A story of Cigarettes

I feel that my eight-year-old self (or at most my nine-year-old self) was too hard on my father. I remember my dad and I lived in a house in Hill View Housing Society in Chittagong*. We had two washrooms in that house. My dad always used the one farther from our room—sometimes, I think, for reasons other than the usual washroom works. Whenever he came out, the washroom smelled of cigarettes. I would cry and try, in childlike ways, to make him give up smoking so he would live longer. I’d absorbed from my grandparents and my surroundings the idea that not smoking meant living longer . But all of us—including eight-year-old me—missed something important. Life isn’t only about living for someone else and trying to stretch the years; it’s also about having our own moments of peace.

My concern stemmed from my deep affection and dependence on my father. My father meant the world to me not just because he was my father and only parent but because I was extremely dependent on him in very unusual ways. For example, my eight year old self could not sleep without him. I was so emotionally dependent that he needed to extend his arm and I needed to lay my head on top of it and then sleep - quite unusual for a eight year old.

Now, almost sixteen years after his demise, I regret that I was so hard on him. I understand what he was going through. He led an extremely difficult life: living without a partner, a single parent with a bunch of health issues and career struggles. He gave his best for me. When I smoke in my room now, I realize he needed those cigarettes to get through as I do now. Those were the moments that let him be himself—perhaps a younger version of himself with very different dreams—but the responsibility of a child restrained him. I can see how much a cigarette could help calm his nerves as a cigarette is not a philosophy, but sometimes it is an alibi for solitude.

After all these years, I want to apologize to him for not being more open-minded. I hope he knew that, in my own way, he meant the world to me. And if it were possible to borrow one more evening, I would ask for nothing elaborate: just a shared cigarette.

Happy birthday, Abbu. Tunok misses sleeping on your arm. I’ve never had that kind of sleep since you left.

*for some reason my dad—and due to his influence unfortunately the whole society—called the building “Bonduk Company,” which translates to “Rifle Company.” My father had an absurd knack for coming up with hilarious names for things. He played his silly pranks all the time and people who knew my father tells me that I inherited that annoying aspect of his personality.