Street Exchanges

Me and my friend are in a rickshaw, chirping and dancing its way from Dhaka university through a traffic choked street towards Vashundhara when a silver imported car swerves its way in front of us, nearly crushing our rickshaw’s front wheel and our rickshaw-wallah’s legs. The rickshaw next to us is being pedalled by a man with no feet. He pedals using the stumps that he was left with after an accident perhaps, after being run over by one of these SUVs, driven by the power crazed chauffeur of one of the city elite perhaps. The stumps are of different sizes and the right stump doesn’t reach the pedal, so he’s pedalling with one stump with enough strength and skill to manoeuvre his rickshaw through the impossible traffic chaos- rickshaws, cars, vans, trucks, carts pulled by men laden with bamboos, hawkers, beggars, pedestrians and amateur traffic wardens. He’s able to generate enough power with his left stump, which ends a few inches below his kneecap to carry passengers of all shapes and sizes, 14 hours a day. The rickshaw-wallahs of Dhaka are the greatest athletes in the world.

So this fat bastard, armed with an i-phone gets out of the backseat of the silver car and starts yelling abuse at the rickshaw-wallahs.

I-phone wallah- You sons of pigs. You illiterate swines. Choking the road with your fucking junk rickshaws. You fuckers can’t read and write and can’t even cycle a rickshaw properly. Get the fuck out of this street, you illiterate swines.

Our rickshaw-wallah-    Why are you abusing us? You nearly hit me. What the hell are you on about?

I-phone wallah- You illiterate pigs. How dare you argue with me? You chhoto-loks (small people). You fools choking up the road with your slow cycling. Look at that idiot. He doesn’t even have any feet? You idiots are stealing people’s money when you don’t even have a foot? How dare you cycle a rickshaw without a foot?

Rickshaw-wallah without feet- What can I do sir? It was an accident last year. Why are you abusing me now sir? I wasn’t even in your way?

I-phone wallah- You swine trying to argue as well. You illiterate fool, you crippled swine, you small people, you...

Our rickshaw-wallah- Shut your dirty mouth, you Haramzada. You think you can abuse us just because you have money and you have a car. You don’t have any manners. You bastard. Get the hell out of here before we smash your windshield.

By now many rickshaw-wallahs have chirped and danced their way around the silver car. I’ve started abusing the I-phone wallah in my English. My friend is terrified of a fight breaking out in front of us, a class-war- silver diesel alligator vs flock of multicoloured rickshaws. I-phone wallah sees he’s outnumbered and his insults have been drowned in a torrent of imaginative abuse in English and different dialects of Bengali. He puts his I-phone into his pocket and locks himself in his car, rolls up the black filmed windows.

The traffic starts moving again. Our rickshaw starts dancing again. The man with no feet pedals on with his left stump.

Me (to our rickshaw-wallah)- Bhai, why was that idiot getting out of his car to yell abuse?

Our rickshaw-wallah- Because his AC stopped working. He had to come out for fresh air and wanted to show us how educated he is, wanted to show how his words have made him one of the Big People.