Having the common flu in Sweden - Expected words from doctors

So within the past 2 years of living in Sweden I've taken several trips to the doctor with family members and came to a clear observation of how nerve wracking it is to hear your temporary doctor say "you don't need antibiotics yet, just take Alvedon" after an irritatingly long wait-time in a virus-filled room with a hand-full of other worn out patients.  

The great side about visiting the doctor is the small 150 SEK (about $20) you have to pay, comparing to over a hundred dollars in the US.

Approximate wait-time starts from 2 to 3 hours, depending not on the number of patients, but the number of doctors available.  Finally a random doctor comes out of the door and calls out your name from the heavy stack of papers he/she holds.  All that doctor says is "hej" and leads you to his/her clinic, asks you bluntly why you are here without any warm introduction, smile, or sense of humor.  You tell them how terribly sick you are with your frequent high fevers, constant coughing and soar throat, and the next thing you know he/she gets the stethoscope out and tells you to take deep breaths.  You follow the doctor's orders and do what you are told, but when you breath in you immediately let out your painful cough and you try breathing in all over again.  Doctor hands you a piece of paper and sends you straight to the "provrum" where you wait some more until a nurse comes and does the three ordinary annoying tests on her common-cold patients: a finger blood test, throat test, and measuring your body temperature.  

While you wait and wonder where your nameless doctor disappeared off to, you cough cough cough and hope that the medicine they give you will cure you overnight and that this will be the very last time you ever went to the doctor.  You sit and think that the humane nurse lady would have made a better doctor because at least she gave you some advice and communicated well with you.

The doctor comes back and tells you that you have been MOST-LIKELY exposed to a virus.

"Keep taking Alvedon for your fever."

"But I am already doing that! It ain't helpin'!"

"Well, keep taking it."

"OK."

Next, the doctor finally gives you an antibiotic to fight your infection, in this case, "lunginflammation".  Good thing you were coughing like you were dying or else they would have NEVER given it to you!


Your oh-so-caring doctor puts your antibiotic prescription into the system and tells you to "cough under your arm" and lets you go after saying "Tack".  So you sit there nodding your head and staring, expecting a bit more advice, "Like are you kidding me.  I waited 3 hours for this.  Damn if only I had the license to write up my own meds."

I'm assuming being a doctor is a choice that can only be made by oneself, not other family members encouraging (blackmailing) you to be one, which in other words means that you must love doing the job that you chose to do.  So I'm hoping that the 8 different doctor's I have met so far don't define the rest of Sweden's doctors, because those 8 were pretty dull.  They all lacked communication skills with their patients which is actually one of the main things that needs to be focused on in order to really know what is going on inside the patient's body.

Common antibiotics for cold:
doxycyclin, kåvepenin, mollipekt 
These are only recommended medicine that might come of help.  You still need to ask your doctor first!

Unwanted Jewel : Chapter 6

1991

She shut her eyes tight and thought of the old boarding school she finally left.   She wasn’t really missing that dark abyss, but she did miss some of the people there, like her old friend Sarah, Shapna, one of the school servants, and Mrs. Lisa Gomez her English teacher.

Shapna used to do all the cleaning in the school.  She cleaned the disgusting broken-down bathrooms and always got underpaid.  She loved Adeela because of her sincere personality and being the great listener that she was, Adeela loved hearing Shapna’s interesting stories of her village, her 3 little daughters, and her drunken crazy husband.  Shapna had this ability of transforming her sad terrible stories into humorous little moments.  Adeela wondered where she got all that spirit from. 

 Adeela missed her best friend Sarah.  She was the only girl she trusted sharing her obscure feelings with, laugh with, and be herself with.  They’ve seen each other’s lives slowly change for the past 4 years.   Sarah recently lost touch with her after she told Adeela the big news of her parents finding a man for her.

“Aren’t you scared?” Adeela questioned her one day before leaving.

“I have no choice, Adeela.  Amma says he will take care of me in Denmark.  He has lived there for 17 years. Amma says 35 is a responsible age for a man.” She gulped. In a way Sarah was only trying to convince herself. 

She was the youngest of her 6 siblings but the 3^rd to get married because the 3 others were sons. They hugged each other tightly before parting.  After she had left, Adeela felt a small part of her become empty.  The time was crucial for change but she did not know if that change was for the better or worse. Her best friend’s life had turned upside down after marriage, and now, it was her turn, though not for marriage.  Adeela Islam, formerly called roll number 16, who was now 16-years-old, was on the verge of having her life turned upside down. 

