This
story is for those who love their dads more than their power of love..............
.................Yeasir Ahmed Milan
There was a little girl named Antor who
is now six. Since one year back, she has been deeply adorable to her daddy. Now
she is concerned if her daddy has taken food, pitched mosquito net, wrapped up
wintry rugs over his body, or needed water......or so many needful things like.
Little girl pays deep attention to her daddy as needed, brushes off dusts from
her daddy’s shoes at the time of going out for work, and bids adieu to him with
‘Ta Ta’! Their family were going with much happiness.
.......One day......
On his way back home, Antor’s beloved
daddy lost his right leg being run over by a speedy car. With a bolt from the
blue, all heavens broke down on earth all on a sudden. Pain and sobs took the
place of joy and jubilation. Deep depression came over on cheerful family
members, and all hopes of peace and happiness vanished away like morning dews
and summer rains. The ever-happy family of Antor turned into a house of
inflaming suffering lives. Source of income stopped overnight. Mom was educated
but she would not discharge any job. Even it was impossible for her to work in
the closest neighbours’ houses. She had no job and money. So, they began to
spend days with pity taking one meal instead of three. Dad was increasingly
growing impatient as the time passed on. He made up his mind to have jobs in
Dhaka, and send money in months for his housewife and Antor. Antor’s daddy
couldn’t manage any job in any of the offices in Dhaka at any toil. Last of
all, he secured a job of a gatekeeper beneath S@ifur’s building. His monthly
salary was Taka 3000, and fooding as well as living costs were of his own.
Antor’s father thought if he went to any
mess, he would have spent Tk. 1000 for seat rent and Tk. 1200 for meal charges
a month. Then he wouldn’t mitigate his daughter’s education cost and his family
expenditures with the rest of Tk. 800 only. So, he began to eat only in the
morning session for the whole day. At night he had only little water and some
puffed rice.
A long long way back at home, Antor asks
her mother, ‘Does daddy take food regularly, and hang mosquito net at sleep?’
She further questions, ‘Who wipes out daddy’s shoes at the office time?’ She
ardently requests her mom to have linked with his daddy’s phone number. One night
Antor talks to her daddy.......................
She continues to say, ‘Papa, have you
taken dinner? We have taken ......heated rice with small fishes. Papa, how
delicious and delightful! If you were at home, I’d feed you with my hands as
before.’ Tears began to roll down daddy’s eyes on his chest. He thought in
minds, ‘I stay in Dhaka only for you to take hot rice into your mouth. Ammu,
you don’t imagine how pitifully I’m passing my life.’ Antor enquires, ‘Abbu,
have you eaten?’ Father says, ‘Hmm......’ ‘Abbu, what things do you eat at
meals?’, lass investigates.........It’s fried rice, fresh water........taken
with full stomach, mummy. ‘That’s good Abbu, that’s fine! Would you go to sleep
now? Have you pitched your mosquito net? If I were with you Abbu, I would have
set up the net.’ Dad soliloquies, ‘O mother mine, I just sleep on mud.......a
plastic mat, a shabby pillow..........not
possible to allow any mosquito net to spread over.’ ‘.......Come back home quickly, I’ll sleep wrapping
your neck with my hands. Abbu, don’t leak to mom......that I no longer sleep at
night after your parting. I only think of you at nights. Before going to bed, I
pray for your well beings, and finally fling my sickly body down to sleep.’ ‘
Okay, Ammu......Okay Antor. I’ll not disclose anything to your mom. But without
you I can’t let myself sleep. From now on, you’ll go to bed as early as possible.
Then I will have sound sleep’, father tells her loved lass. ‘Okay Abbu.’
Days were passing this way.......Antor
was being brought up slowly but surely. Father thinks, ‘One day Antor will be
married off..........and I, her daddy, left alone as today. But now I’m working
as gatekeeper sacrificing all happiness for my little Antor’s sake.’
Yes, this is you, my dad........my beloved
dad.......this the ever-burning emblem of sublime sacrifice. Is anyone on earth
who takes after my dad? You everyone has father, but do you ever think what an
invaluable sublime sacrifice he is enduring only for his daughter’s auspicious
future, but why?
Let’s pray for my beloved dad today, saying
with tightening up his hands on my chest, ‘O my dear dad, I love you more that
I can say. You are the greatest daddy in the world.’