Wrath and Happiness over the same incident

Published on Thursday, 8 January 2015

Fahad was thinking randomly about various things not connected with each other with his eyes half closed, sitting on a seat beside a window on a bus full of passengers, and the bus was running along the highway in Dhaka city at night nearly eleven o'clock. All of a sudden, he perceived obscurely that the bus came near a flyover and he was pretty sure that the bus would go over the flyover, because the buses of this service used to go over the flyover. But unlike before, the bus veered its track and then ran along the highway under the flyover. Anyway, Fahad was so much engaged in his haphazard thoughts and his brain was so distracted that he was not able to concentrate on that matter. And all of the passengers on the bus were too fatigued physically and mentally to quarrel with the driver over the matter. Well, the bus continued to run and after going a little distance, abruptly stopped. Fahad opened his eyes and looked idly out of the windscreen in order to know why the bus stopped and perceived that the bus stood in front of a rail crossing and as a caution a bamboo stick was placed diagonally for a train was coming along the rail track though it was not very near. However, weariness of his body made his eyes close fully, he threw himself off in arbitrary thoughts and in a moment started to adrift on the imagination as the sea fig on the wave of the ocean.

On the other hand, the driver of the bus intending to cross the railroad track before the train passed, veered the bus from the highway to the ground, where the bamboo stick didn't reach and unlike on the highway the railroad track was not leveled with the ground, then picked up the speed of the bus as to cross the rail track and in a haul the front wheels of the bus passed one bar of the rail track and then in a another great pull the next bar but the back wheels couldn't pass even one bar in spite the driver tried repeatedly, because the back side of the bus was more leaden than the front side due to the passengers weight. As a result, the bus got stuck with the rail track. The bus driver scarcely understood it well and saw the train coming to them swiftly, having got frantic, started pressing the accelerator like a mad and caused the bus roar loudly and shake off boisterously. However, Fahad suddenly woke up from his random thinking and half asleep by the roaring and shaking, and then he looked out of the window and in no time the dazzling light of the train cast on his eyes. In order to save himself out of instinct, he opened the window wide enough and jumped through the window on the ground and in one or two second reached a place quite far away so that if a deadly accident could happen, it wouldn't do any kind of harm of him. Well, from that place he looked at the bus and saw that the fear stricken passengers of the bus began to get out of the bus running through the door and jumping out of the window. The hollering of the passengers who were jolting inside the bus as to get out of it was something like Fahad couldn't compare with other sound. Thus, a lot of passengers was able to get out of the bus though many of them were still now confined on the bus bumping with each other and yelling in the fear of death.

Fahad started to go very slowly to the place where the bus had gotten stuck, measuring in mind the safety line that he would not pass. Besides, he was considering that it would not be ethical to be so selfish in order to save only his own life when many people were about to die in a deadly accident that was going to happen right away. He felt some responsibility for saving them from the imminent crash. Then his conscience stirred him up to go to the place, and in an instant having been surrendered to his integrity, he started to run, though he didn't know what he could do after reaching there except for watching the accident from very near in the risk of getting hurt badly. But just as he came near the safety line, someone invisible held him tightly by his whole body and pulled him back and said in an eccentric tone, "It is beyond your ability to stop the forthcoming accident or to rescue the people from it. What need of you engaging yourself in such a deadly accident just for nothing? Move back and wait until the accident had happened. Then go to the place and if somebody is still alive then, take the wounded people to the hospital and do to them whatever you wish and thus, satisfy your conscience." Even so, he struggled along with his conscience against the invisible man, but couldn't succeed in winning over him and as a result failed in crossing the safety line. Afterwards, in a very agitating mood, he started to walk back and forth with his body shaking feverishly. Fahad calculated in mind that about in ten seconds the train was going to hit the bus along with the passenger inside of it unless the bus crossed the rail crossing before the train passed. The passengers who were still confined, most of them were women, on the bus were shouting such a way as though they were lastly exposing their own existences just before their unexpected death in the approaching crash. The driver of the bus kept himself very busy pressing the accelerator, and consequently, the bus was roaring and shaking tumultuously. Nonetheless, it didn't go even one inch ahead. The roaring of the bus and the lamenting in harsh voices of the passengers confined mixed with each other and made such a strange sound that Fahad couldn't even imagine what it could sound like. Fahad saw that when the train was on the verge of knocking, the bus in a great haul passed the rail track as an action movie scene for the back side of the bus was now less weighty than some seconds before as the place was almost empty since most of the passengers were now on the ground and who were left on the bus jolting front side near the door and the train passed without doing any harm of the bus, and the driver and the passengers inside it. Just as the train passed, a deadly silence took over the place. And after a moment, some noise started to rise very faintly.