                                                                                 ****

Going two years back, Mrs. Gomez was one of the few teachers in her boarding school that actually wanted her students to excel. She was the only teacher that liked calling her students by their names rather than numbers. She never hit anybody, even if they were disrespectful.  She substituted that with other useful lessons.  She didn’t believe in violence of any kind because she felt that she would turn into a hypocrite for thinking and acting the same way East Pakistani invaders did with her country.  She was a pure humanitarian.

On her last year of that school, an evening after class, Mrs. Gomez asked Adeela to stay for some correction in an essay she wrote a couple days back.  Adeela , who was 14 then, felt a bit nervous and confused because she knew she worked very hard on that paper. There couldn’t have been possibly anything that crazy on the essay to make her stay after class, and that too, in Mrs. Gomez’s class.  But who knew how valuable this afternoon would be for her days that were coming.

“So Adeela, I assigned the class to do a short essay about what they would do if they had won 50,000,000taka.”

“Yes, maam.”  She was nervous seeing her own paper in front of the teacher. 

“It seems that your short essay turned into a 3 page paper,” she scanned through the 3 papers again, “about starting a new free boy-girl public school out in the suburbs?” 

Before Adeela apologized for the lengthy red-marked paper, Mrs. Gomez stopped her, “We will talk about your grammar errors later.  I am just curious about one thing.  I have graded sixty papers, and only a few dealt with charity, but yours is the only one talking about having an institution outside of the city, where we most need it.  I think that is not only generous but brilliant, Adeela.” 

She blushed and received the compliment.   “I am happy you wrote 3 pages.  It helps you develop your English vocabulary.”  Then she continued with a less happy voice, “I have another question actually.  You also mentioned something about wanting to go to America with that money.  For education I am guessing?”

Mrs. Gomez never really liked the people who immigrated to America, who succeeded with good education and occupation, and later, never came back to their home land, leaving it corrupt and deteriorated.  She would have disliked mother, Adeela thought.  She told Mrs. Gomez why she really wanted to go there.  It was because her mother and stepfather were the ones to send her money for this boarding school and get her this far in life, needless to say that they were the only family she had who were actually helping her.

“Were you not able to go with your parents?”

“No.  Mom got the visa fast, but they said it would take me a bit longer.”

“Whose they?”

“My mom and step-father.  They said they sent me an application a long time ago, but I never got it.  I just want to see my mother.  It’s been too long.”  The professor just said “hmm” and her thoughts drifted away.

Mrs. Gomez knew why she always preferred staying at the hostel over the holidays now.  She grasped that the young teenager hadn’t seen her parents for several years, and by looking at her big eyes which held the world’s sorrow, she knew how badly she wanted to go there. 

Lisa Gomez had siblings living in the USA for a very long time, but it was her own choice to remain in Dhaka to take care of her old parents.  The rest of her brothers and sisters hardly had time to even contact their own mother and father because they were way too focused on making their own success stories.   

After a few days passed by, Lisa was having tea with her husband one afternoon.  She asked him something 

out of the blues.

“Don’t you have a really close friend that works for the Embassy in the USA?”

Her husband was an extremely outgoing man of simplicity.  He was a very well-known engineer in Dhaka, but his arrogance never took over his sincere personality. 

Lisa told him about Adeela’s extraordinary merit in school being overlooked by teachers and her wish of going to America just to see her mother’s face.   

“That poor child,” pitied the husband, who hated the idea of child abuse and educating students through torture.  “But I don’t understand one thing Lisa.  Family-based immigration appears to be less complex than applying for a F1 student visa, that too from Bangladesh.  Thousands try each month, you know how it is.   Did her parent’s not file a petition and send a consulate from the embassy here in Dhaka?”

“Why would they ever think of doing that,” Lisa let out a sigh and put down her cup of tea, “Her mother and step-father don’t want her to come to America.  They lied to her about sending ‘papers’ which somehow never ends up making it to Bangladesh every damn time she runs up to the mail man to check for the past few years.”  The situation seemed so obvious to her the afternoon she knew about Adeela’s decreasing amounts of sent cash, her upcoming college-less year, her asking for help of searching for cheaper girls’ hostels.  Her most gifted student tried hiding so much behind her eyes, but bits and pieces of her shattering life would reveal day after day in the hour-long class she had with her.  

Lisa looked up to her husband with pain in her eyes, “If Aisha was alive, she would have been Adeela’s age.  She would have been exactly like her, I just have this sense, that she would have been this way.”  Her husband held her as Lisa buried her head into her husband’s shoulder with teary eyes.   They were one of the most caring couples in the world, but in most cases it seems that the nicest people end up suffering the most.   Aisha was their daughter that died of leukemia when she was 8 years old. 

