Conviction
Aqueb Safwan Jaser
He would be getting late for his Iftar soirée, Idris worried. It was already after 5 PM but his Uber was yet to pick him up.
Though Idris had dressed up for the occasion, now as he stood by the main road at Bashundhara, his hair dishevelled due to the unrelenting perspiration. His blue-checkered shirt had already plastered to his skin. And his round, child-like face began to show the slightest signs of exasperation.
After what seemed like 15 minutes, the Uber arrived. It was a white Toyota Axio. Idris got in and immediately, his irritation gave away to the air-conditioned insides of the vehicle. The driver started off for Mohakhali, where the soirée was going to take place. Idris looked out the window at the gradually yellowing sky. As the clouds drifted along with the Axio, his eyelids began to droop, and soon he was half asleep.
“...We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun, where the hot springs flow...”
As soon as the sound of the song quickly dug through his stream of consciousness, Idris was wide awake. Normally, he would have been displeased at having lost his little semblance of half-sleep, but he didn’t in the least mind waking up to Immigrant Song. He first inferred that it was probably being played on some station on the radio, but when he noticed carefully, the driver had his cell phone plugged in. Needless to say, Idris was impressed at his driver’s taste.
Idris now observed his driver from the passenger’s seat. There was nothing outwardly special about him. He was ordinarily dressed, an unironed navy-blue polo, and bleached grey trousers. His pale face, tired eyes, and untrimmed beard gave more the impression of a man suffering from a midlife crisis.
Idris hadn’t quite started on a banter until they reached the Banani flyover some distance into the journey. It was apt, as the traffic in Banani flyover can get really tiring, with drivers needing to often wait gruesome hours queued along a seemingly endless line of grating vehicles. It’s the kind of wait which usually leaves most drivers vexed to the point of losing even the faintest hint of civility. But Idris’s driver, in relative calm, called out to the driver next to him, ‘Would you mind steering a little to the right, brother?’ he asked rather politely.
‘Oi, fuckturd! Why don’t you mind your own damn business, ha? Haba here thinks he’s Einstein himself. As if that’ll be of any blasted use!’ responded the other driver, almost indignantly. Infuriated, and not quite being able to contain his nerves, Idris’s driver delved into an argument. The resulting tirade lasted for quite a while until he eventually rolled up the car window. He heaved a deep sigh, the only outward sign of his concealed frustration.
‘People here, they’ll never learn,’ Idris’s driver let out after a momentary reticence.
‘Just trying to make things a bit better, but no, people in this city ask for problems and then complain about ‘em. How so fucking lovely! Oh please do excuse my language, young sir. It’s hard to keep one’s cool in these situations, I hope you understand.’
Idris now chimed in on the conversation, agreeing with him wholeheartedly.
‘Yes, you are definitely right. How very stupid of that driver!’
As the conversation continued, Idris waited until the driver mellowed down, and then at what seemed like an opportune moment, he asked - ‘So, you listen to classic rock?’
‘Oh, yes sir! You do too?’
‘Yes, of course. Zeppelin is my favourite. I have this strange tendency to listen to Kashmir every time I head out to university. It lifts my spirit. Anyway, driving an Uber mustn’t be all that bad with music as good as this, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, yes. But I’m not even that regular,’ the driver responded, thoughtlessly.
‘So you’re not a full-time Uber driver, then?’ Idris inquired with a hint of curiosity in his voice.
‘Well, truth be told, I’m, what you would call, a visionary.’
Idris was dumbstruck. The statement piqued his interest. But it was the most surreal answer to a rather pragmatic question. He didn’t quite know what to make of it. But the driver continued: ‘Ah, well, I create things. In my perspective, I don’t think any discarded material is useless. If a thing is created once, it can be recreated again, again, and again.’
As the driver spoke, he began to take out several objects from his glove compartment. There was a black keychain made from a seat belt buckle, an untidy red lamp made from a detached headlight, and a plant pot made out of a scruffy piston. With the driver’s creativity in full display, Idris was somewhat floored.
‘Then I also make these stickers, you see...’ the driver said promptly.
‘Don’t tell me you even made that one?’ Idris said, pointing to a Garfield sticker glued to the glove compartment.
‘Haha, yes, yes, I did.’ the driver answered with a sense of beaming pride.
‘How did you come about that?’
