Sobbed with grief and humiliation Rosy ran out of the school gate and walked fast towards the Ramna Park which is a stone’s throw from her school. She was so emotionally agitated that she damned care the traffic signal. If a microbus had not braked so hard and stopped instantly it might have run over her. Rosy did not bother the driver’s grimy remarks, and stalked off. Soon she entered the park gate.
Today, as usual, Rosy reached the exam hall. The clock struck 10. Rosy got the question paper along with her classmates. It appeared to her that she would be able to answer 90 marks from her own and if she would get a chance to see the stuff captured in her cell phone, she would be able to answer the remaining 10 marks. So she felt enthusiastic. An hour later she rose her head up and looked around. She saw no teacher in the room. She thought it a golden opportunity for her to complete the uncommon answers. So she passed her right hand to the secret place and quickly took the phone out and covered it with her question paper. Right then her thighs began to tremble uncontrollably. Her two hands were also shivering, and she felt that she was sweating despite the pleasant temperature in the room. Being so tensed she changed her decision and thought to put the phone back to its place, but her effort betrayed when the phone dropped down with a bang. Rebeka Ms who was sitting at the back on a student’s bench advanced on tiptoes and detected the crime. It is Rebeka Ms who was trying to take revenge on Rosy because Rosy left her private table and began to go to Kamal Uddin, her rival. The bird was in the trap.
Rosy tried to defend her case, and even fell on the feet of Rebeka Ms to forgive her. But nothing melted her heart. She took Rosy to the Principal’s room and gave an exaggerated description how she was copying with the help of that mobile phone. The Principal was a lioness. Her fierce look had the sharpness of a razor. With bitterest contempt she pronounced, “Fraudster! You’re no more a student of this renowned institution. How dare you come to the exam hall with a smartphone and how dare you copy with it. You’re the curse of this institution and your name is struck offThe Principal called the Head clerk and ordered him to prepare a transfer certificate with a note that Rosy Akter had been a student here from class six to class nine and she has been expelled from the school for adopting unfair means in the exam.
Rosy saw some people sitting on stone-benches facing the small lake in the park. She sat on an empty bench. Her eyes fell on some boys who were giggling and bathing in the lake’s filthy water. They must be poor, she thought, they must be tokais, she thought. But she liked their freedom and exuberance. Suddenly, she noticed a little girl with torn clothes. Coming closer the girl began to entreat her to buy some flowers. She was carrying several bunches of roses- the red red roses. “dulabhaier/bhaiyar janya ekta phul nyan (Take a flower for your her husband/boy friend). Rosy had no idea who could be a boy friend or husband in her life. She thought the girl wanted to impress her with those words. The red roses dazzled her eyes. She stared at a budding rose one or two petals of which were about to evolve. Last month, in her school, the local MP (Member of Parliament) was invited in the Prize Giving ceremony. In his speech he said, “You’re the budding roses. You’ll make our country beautiful like roses when you will grow up.” Rosy loved to imagine herself as a budding rose.
She said to the little flower peddler, “ Give me the budding rose. What’s its price?”
“Two taka.” Rosy took out a ten-taka note from her bag, handed it to the girl and said ‘go’.
Being unaware, all by herself, Rosy began to strip off its tight petals one after another. Then she tore each tender petal into pieces and threw them off at the edges of filthy lake water.
When Rosy reached their eleventh-floor apartment building, she felt more nervous. In the lift she saw a budding rose badly damaged under someone’s feet.
It was a bolt from the blue. Urmilla Khatun fainted with the news. By the time she revived, her husband had reached home.
Now at the sight of Rosy she growled at her husband:
“It is you! you! who have ruined the daughter. It is your privilege that dared her to take the mobile phone in the exam hall.”
“This is my last word. If that magi (woman in a derogatory sense) is really expelled from the school, either she will stay in this house, or me.”
“Okay, let’s all of us go to the school and request the Principal to withdraw the decision.”
“Me? shall I go for a request? You go with your dear daughter!”
Rosy sat on the rickshaw beside her father. Her father seemed a stranger to her. The Principal was about to leave when they reached her room. As soon as she saw Rosy with her guardian she flared up as before.
“Madam! Please, please. A little girl has made some mistake. I am begging pardon on my daughter’s behalf, please, forgive her fault for the last time, please … ”
“No request. We had an emergency meeting about your daughter’s case, and the decision is final. I think you have no qualification to be the father of a student of such a renowned institution. You don’t take care that your daughter might carry a smart phone. We guessed that she must be the daughter of such a careless parent.” While her father was still entreating the Principal, Rosy slipped away. She came out of the school gate, took a rickshaw and reached her house.
The little servant girl Phelani opened the gate.
Rosy liked to be alone. She could not hope that the Principal might consider her father’s request. She was more upset. Her mother’s words reverberated in her heart– “Either me or your daughter will stay in this house.”
Rosy could not find any answer of her problem. Suddenly her eyes fell on the beautiful ceiling fan. She heard a whisper as if the fan called her, “Take your Orna (the long loose cloth worn by the adult girl/woman to mainly cover their chest) and reach me.” Her eyes also fell on the chair and a stool. “If the stool is placed on the chair the fan handle could be reachable,” she thought. So, she placed the chair first, then the stool over it. She again heard a whisper, “Make a ring with one end of your orna. The knot is easy and simple, practise it and then try wearing it round the throat” A whisper again reached her ear, “Make haste, no hunger and thirst will touch you. You’ve not slept so long hours. You’ll be carried to a golden world where you will be sleeping in peace. ”
Rosy’s father entered the house with a neighbour friend of him. He is Mr Hasan, a retired Headteacher of a private school. Mr Kabir felt relaxed to talk to Mr Hasan in the drawing room.
“You know, we had faced a traumatic situation today. The school authority expelled Rosy from the school. The fault is that she was copying with the help of a cell phone. The Principal issued a T.C for her and she insulted me a lot.”
“Too much! it is too much. Expelled from school for such a silly matter! Why should we blame the tender-aged students for adopting unfair means in the exam while we are teaching them to be dishonest from the so called PSC and JSC exams? Very shamelessly I had to commit all the nuisances and I think you know all these open secrets.”
Mr Hasan cleared his throat and began to say something just when they are startled hearing a loud sound.
The sound was made when Rosy hung herself when kicking off the tool from the chair.
Mr Kabir’s outburst shook the building, “My Ammu, my Ammu, what have you done?” Mr Hasan held Rosy’s body up, and Mr Kabir cut off the orna with the bati.
Mr Kabir’s lament reached heaven. “ Ammu, Rosy, Ammu, can you hear me? Look at me. You’re not expelled from the school. Hear me, hear me. Cann’t you hear me? You will attend all the exams left. The Principal has torn off your T.C. Everything is okay.” It seemed that Rosy shook her lips and seemed to utter something but the word trailed off.” An ambulance was called soon and she was taken to Dhaka Medical College Hospital within a few minutes.
From the hospital her body went to the morgue for an autopsy, she was never to return to her little room.