“Adeela has nothing but darkness in her path if she doesn’t get help from the right people.  She’s a girl with high ambitions.   And 14, you know that is a very vulnerable age, especially for a girl, in Bangladesh.  I think we should help her.”

That was Lisa’s final decision of her plan.  She was going to send her to America no matter how complicated it would get.  She felt it her duty to help her. 

Mrs. Gomez provided her with all the immigration applications, helped her out with interview preparations, sponsorship, etc.  There wasn’t a single bit of detail she let go of.

“What if I don’t get the visa Mrs. Gomez?”  Adeela asked one evening at her teacher’s house with a tensed look on her face.  “Then I guess plan B is getting you ready for a good college here with scholarship money,” she smiled, “but have faith Adeela.  If you really want something, and you’re really trying by heart, then nothing can come in the way to stop you. What’s meant to be will always be.”

                                                                          

                                                                                       ***

Those were the last words that she remembered before opening her eyes, and loosening her grip.  Her heart beat got slower, and at once, the weight of 16 years released from inside of her.  Her mind was fresh again, and all she could do now was gape through the white floating balls of cotton in thin air through the window.   

“Would you like anything to drink maam?” Asked the tall pretty flight attendant, who was wearing a neatly folded saree, with her hair pulled up tightly in a bun.

“Do you have mango juice?” Adeela asked nervously with a smile.

Though she was anxious, the feeling of exhilaration took over her mind.  Adeela Islam was going to America.

Art of the Day - Light of the night

Have you ever took a moment to notice the beauty of that simple but mysterious illuminated shape that holds the light of the world?  

Nothing can be compared with the moon, thinks the man.

Unwanted Jewel : Chapter 5

1988

Her heart was beating fast with joy while she rushed down the stairs to receive her phone call in this wonderful day of Eid.  She was longing to hear her mother’s warm voice.

“Adee my baby, Eid Mubarak!”

“Eid Mubarak Mom! I missed you so much.  I thought you forgot about me.  When are you coming back? Or taking me with you? I can’t stand it here without you.”  A few small tears dropped down her rosey cheeks. 

They talked for longer than usual that day.  The first half of the conversation was only a pleasant warm-up to the serious things that were about to be brought up in the second half.  

First it was about coming to the US.  Adeela knew by the tone of her mother’s voice that she wasn’t going to come back to live in Bangladesh because her new life was with Adeela’s step-father now, so she asked how she could leave the country to come to move to the US and live with her new family.  For the first time Adeela sensed some hesitation during this topic.  “I am not a citizen yet dear, so it is a very difficult process,” said the denying mother. 

“But your husband, I mean, father has been living there for many years.  You said he is a citizen and you also told me I would easily be able to come in a few years.  You told me that before you left. In the airport, remember?  That I just need to send some papers.”    She remembered her mother and step-father telling her something about lots of papers and money, and she knew it was possible for her to come.  She just needed to know what kind of papers she was required to send.  None of her relatives in Dhaka had any idea what she needed, not even her Bina khala.  She knew that despite everyone else, Bina khala would want her to leave this place to live with her family, so she would do anything to help.  The problem was, she was too young to understand the complicated immigration process.  She just learned what the word immigration meant.

The second topic turned to money problem.  Her mother told Adeela that the amount of money that was sent monthly for her educational and food expense was going to be lowered due to their increasing expense in America. Her stepdad was going to increase his hours.  Her mom had to quit her first job which would lower their gross income.  She had to quit her job because she was 4 months pregnant.   

To her mother’s pleasant surprise, Adeela was fascinated to hear that she was finally going to be a big sister, something she always wanted to be.  It made her more eager to come to the states to be with her new baby sibling.  They couldn’t talk for long because apparently the phone card was going to cut off their conversation in a minute.  Something was strange about this phone call.  Her mother seemed more upset than usual.  She couldn’t stop crying for some reason.  “Here Adee, talk to your father.”

A scratchy voice answered, “Hello? Adeela? How are you?” She became nervous and wasn’t able to decide what to say, hello abbu? Hello dad? Or just hello? “Can you hear me Adeela? How are your studies? I heard you earned good marks in math class.  Is that true? That’s—“  suddenly there was cross connection occurring from another country, and the line cut off.  That was how the conversation ended.

