied around her head
That became her long hair
With student dolls seated on jute chatai mats
She taught them subjects she’d learn at school
English, Bengali, and Maths
When baba’s old diaries turned into
Attendance registers
With dated rows and columns, marked with
Random ‘A’s and ‘P’s
And when kaku’s cycle-ride was our lavish trip
To the konar dokan were he secretly took us to buy red balls of hojmis
And Lollipops
And orange candies
Whose wraps became our priced finger rings
And colored tongue – a pride
And ma or dida used light a kerosene hurricane lamp
During load shedding when there was no light.

I still have that lamp
But don’t light it anymore
Because now there are no power cuts
Or orange candies
Or hojmis
Or wooden doors that became blackboards
And the little teacher in shemij is
Lost somewhere in the crowd
Someone please call out to her, soon, and hope that she returns
From the konar chotto dokan.