Different Eyes



	He was healthy for a villager - his skin stretched
smoothly over a frame hardened to blackness with field work. 
With his calloused hands, he could pick up burning embers in the
winter time, and toss them around playfully.  If necessary he
could go for days on a handful of rice - his organs were compact
and efficient; minutely adjusted over the years to waste the
least energy.  His blood, thick and salty, enabled him to work
long hours in the heat.  Despite all his roughness, Abdul's
handsome face still had a soft quality to it.  The frailties of
a compassionate upbringing were etched into his very smile; the
gentle way he spoke; the liquid of his eyes.  His children were
bold, but full of laughter, their skins unblemished from
beatings.  He had never been known to hit his wife, even in the
privacy of their mud shelter.  Abdul behaved as though someone
had just put a new born baby in his arms to take care of.
	He was sitting now, under the large jack fruit tree that
sheltered their hut from monsoon storms.  For the past nine
harvesting seasons, he had kept his annual accounts on the bark
of this tree.  Each of the nine squares on the trunk represented
a block of life, enclosing sweat, anguish and hopes.  There were
straight lines to represent every thousand takas borrowed, and
curved ones to record payments.  This year the straight lines
were too many, scratched in close together they were a compact
mass of apprehensions.  Abdul could only count to ten, so after
one count, he started another.  Three more.  The crops would
bring in around ten thousand takas; so he was at least 3000
thousand short.  Besides he needed money for his family.
	But times were not difficult for everyone.  And
politicians for one did not agree on the state of the nation. 
They had started flocking to the villages as the time for
elections was drawing near.  Some came in the green government
jeeps and others in an assembly of private cars.  The jeep
people would talk of a prospering economy and the new grain
houses that were being built.  The others would decry the state
of the nation and appeal to the people to resist the present
government.  But the hungry villagers saved their energy.  They
had seen far too often how these angry politicians changed their
talk once they were the ones sitting in the dark cool of the air
conditioned jeeps.  Then they would shield themselves behind
tinted glass, hiding their betrayal. 
	In the village some had done well, but others poorly. 
But the hungry were not the loud ones, they were too crushed to
speak harshly.  Their protest was framed in shriveled bodies and
reflected in dusky eyes.  Only the rich would drone about their
hardships, as if their voices could blind others to filled out
cheeks and soft, sugar fingers.
	As Abdul stared at the lines, grasping at what they
meant and where they came from, he realized that understanding
them meant nothing.  They were not going anywhere; even the ones
from seven years ago looked as fresh and as deep as those he had
carved in this winter.  Little flints of wood stuck to his
fingers as he ran his skin along the edges.  The shreds pierced
his flesh, reluctant to fall away.  The money lenders would not
disappear either, they would be coming soon to collect their
dues.  He knew that this year, they would not give him more
time.  Three of his friends had already been killed for not
paying.  Unless he found a way to raise money, his turn was
soon. Their long game of pretending would end.  He would no
longer have to pretend that he had a chance of paying the money
back and they would stop pretending to believe him.
	Abdul had figured out their game after his third crop
cycle.  When the lenders sat with him and calculated the money
he owed them, he could tell that it would never be possible to
pay.  His father had died leaving him four acres of arable land;
he currently owned less than one.  Even that was now in danger
of being taken by the lenders.  
	Abdul thought of what Fakrul from the neighboring
village had told him.  The day had come when the rich could buy
body parts from the poor.  And the poor could live on,
incomplete, but still alive.  Fakrul said hospitals in the city
would pay 5000 takas for a healthy eye.  For one eye!  What need
did someone like him have for two working ones?  5000 would be
enough to release him from his trap.  He would never have to
scratch another line.  The tree would grow without a single new
scar.
	And what did one eye mean?  When there was dirt in one,
he could still walk straight and reach for the stalk by his
foot.  Abdul put a hand in front of his right eye, things were
still clear.  There was a little gone from each side, but how
were these corners worth?  Did they matter to one as poor as
him?  It is not as though he had wealth to look upon.  These
corners were not worth more than land.
	But Rohema would never let him do it.  She was much too
tender to accept these things.  She was tenacious enough in
other ways though.  Abdul had noticed that she was selling her
most precious trinkets.  He had not seen her glass bangles in a
long time.  Her small face mirror was also missing.  Maybe she
was afraid of herself now, who would want to see a hungry face
staring back?  He did not want this any more, it was his fault
that his wife was ashamed of herself.  He would have to do it
without telling her.  Eyes did not last forever, and his were
already losing their strength.  But land stayed.
He would have to speak to Fakrul.



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