She went back upstairs to her khala’s floor with so much going through her mind.  Her deep “what if” thoughts took her to another world. What if I never get to see mom?  The thought gave a cold rush to her blood. What if (she gulped) mom doesn’t want me to come.  As soon as she walked past the door she heard a familiar but different voice.  “Adee? Wow, look at you, why, you’re a grown up young woman now aren’t you!” 

She blushed at her cousin, “Sahrab bhaia! Wow, your arms got bigger!” The entire family giggled. “Are you a doctor yet?” 

“Just a few more years to go.” He assured to everyone. 

“My baby! My prince. You haven’t been eating there have you? My poor son studies so hard! Just look at him!” Bina khala couldn’t stop crying and kissing him.  It was very irritable to watch after a while.  Out of the three kids she had, Sahrab was the oldest sibling, and the only son, which meant he was the family jewel.  She loved him excessively, and Sahrab’s father would tell the entire city about his soon-to-be doctor son.  Sahrab was admired by every relative and stranger, moreover, Adeela looked up to him a lot.  She wanted to be just like him; A very mature and intelligent young man who was going to make all the poor sick people in Bangaldesh better. 

When Adeela was younger, Sahrab would come with his parents to visit the village.  He would always have these new tricks and games to share, and he never lost in Parcheesi and carom board.  He was the coolest and oldest cousin she had from her mom’s side.

                                                                                       *******

Now that her big brother was free from med school, she and his 2 other sisters got to go places more often.  One day, a week before her school started again, Sahrab and Adeela planned to go out with a few of his other university friends, leaving the 2 younger sisters home.  They both knew how angry Bina khala and khalu would get for not taking them along, but it was impossible to enjoy anything with those 2 little brats around.

They sneaked out of the house and had ice cream, met up with the rest of the crowd and went to the movies.  They were showing some black and white classic during the East Pakistan days.  It starred Bangladesh’s famous actor, Razzak.  Adeela’s favorite.  When Adeela watched black and white films, she would get lost into the movie, into the characters, just like when she would read a book.  She was so emotional when it came to classics.

She sensed fear while she was watching the movie that day though.  It might have been because of the guilt and consequence that was coming up from sneaking out of the house, or maybe she felt that she was being watched in the dark cinema room.  Something just wasn’t right that day.   After the movie ended everybody was heading home, and she felt like she was going to be followed, but the weird part was, nobody around her had.  Besides, she shouldn’t have had anything to worry about.  Her Sahrab bhaia was with her.  He was old enough to take her anywhere and get her home back safely, which they did, and to their luck, nobody was home. 

“Your Bina khala and the girls went to visit her brother, I believe,” said the 4^th floor neighbor. 

The power went out the minute they entered.                    

                                                                                       ****

September 1988

It is said by Bangladeshis that catastrophes happen when excessive sins are committed. 

Since early June, the water level of floods had been elevating, until it came to a point where it was the cause of almost 2000 deaths.   It was the worst flood in the history of Bangladesh, which led to thousands and thousands of people getting sick from the aftermath, causing even more deaths, as a result, making a quarter of the population homeless. 

She rewinded back to a few months earlier when she was in good terms with her aunt.  The day she snuck out of the house with her older cousin to meet up with his other friends for the movies.   It was raining that day as well.  The movie had just ended and Sahrab was trying to find a babytaxi or rikshaw to head back home.  All of them were taken.  The rain drops hardened and thunder clapped unexpectedly.   A puddle was starting to form where she was standing as her cousin searched everywhere running around for a ride. 

“Maam! Are you looking for a ride?” called out a weary old acquainted voice.  She turned around to see the pair of black bata sandals on the old rikshawala’s feet.  Adeela couldn’t be more surprised.  Out of the thousands of different faces she would see every day in the same place, she had bumped into the rikshaw man. It was God’s will to return the favor, he said.

She remembers how much he was shaking while he peddled in the stormy weather through roads which were now rivers. While he was riding the cycle he showed her the alley to his small tin house on the way home. 

“Nobody asked you what kind of rat hole you live in you idiot.” Adeela was shocked to see how Sahrab snapped. “Rikshawalas nowadays! They have some guts to talk,” he gave an evil laugh. 

It was hard for her to imagine how tough life was.  How disappointing and shocking some things were.  Like the recent newspaper showing that familiar old place drowned under dirty water.  The place where the rikshawala and his family lived. The people getting sick, losing a place called home, losing loved ones from diseases, losing crops, and slowly losing hope.

She wanted so desperately to get those words out of her mind.  They kept pounding inside her head.  She was sitting in the school cafeteria not touching a single thing to eat.