At this scene, Fahad at a run crossed the safety line very easily for this time the invisible man didn't impede him any longer and reached near the bus and observed that the female passengers getting out of the bus crying in silence and male passenger blaming the driver for the accident that had been going to happen beating and abusing him. For the time being, the other passengers, among them there were a few female passengers, who had harbored themselves some safe places around also came to the place very quickly as Fahad. All the female passengers gathered in a place on the footpath and all of them continued crying silently and amongst them who were relatives hugged each other for some time.

On the other hand, all of the male passengers as in office time every day began bumping at the door of the bus as to get on and then give a good lesson to the driver. Some of them succeeded in getting on and others were still going on trying. Fahad was also very much angry at the bus driver that incited himself to take a part in beating the driver. In this situation of his mind, he tried to get on and after much jolting, he also thrived at last. He saw that a group of male passengers beating the driver standing around him in a circle. Blood was rolling down from his nose, and lips. And a fright was engraved in his contracted eyes. He raised his fist to blow him as to drive away his anger that was roaring furiously in him. But the same invisible man held him by his lifted hand from behind, so that he couldn't strike the driver. The rage had made him very crazy and was not letting him stay placid. Now the question was how he would be able to get rid of the anger that was dancing crazily like kali inside him. If he could have beaten the driver arbitrarily, the anger would have been lessened. But this was not possible, because each time he was about to strike the driver, the invisible man held his hand firmly and at the touch of the invisible man his whole body became numb. Therefore, though outside of him was motionless but inside of him swaying furiously due to the wrath. At last, he understood that he couldn't hit the driver as the invisible man wouldn't allow him to do this. He got out of the bus and started walking back and forth beside the bus. Then a voice delivered from the invisible man and entered into his ear whisperingly, "In order to lessen your fury, it is better to strike on the glass of the window with your fist." At the voice, he started bumping on the window glass in front of him with his naked, right fist. After some time bumping on the glass, he perceived well that something is rolling down on his forearm. He stopped to smash the glass and looked at his forearm and saw in the streetlight that it was his own blood. The fingers of the hand had been scratched by the broken glass, and the blood was flowing incessantly from these scratched places. Just after noticing the scrapes, he felt the acute pain on the fingers and in the meantime, the face of the driver tarnished with blood and the glittering eyes of the female passenger, from which tears were rolling down to their delicate cheeks floated up on the surface of his mind. Then, he felt that the anger had been erased from his heart totally and there wasn't left even a sign of it.

Then, he began to walk to the place where the female passengers were sobbing standing together in a group. When he came very near the group, watching blood on his hand in the street light, some women rushed to him as if they were very close to him. They thought that in the time of coming down from the bus, his fingers had been cut somehow. One of the female passengers tore off a piece of cloth from her saree and bandage the scratches of his fingers. Other female passengers told that he should have been more cautious at that time lest he would get hurt himself. A few scratches on the fingers in the comparison of the fatal accident, which could have been happened was not valued much to be mentioned to them who were beating the driver in the wrath triggered by a mistake of him, but it was more important to them who had been crying inaudibly in the happiness of not losing their own lives.