A Farmer

I am a very strong man. I had never cried in my life for any reason. But for the last 20 days I have been crying over the phone to my wife every single day. We have been married 40 years and after our marriage, we had never spent a day without being with each other. Even my wife never visits her parents' home without taking me along with her. But in order to have some money to celebrate the Eid festival with my family members, I had to come to Dhaka to pull a rickshaw during this scorching hot summer.

 

No one knows from my village that I came here to pull a rickshaw. I feel some shame and I’m always in a panic thinking someone I know will see me pulling a rickshaw. I hide my face during the daytime with a mask so that no one can recognize me.

I am a farmer. This year planting paddy on my only land I got only 30 mon of paddy by spending 16 thousand taka. But when selling that paddy I could only earn 15 thousand taka! Every year farmers like me are facing these problems. But there is no one to see them! We farmers have nothing else to do to earn money except coming here and pulling the rickshaws to enable our families to survive. Farmers are respected but farmers like me are now becoming rickshaw pullers!

 

It’s very tough for rickshaw pullers to fast during this Ramadan. But I am continuing my fasting because my wife said, "fasting is the exam for us; if we can't even pass the exam in this world how can we pass it in the hereafter?" Whenever the sun feels unbearable, I come here and pour water on my head and wash my face. Whenever I pour water on my head, I realize that if this water feels so heavenly in summer like this then how divine it will feel in the field of the hereafter!!

Every day after finishing every single fast, I feel stronger because I feel that I have passed one of my exams. I can't explain to you that very satisfying feeling of peace from wining. 

Last night when I said I got hurt in one of my legs, my wife started crying and said, "Please return home. We don't need anything else besides you". 

Being with family is very compelling but I have to work till the last Ramadan to see their happy faces on the Eid Day!