“You’re not like other girls.  You’re more mature.”

Pounding.

“Get out of my house now!”

More pounding.

“You worthless cunt!”

Some things went over the boundaries, too disappointing and too shocking.  Like the time when Sahrab tried to rape Adeela.

Unwanted Jewel : Chapter 4

May 1988

It was the season of Grisma when Bangladesh’s soil started drying up from the gradually intensive heat.  It was the heat that was coming from hell. 

Her entire dress was drenched in sweat. She despised wearing her traditional selwar kamese during Dhaka’s scourging heat, but that was all she can wear nowadays whenever she went out because those kinds of clothing revealed less than the western clothes she would get from her mother and step father from America.   She was almost 13 now, and she stood out in the ordinary crowd.  Her skin was a flawless creamy olive tone and her hair was dark brown.  She resembled her mother’s graceful body, but had her father’s light brown eyes and smile.

“Stop here!” She called out to the rikshaw driver.  They stopped in front of a line of fruit shops within a bazaar.  The small little shops were filled with fruits, mostly fresh mangoes of all shapes and sizes.  “Can you stay here for 10 minutes? I’ll be coming back.” She told the old warn out rikshaw man. 

The boney middle-aged rikshaw man looked older than his age with burnt wrinkly skin.  Adeela read people quite well in seconds. She saw what was behind all those wrinkles and blisters.  She saw an honest sincere man who never took a coin extra for his earnings, always followed traffic rules even though nobody followed them, let small children and women cross the street instead of honking at them to give way unlike the other drivers, but he was just exhausted today.  His legs were worn out from running and jumping up the seat and peddling the rickshaw in the hot polluted streets.  He was tired of getting bullied by aggressive truck drivers, cars, and babytaxis, but he had no choice but to keep peddling till it was midnight to feed his family.

She came back exactly 10minutes later with her cotton bag filled with fresh mangoes, and a wide smile on her face.  Mangoes were her absolute favorite thing about this season.  “I’m back! Head back to where we came from.”

The rickshaw carried her home, her aunt’s house which was, for this month, her temporary place of residence.  Her school gave them a month long holiday after the big exams.  It was something the girls prayed for because the holy month of Ramadan had already started and fasting during studies in a non-ac heat-filled classroom was more than enough suffering for them, not to mention the frequent power outages.

They finally made the bumpy ride back home and it was almost time for the Zuhr prayer Azaan.  Before she gave out the money to the man, she got something out of her cotton bag.  “This is for you,” she said, holding a pair of black Bata sandals out to the weary old man.  His tired red eyes rose up to see his present.  She continued as he remained speechless, “You like running and peddling bare feet in the heat and mud? I don’t think it’s fun.  Especially with blisters and stuff.”  He finally said something, “I cannot accept this maam.  You are my daughter’s age.  I am an old hag whose lifetime has passed by for good.  It will be better to give it to your loved ones maam.”

Stubborn little Adeela handed the pair of sandals to the old man.

“Accept it as an early Eid present.  It’s Ramadan.  My family fasts from sun rise till sunset but we sit in a room, easily do our prayers, and break our fast with a feast.  I assume you wake up before sunrise, start peddling after you perform your first prayer of the day, no matter how sick and hungry you feel or how unpleasant the weather is, or how risky the environment is around you, or how much you miss being with your own family while carrying other families safely to their homes. You keep going on.  Put these on, they have a good padding underneath.  Your foot was bleeding today while crossing the main road, it still is actually…wear it, please. I don’t like seeing blood.” She made a noxious expression as she saw him bleeding.  “ And I think your bleeding made you break your fast a very long time ago.” 

She suddenly marked tears appearing in the old man’s eyes.  “You have an amazing heart maam.  May Allah give you a long and happy life…Thank you very much, ma’am”  He smiled for the first time in who knows how long.  He left without letting her pay him.  She let out a warm little smile.  It was just a pair of cheap sandals, she told herself.   She had no idea what made her do what she did, but she was happy she did it. 

Adeela walked up the 5 story elevator-less building making her thirsty and weak.  Then she thought of the old rikshaw man and continued walking up the steep stairs again.  This wasn’t the first time she pleasantly surprised a poor man.  She felt it was her duty to help out the poor.

The door to her aunt’s 5^th floor apartment was already open, and there she was standing in front of her Aunt Bina.  Her Bina Khala was a fatter and taller version of Adeela’s mother.   Not to mention, a much meaner version.