‘It came about by the arrogance and sheer stupidity of some dokandars (shopkeepers). A few years ago, I went to a local store to buy some stickers for my son. Each cost about 100 takas. I made a polite attempt to bargain. But the dokandar wouldn’t budge, that stubborn old crackpot. But see, I’m a bit of a crackpot myself, and I was adamant about not buying those stickers at that price. As I wanted my son to have stickers nonetheless, eventually I went home and made the stickers myself that very night!’
Idris took another good look at the Garfield sticker that was plastered to the glove compartment. The artwork was brilliantly done. The warm orange of Garfield bloomed well throughout the body. And the edges of the grumpy cartoon character were accurately cut. It showed the driver’s expertise as both an artist and a craftsman. ‘This looks good, really good. What else do you have?’ inquired Idris, eagerly.
The driver suddenly looked thoughtful. From his brief digging, the driver procured the forever exasperated Donald Duck, the English rock band The Rolling Stones’ famous tongue and lip logo, the mighty Superman, and Harry Potter’s lovable owl, Hedwig. By now, Idris was overawed. It’s not often that you meet a visionary in an Uber driver.
They were halfway through the Banani traffic now. The sun was on the verge of setting. The tangerine glow was gradually fading. The driver then wanted to speak about the sentimental yet profound issue of love but he was hesitant since Idris was only a teenager. He didn’t want to be a misleading influence and so he politely asked his permission. Idris let out a laugh and giddily insisted him to speak about it.
The driver began. In his umpteenth semester, he met a girl, a girl who carried the Falgun breeze. She was beautiful, delicate, and literary. The kind of which wouldn’t stun you per se, but instead pacify, like the sacred Moon that hovered over a sleepless city. But the driver was repeating one semester after another for nearly seven years, while she passed each with flying colours. Eventually, she became the valedictorian, while he dropped out. The two, however, got married.
‘How did that happen?’ a surprised Idris couldn’t help but ask.
Then the driver took the air of a love-struck Mirza Ghalib, but spoke words more akin to Socrates, ‘love cannot be weighed against any measure,’ he conveyed. ‘It’s merely the gathering of two lost souls despite their social or academic backgrounds. The entire idea of love is overly romanticised in films. But that’s not the case,’ the driver argued. ‘Love is poetic but with a sense of realism. Just like a hot cup of chaa in a cold December morning, the upbeat stanza in a poem by Kazi Nazrul Islam, or the lapping of waves against your feet. Love is simple yet so, so essential. And as for those who are the ‘one’, they would stay regardless of all the accomplishments and failures,’ the driver concluded.
Idris was all ears, taking every word to heart. Idris was a pessimist, and for years on end philosophers, writers, musicians, and mullahs have all said that the world is a cursed place. But now he was reconsidering it. How can this world be cursed, a world where humans as dignified as this driver existed? It was already half-past six but they were now stuck in the Mohakhali traffic. The venue of the iftar soirée was nearby but they wouldn’t reach it in time.
Luckily, there was a water vendor in a tattered sando-genji and ragged jeans rushing from one vehicle to another, a boy who could be no more than twelve. The driver called out to him. Idris took his wallet out to pay, but the driver bought it for him. Idris was pleased and accepted the bottle of water with heartfelt gratitude.
Not long afterward, the call to Maghrib prayer was heard. Idris broke his fast by having a sip. The driver himself wasn’t fasting, but it seemed that he received some kind of contentment by having relieved Idris of a dry throat.
In a short while, they reached the venue. It was already dusk. A few rickshaw pullers were resting on the seat of their flashy rickshaws after a day-long struggle, an old bearded policeman was rushing to the mosque for the Maghrib prayer, and a little girl in a shabby pink frock, who sat beside her mother draped in a moth-eaten red saree on the pavement, was gobbling on a piyaju. The driver pulled over in front of the venue.
Idris was already late for the Iftar but he had to pay him, of course. He asked him hurriedly about the fare. But with twice the haste, the driver told Idris that he wouldn’t need to pay since he was a student, and told him to rush off to his soirée since he was already quite late.
Idris obliged. He disembarked the car but not without thanking him with the utmost reverence. There was a beep on his phone notifying him that he had completed his ride, with Rezwan. That was his name - Rezwan.
Before he entered the venue, Idris took one last look at the white Toyota Axio, as it drove away through the mystical Dhaka air.
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Aqueb Safwan Jaser is a creative writer who appeared in an anthology titled 'Ten Square: Hundred Word Stories From Bangladesh', The Elixir Magazine, Mangal Media, and elsewhere. Being a cinephile he also writes for High on Films. Currently, he is pursuing a degree in Marketing while working as a part-time Content Writer at Notionhive.
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