The story trace back to 20 years when Samir Hasan was 12 years old and it’s a story of his transition to what he is now. The story could portray his present and make a happy ending out of it but how many times it happens in real life? I am not sure.
The two of them lived just outside the town of Golaghat.They were both called Hasans, and they usually distinguished as old Hasan and little
Hasan. They themselves, however, addressed each other only as
Hasan. This was a habit of long standing: it may be that, having
the same name, they felt themselves bound still more firmly together
by using it unqualified in this way. Old saikia was something over
fifty, little Hasan only just over twelve.
They were close together, the pair of them--each felt lost without
the other. It had been like that ever since little Hasan could
remember. His father could look further back. He remembered that
thirteen years ago he had lived on his farm within easy riding
distance of the village; he had a good wife and three sturdy and
hopeful children.
Then his luck turned and one disaster after struck him. His goats
went down with pest, his cattle died of anthrax and other diseases.
Then the children got whooping-cough and all three died, close
enough together to lie in one grave. To pay his debts Hasan had
to give up his farm and sell the land. Then he bought the land on
the Point just outside the village, built up a cabin divided into
two by a partition, and a fish-drying shed. When that was done,
there was enough left to buy a simple boat for fishing. This was the
sum of his possessions after he left Bangladesh 1 year ago with little Hasan to this land of opportunity.
It was a poor and dismal life they led there, Hasan and his wife.
They were both used to hard work, but they had had no experience of
privation and constant care for the morrow. Most days it meant
putting to the mighty River Padma if they were to eat, and it was not every night they went to bed with a full stomach. There was little enough left over for clothing and comfort.
Hasan's wife worked at fish-drying for the factor in the summer
months, but good drying-days could not be counted on and the money
was not much. She lived just long enough to bring little hasan
into the world, and the last thing she did was to decide his name.
From then on, father and son lived alone in the cabin.
Little hasan had vague memories of times of desperate misery. He
had to stay at home through days of unrelieved torment and agony.
There had been no one to look after him while he was too small to go
off in the boat with his father, and old hasan was forced to tie
the boy to the bed-post to keep him out of danger in his absence.
Old hasan could not sit at home all the time: he had to get
something to put in the pot.
The boy had more vivid memories of happier times, smiling summer
days on a river glittering in the sunshine. He remembered sitting in
the stern and watching his father pulling in the gleaming fish. But
even those times were mingled with bitterness, for there were days
when the sky wept and old hasan rowed out alone.
But in time little hasan grew big enough to go off with his
father, whatever the weather. From then on they contentedly shared
most days and every night: neither could be without the other for
more than a minute. If one of them stirred in his sleep, the other
was awake on the instant; and if one could not get to sleep, the
other did not close his eyes either.
One might think that it was because they had a lot to talk about
that they were so wrapped up in each other. But that was not so.
They knew each other so well and their mutual confidence was so
complete that words were unnecessary. For days on end no more than
scattered phrases fell between them; they were as well content to be
silent together as to be talking together. The one need only look at
the other to make himself understood.
Among the few words that passed between them, however, was one
sentence that came up again and again--when old hasan was talking
to his son. His words were:
The point is to pay your debts to everybody, not owe anybody
anything, trust in Providence.
In fact, father and son together preferred to live on the edge of
starvation rather than buy anything for which they could not pay on
the spot. And they tacked together bits of old sacking and patched
and patched them so as to cover their nakedness, unburdened by debt.
Most of their neighbours were in debt to some extent; some of them
only repaid the factor at odd times, and they never repaid the whole
amount. But as far as little hasan knew, he and his father had
never owed a penny to anyone. Before his time, his father had been
on the factor's books like everyone else, but that was not a thing
he spoke much about and little hasan knew nothing of those
dealings. Most of Hasan’s colleagues were in debts and few of them have already fled the land without a trace. Hasan is a man of dignity and would not leave his buried family and flee.
It was essential for the two of them to see they had supplies to
last them through the winter, when its difficult fishing in the river.
The fish that had to last them through the winter was either dried or salted; what they felt they could spare was sold, so that there might be a little ready money in the house against the arrival of winter. There was rarely anything left, and sometimes the cupboard was bare before the end of the winter; whatever was eatable had been eaten by the tune spring came on, and most often father and son knew what it was like to go hungry. Whenever the weather was fit, they put off in their boat but often rowed back empty-handed or with one skinny flat-fish in the bottom.
This did not affect their outlook. They never complained; they bore
their burden of distress, heavy as it was, with the same even temper
as they showed in the face of good fortune on the rare occasions it
smiled on them; in this, as in everything else, they were in
harmony. For them there was always comfort enough in the hope that
To be continued...
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