“Unbelievable. I send you for mangoes and you become friends with a rikshawala? Chi! I didn’t give you that money to please a worthless man from the streets!” Exclaimed Bina khala. 

Her smile faded, “I was trying to help.  Besides, I bought the shoes with my own money, don’t worry.”

“How dare you talk back to me, young lady.  Your money?   Oh yes, thank you for reminding me.  The money that my stupid sister and his worthless husband sends you from America?  I wonder why they don’t just take you already. “She was furious, coming out of the hot kitchen with sweat pouring from her forehead.  “I have a family of my own to take care of tell your mother that for me.  I have better things to do than look after your where-abouts you got that?” She didn’t even realize how much her voice had elevated until she realized Adeela burst into tears running to the bedroom.

This was the every-day scenario of Adeela’s stay in Bina khala’s house.  The woman always found an excuse to blame her for making her life tougher than it already was.  She didn’t, however, entirely play the part of the wicked witch of the west. 

Bina Khala had her reasons to be a frustrated housewife and mother in her early 40s.  She and her husband were going through some financial stress with work, home expense, and their children’s school expense.  She also worked extremely hard at home with cleaning and cooking in the hot season of Dhaka without the help of servants.  Every servant that came to work at their house ended up leaving in after a month which always left her with all the dirty work.  The power in Dhaka went out every day, sometimes for 20minutes and sometimes for an hour, which made Khala’s temper even worse.  She did, however have a good side, which made her the only relative out of the rest of the family to accept Adeela. 

After Ramadan ended, the joy of Eid spread around the city with the huge morning Eid prayer in the Mosque, and afterwards Adeela got a brand new outfit as a present from her aunt and uncle.  She shined like a star in her teal colored silk selwar kamese.   She loved it, and she looked absolutely stunning.  Even Aunt Bina admitted that.  “Oh boy, you look just like my stupid little sister.”

Her face lit up at once, “Really khala? I really look like Mom? That’s the best thing anybody has ever said to me.  I miss her so much! She hasn’t called in 2 and a half weeks.” Her beautiful smile turned upside down.

Suddenly the doorbell rang.  Bina khala opened the door and yelled out to Adeela, “Hurry up and run down the floor below honey.  You got a call from America waiting for you!”  She ran down to their 4^th floor neighbor’s home to receive the call.  Bina khala didn’t have a phone in her house, which was why it was even harder to keep in touch with Adeela’s mother.

Bina khala smiled as Adeela rushed down the hall as if she was about to miss a train. “Eid Mubarak once again, Adee.” Khala called out, as 12-year-old Adeela disappeared.

A few minutes later, a voice came from down the stairway calling for Bina khala, "Ammu?  You home?"  It was a young man's voice. It was Aunt Bina's oldest son.

Unwanted Jewel : Chapter 3

1986

A tough summer passed in Bangladesh with major violent election riots and strikes mainly involving students of Dhaka University both either in protest or for moderate political parties.  After much commotion Bangladesh finally gave the majority vote to H. M. Ershad, the newly elected president.  Adeela missed her old home far away from the city where she never had to hear about crimes and corruption or worry about going out for a walk without getting kidnapped.  Now she was in a big loud city with rude people who only believed in bribery.  She didn't like the new president.  He looked like someone she really hated.

                                                                             *****

He picked up the used up chalk which squeaked on the board from its disturbing friction as he wrote the following equation.  He called out the formula that he was writing with his deep frigid voice, “ln(x+2)+ln3=ln39.  Solve for x.  I want the correct answer.  Come on, quickly!” 

“I heard he once failed a student for turning in homework an hour late,” whispered a girl from the back of the classroom.  The tall man’s greasy head turned right away towards the back of the silent room while all eyeballs quickly dropped down as he walked with a rapid pace, face red.

She was going to pee in her pants of fear.  It was her first day of class in her new boarding school which was already turning out to be a very unpleasant morning.   Her crazy teacher stood in front of her and picked up the paper that was lying on her desk.  He stared at the paper and gave out a neglectful little laugh.  “And you are—“ 

“S-s-sir, Adeela Islam” she completed.

“Your name will not do you any good in this room of 90 students.  I meant to ask for your roll number young lady. Do you understand?”

Her heartbeat quickened and she felt heat from all around her while she stood there in front of the huge class of ninety 13-year-olds. She was only 11 years old, but brilliant in math. “s-s-s-sixteen sir”, she answered. 

