Silly Tales

A Queer Punishment

During my college days, I was often late to my English class. It usually began at 9 in the morning. The distance between my house and the college was only 10 kilometers. Regardless of the fact that the distance was really short, it did not really matter because I was always a victim of traffic congestion. So, one day our English teacher announced that for every five minutes of delay, a student will have to pay Tk 10. We were all disappointed with the decision, but, all of a sudden,our teacher said, “If I am late then the law is applicable for me as well.” He also added that after the end of the month we will arrange a class party with the accumulated punishment money. The whole classroom burst into laughter at the idea!

Afzalur Rahman
University of Chittagong,
Chittagong.

Chinese Whispers

Chinese Whispers is a common game played in school. In this game, one person whispers a message to another, which is passed through a line of people until the last player announces the message to the entire group. Usually, changes occur in the message due to hearing wrong and that is the interesting part. Back in 2010, we were kind of obsessed with this game. We would play the game whenever we would get time, despite of the location--which could be in class or even the school bus. But there had been a few times when the sentences turned out so funny that our stomachs hurt of laughter. One such time was when 'Ekta goru ghaash khacche' (A cow is eating grass) became 'