Was he really a rickshaw puller?

Today we had our cytology in-course exam at 12. We were free after the first class, so we all had tea and then sat down in front of the chemistry building to do a bit of last-minute preparation. One person took out a notebook, another took out sheets, and someone had printed a few topics from the internet. It was nice to see how quickly everyone got going. Seeing them, I opened my notebook too and looked over a few things. We studied and we chatted. All sorts of diagrams and all sorts of stories seemed to be getting mixed up together.

I have a question

Suddenly a rickshaw puller parked his rickshaw to one side, came over to us and said, “I have a question.” We said, “Go ahead, what is it?” I thought he probably couldn’t find some department, or wanted to know where to get water nearby, something like that. That’s what strangers usually ask. But his question left me a little stunned. At first I didn’t understand any of it. I said, “Could you say that again?” Even after he repeated it I didn’t get it, though I could tell he was asking a maths problem. “Bhai, one more time,” I said. This time he and everyone else told me the question together. If 100 taka earns 50 taka in compound interest over 5 years, how much do you need to put in to earn 50 taka in 1 year? Everyone was frowning. They were all working it out in their heads, so I started too. Then I blurted out, “It’s not that hard. 50 taka in 5 years means 10 taka in 1 year, so…”

Hang on… compound interest? Oh, then you can’t do it like that. The sum wasn’t as easy as I thought. There were formulas for it, n, r, p, something to the power of something, a whole mess. And I seemed to have forgotten all of it. What now? I couldn’t do it! I looked at the others and could see they were in the same boat. We did this stuff ages ago. How are you supposed to remember it out of nowhere? Shahidul asked the rickshaw puller, “Bhai, what will you do with the answer? Are you teaching someone?” He said, “Yes, I have two children. One is in class five and one is in class three.” “Oh, I see. Where’s your home?” “Gaibandha.” He teaches in Gaibandha? That sounded a bit strange. He’s here all day and teaches in Gaibandha? We were still struggling with that when he said, “Bhai, I have another question.” “Sure, go on.”

Where does an adjective go?

“Where does an adjective go? Before the verb or after?” Until then we had been busy with the sum, but this question changed the mood in an instant. He didn’t sound like a rickshaw puller at all.

Rasif said, “There’s compound interest in class five? We did that in a much higher class. That’s a class nine question.”

Shamim asked, “Bhai, are you a reporter? Are you doing some kind of survey?” He said, “No, bhai, I was just asking.” I noticed Konok shift and sit up differently. Their suspicion made me suspicious too, and I wanted to know who this man really was. I asked, “Bhai, how far did you study?” “Class four,” he said, and our suspicion only grew. Someone who studied up to class four teaches a class five child? Isn’t that funny? If Shamim was right and he was a reporter, there would be a camera somewhere. We started looking around him for one. We looked for a long time and couldn’t see anything. So was he really a rickshaw puller? His clothes were like any rickshaw puller’s, nothing different that I could see. No, something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Someone asked again, “Bhai, where did you get this sum? Did someone give it to you?” This time the answer was a little different. “Bhai, I have to pay money back in instalments, so it would help to understand how the thing works.” Shamim kept signalling to me to check for a camera. I couldn’t see one.

Everything looked normal. Only his shirt pocket was bulging a little, but not enough to hold a camera, and it didn’t look like he had a mobile phone either. Anyway, we had to give him some kind of answer. What should we say? Or should we just tell him we were stressed about an exam and he should come back later?

In the end Shamim told him that hardly anyone in our science faculty could do these sums easily, because we don’t really need them and haven’t practised them for years. People preparing for the BCS exam remember them because they have to, but that’s a different matter. The day we need sums like this, a bit of practice and we’ll manage. He listened to all of it and then pulled us back into his English question. “These sheets are all in English, so you must know the English rules.” By sheets he meant the one in Rasif’s hand. He had even noticed that! Sharp eyes. I hesitated a little and said, “An adjective goes before a noun.” Then he started giving all sorts of examples and asking which word was the noun, which was the verb and which was the adjective. We were amazed. Wow!

How could someone who studied up to class four speak English so well? I’m not sure even we could put it like that. We had to say something again, and again Shamim came to the rescue. “Bhai, everything we study is in English, that’s true, but we don’t go around working out which word is a verb and which is a noun. What we use is everyday language. Everyone knows ‘I eat rice’ is the English for ami bhat khai. We don’t learn the rules.” He tried to trip us up again. “Is that so? Then what is ‘this is my rickshaw’ in English?” Then he kept firing questions and Shamim kept answering. I go to Nilkhet? I come back from Nilkhet? I eat rice after cooking? And so on. Even after getting all the answers, he asked, “Which department are you in?” When we said botany, he asked, “What is a plant?” Strange. What is a plant, is that even a question? Every tree and bush around us is a plant. There was a bidyapata plant growing in a corner by the chemistry building. Shamim pointed to it and said, “This is a plant too. Have you heard of mushrooms? They come under botany as well.” I was even more surprised when he asked, “So what’s the subject next to this, zoology? Then what’s an animal? Are cows and goats animals?” We said everything living that isn’t a plant is an animal, fish and insects too. By then there was no doubt left that an ordinary rickshaw puller who studied up to class four couldn’t know all this. A little later he said, “Who are they?” I leaned out and saw some foreigners. He finished with us, took his rickshaw over to them and said, “Have a nice day…”

Then he looked back at us, gave us a mysterious smile that left us with a thousand questions, and rode away on his rickshaw.

Who was he really?

We were left with just one question. Who was he really?

Shamim said some reporters come in disguises like this and cleverly collect information. A disguise isn’t hard to put together. You can rent a rickshaw in Nilkhet for a hundred and fifty taka. In a disguise like that, ask someone a question out of the blue and they might get even the things they know wrong. They use exactly that, make prank videos, and maybe that’s how videos like ‘I am GPA 5’ end up in their collection. Really, instead of answering their questions, we should be the ones asking them, and getting the facts right about them. Rasif said, “Let the exam finish, then I’ll go after him with a camera. How far can he have gone? If he’s not at Curzon Hall he’ll be at Kola Bhaban. I’ll catch him there.”

Oh… the exam! I had completely forgotten. We had spent all that time talking to him. There wasn’t much time left, so we all went back to our own sheets and notebooks, on a mission to pass the exam.