“What is this you wrote? 3(x+2) = 39 is not what I asked for.  That is not the correct answer you hear me? I asked to solve for x and you did not do so.  Instead, you delay your work and decide to gossip about me behind my---”

No! He had it all wrong! She wasn’t the one who was talking during his lecture. In fact, it was a girl sitting right behind her.  He was mistaken, and the girl behind her was so horrified that she had no guts to confess to their “sir”, who was holding a thick wooden cane behind him, that she was the one who was whispering to Adeela.  He walked perfectly fine without a cane.  So if he walked fine, they all knew why he had it.  “I—i-i wasn’t finished, sir! I ………I was simplifying it to---“she gulped, “—t-t-t-to to.. solve for x which would be equal to 11.  I wasn’t talking behind your back, sir!  B-b-believe me s-s-s—“

Bam! She dropped down to her knees when she felt the pain on her behind from a hard wooden stick.  She was ordered to put out her hands forward faced up, and the next thing she knew, the man hit her hands hard 5 times with his cane.  Her hands were red and shaking.  She let out her tears after the last hit that pushed her out in front of the classroom, on her back, right where her spinal cord was.  “That was for interrupting an elder respectable teacher, lying, and insulting me in front of this class.  Now get out of this room and see me after class.  I have work for you, number 16.” 

Teachers called her roll number 16 because there were way too many students in this all-girl boarding school to keep track of by name and the only way to get special treatment by a faculty and staff was to be physically violated. 

After that first day of school she called her oldest aunt, the one relative who lets her stay during holidays, and told her all about the horrible school regulations and the problem with her along with others getting brutally hit for no good reason.  The hits left bruises and sometimes puss, blood, and infections.  Her aunt, however, along with many other parents who sent their kids to this school took it quite lightly and all they had to say was, “Oh honey, they are only trying to teach you discipline. Don’t overreact.  The end-result is always worth it.  Boarding school makes you a very smart and educated woman with good disicipline.” 

                                                                          ****

Adeela made a friend who was coincidentally her roommate as well as classmate.  Her name was Sarah.  Sarah was a really sweet girl who was a few inches shorter than Adeela, with long silky hair and dark brown skin.  She would say she got punished more from headmasters because she had darker skin color.  Especially their math teacher who despised Sarah.  Adeela always had this wrong vibe whenever she was around that crazy man.   The first time Sarah got bruises from a teacher, Adeela asked her why she never showed her parents the marks to prove that she really did get hit violently from teachers.  Sarah nodded and said, “oh no no, you don’t show bruises to parents.  I have 6 other siblings.  I’ve seen what happened when they showed amma and baba their bruises.  They got even angrier and hit them more!” 

It was awful.  Boarding school was like boot camp.  This wasn’t any noted boarding school that the professors felt proud of, but just a place where parents sent off their undisciplined girls because apparently they couldn’t take the full responsibility of raising them themselves.  They weren’t really learning anything, just memorizing poems, equations, and world facts, which they will forget the next year.  The teachers taught less and assigned more, and the food was not only unhealthy but too little.  The bathrooms lacked sanitation and the water was never warm. 

Weekends were the worst, when half the girls went home to see their families.  Adeela remained at the hostel where she never could sleep because of the commotion older boys would make.  It was funny how a boys’ boarding school had 10 times better security than this school.   It was hard getting out of the school during weekends when they had permission.  A crowd of young men would always stand near the gate to bother the girls.  Adeela chose to stay inside her prison of a room, being called number 16.  She would rather be called a number than be called inappropriate names by perverts who were sometimes even old enough to be an uncle or a father.

Unwanted Jewel : Chapter 2

1983

“Mom! What are you doing! Stop it please!” She doubted her mom would listen to her small little voice, but she didn’t want to let anybody know what her mother was about to do.  “Stop it!!!! Don’t do it mom!  I love you!” Adeela screamed and begged with tears streaming down her red appalled face.  “Mom, listen to me! Don’t do it!”

The mother finally broke down and gave out a painful moan, slowly weakening the grip of her tightly shut palm, which held a small bottle of rat’s poison.  Adeela quickly snatched the poison from her hand and hugged her mom as tight as she could.  The woman was shaking with fear.  She was ashamed of what she was about to do.  Moreover she was ashamed to be a single mother in this country, listening to every soul in the little village. 

