Growing up days – I begin to go to the daily market

This was a job that I took up for selfish motives. The motive was to make some easy money on the side to take care of my extra monetary needs. Nothing much but, since I had entered college, it was but natural that my need for money had grown and I had to discover ways and means to bridge the gap.

It was a tough job no doubt because the daily budget earmarked was just two rupees and that was supposed to cover the cost of vegetable and fish needed for our six-member family. Plus bus fare to go to the market and back plus, you guessed it, at least one cigarette.
How I managed to keep aside a few paise everyday was my very own idea – one of these was to take shortcuts to go to the market and avoid the paying of bus fare. I never felt any shame in this because I had not stolen any money, I had only transferred it from the bus account to my pocket account.

The bus fare was eight paise one way and, for comparison, sixty paise was the price of a ticket in any cinema hall in the lower stall. Therefore, in a week I was able to generate finance for at least one ticket to a movie. (to be continued …)

Growing up days – exposed to the outside world

My joining college coincided with a new phase of my life. We had shifted to our newly constructed house in Lake Town which was, at that time, a gradually emerging township. It was situated on Jessore Road and was not too far from Shyambazar where we stayed earlier. There were any number of private buses that plied – these were long distance buses and many of the conductors were not even aware of the location of Lake Town.

Anyway, the fact remains that the distance from my house to my college in Park Street was long – it would take at least one hour to reach. Moreover, I would be getting hardly two rupees for daily expenses from my mother and that had to take care of not just my bus fares but also snacks in the college canteen.

And – in addition to these I had to have some money for going to movies plus a few cigarettes.
Yes, by that time I had got addicted to smoking – because others smoked and, there used to be impressive slogans like ‘live life king size’ or ‘good to the last puff’ or ‘made for each other’. Moreover, dangling a cigarette in between your lips used to look good on the cinema screen and appeared to be impressive. (to be continued …)