The Self-Tormentor
Tonight, there is an encounter between two unlikely characters. Or rather,
two characters who do not like each other much. There was a family feud
some time ago. Though it was not quite so dramatic, more a slow gathering
of absence that quietly stacked up. So high, it formed a barrier between
Taka and Poisha. An occasion missed here or there because of a lack of
anticipation and then at one point, it just tipped. The history became
arbitrary. Enough distance for some abstract resentment to be convincing.
Taka and Poisha are not geographically distant. They live on the same
street in fact – at either end of Whitechapel Road. The exact point where
each lives defines exactly who they are. Taka is right in the thick of it.
He cocoons himself within the comfort of a tight knit community so that he
might be everyone’s friend. The tip of Brick Lane, leading to a strip of
professional welcomes. Whereas Poisha is out on a limb, consciously so, for
just enough space to be allowed the opportunity to be introspective. Giving
little away with tunnel vision towards the family. Whitechapel where it
starts to change its mind.
Taka and Poisha use the street as a tool to remain a world apart. But a
larger force binds them together, tugging at the invisible wires that
pull the traffic through. While Taka gazes upwards to minarets among the
silk weavers, Poisha curls up beneath the cross. A call for Taka to join
like-minded others at the meeting place. One curious offspring of Poisha
occasionally peers over to this exotic character, immersed in the centre of
activity.
The disparate pair is tied by more than this road, for they are relatives.
This would be difficult to spot of course, their personalities are
laughably in opposition. Years spent in pursuit of splaying paths, burying
the shared blood and naive experiences beyond view. Lives were once piled
atop one and other, now they tilt at either end of a see-saw.
Taka and Poisha happen to be money exchange shops. Seemingly banal office
types - desks, chairs, filing cabinets, wall calendars - yet filled with
tales of adventures, and part of a topography that stretches to the other
side of the world. Trade is embedded in the tarmac here, which unfolds
and wraps itself around the tea leaves of north-eastern Bangladesh. The
exchange of money runs along a streak of blue paint between skyscrapers,
which gushes blue-brown through the streets of Dhaka. Travelling on two
wheels from the City of Mosques to The City mosque, and back again.
A blur of moving blue lights interrupts the quiet pause just after the
small hours, just before early workers. All awake at a tower composed of
blue rectangles in the middle of the road, where either end is brought
together. Taka is ill, a devastating tear in the routine of normality. The
reason is not a lifetime of self-indulgence or reckless attitude to health.
Instead, it is something that was there all along, squeezing ever-tightly.
Taka needs a piece of strength from another body to survive. It must be
someone with an ingrained bond; Poisha knows it must be him. He does
not feel the family connection anymore, he has carved himself a sense
of belonging where he is happy; he still knows it must be him. Through
bleary eyes, he sees with great clarity a character that lives on the same
street. And for this reason alone, the interests of Taka are not foreign to
Poisha’s own concern.