She was young and beautiful, and now a widow, and that gave all the reason for the men to give her disgusting comments of her character, beauty, and potential of being a wife again.  She was never able to go out alone to do grocery or find a job because she always felt like she was being watched.  Even when she was at home with Adeela.  Young men would throw stones and bricks on her bedroom window just to get her attention.  She missed her husband.  Sometimes her in-laws were not the only ones to blame her for his death.   She admitted she had bad luck.  She couldn’t even get a job anywhere without being harassed by the boss or other people around the area.  At least if she had a son, she would have some hope of being safe in the future, because sons are supposed to look after their mothers, in contrary to daughters who leave them to take care of their in-laws.  She was hopeless. Her family thought of her as a burden. All she could have thought of was suicide. 

Adeela was 8 years old, though she sure didn’t act like one.  Despite the fact of not really grasping the concept of women being “unfortunate” she sympathized to see her mother in such circumstance, but she hated how unfair it was for her to see all this while the other girls her age played hopscotch and tag without a single concern in their hearts.

 She missed him more than anything.  Especially when all her other friends went home with their dads, or when their dads bought them new toys and took them to the city.  She missed her dad.  She doesn’t quite remember everything about him, but she knew that if he was alive he would have made one awesome dad. 

She didn’t understand why her mom wanted to kill herself.  It frightened her and it led to so many sleepless nights.  She didn’t want to be an orphan.  Besides, nobody else in her family really liked her. 

A couple of months passed and Adeela’s mother got a proposal from a family.  Her marriage was being arranged again to an engineer who was previously married as well.  He was a distant friend of Adeela’s father.  He lived in the city.  Not just any city, but the big apple. Her mom accepted the proposal.   Within 2 years, she got the visa to go to America.  It was her only choice, she said.

Unfortunately, mom couldn’t take her daughter with her due to some lengthy complicated immigration policy.  Not yet, at least.  On the bright side, mom won’t try killing herself again, she thought.  With this thought, she loosened her grip from her mother’s hand, still crying like it was the end of the world, while they sat in the airport with 2 suitcases that had her mom’s small little life packed inside.

“Don’t cry my baby.  We will come back to get you as soon as we get all the paperwork done.  For now, you only focus on studies.” The mother said, holding her little girl tight in her arms.   She didn’t have the guts to look into her own daughter’s eyes.  Those eyes had a story of their own.  She had big bold light-brown eyes, just like her father’s.   

“Your new father has registered you to a very good boarding school in Dhaka.  It will be lots of fun there!  He really cares about you dear.”  She hated the man for stealing her mother away from her, no matter how much he helped out.  If he was her dad’s friend then why would he separate her from her mom? 

That night in the airport, her mother’s family came for the farewell.  They took Adeela back home with them.  She was to temporarily live with her oldest aunt in the city before she started boarding school.  

Unwanted Jewel : Chapter 1

1975

The clouds had held the sorrow of the world for way too long and finally let out that painful cry in a small village nearby the heart of Bangladesh.  The shrieks of the thunder were, however, nothing compared to the screams of a young woman who was in labor.  The entire family waited eagerly for this moment of bliss when they were all going to become uncles, aunts, grandmothers and so forth.  They all heard agonizing moans coming from the mother, suddenly following a baby’s constant cry.  Within seconds the midwife came out of the room with blood covered hands and exclaimed, “It’s a girl!”  The father’s eyes drowned with tears of joy as he ran to the room to see his new baby girl.  The rest remained still in the living room, looking at one another.  Finally an old woman broke the silence, “I knew it wouldn’t be a boy. She has no luck with having a boy.  Poor daughter-in-law, a girl will never let a mother sleep in peace.”

Pakistanis had worsened the value of the new country's women.  Nobody in Bangladesh wanted a gender that would be assaulted, exposed, threatened and humiliated in the future.  Nobody except the father was thankful to have a healthy baby girl.   This broken blood-covered land was still recovering from the war where countless people died, not to mention the hundreds of thousands women raped. 

The man who was, in seconds, labled "the unfortunate" due to his wife boring a female infant did not care about what the society had to say.  He hated that sexist mentality the villagers had and he wanted to take his daughter far away from that place.  He promised himself to give all the love in the world to his little princess for as long as he lived.  He promised to never let her feel like a neglected gender.  He named her Adeela, which meant honest, just, and equality.  “One day you will show them all who you really are.” He raised the small cushiony body up in the air and Adeela squinted and smiled.

Four years later, the father died of a brain tumor.   

Art of the Day - soul mate

They look into each other's eyes and only wonder how impossible it would be to survive without each other.  They could be this way forever in such comfort and bliss.  There's not much that has to be done to please one another.  They are just being themselves, opening up like best friends, soul mates.  It's one committed relationship based on honesty and trust.  No matter how much they struggle in life, their love will overcome it all.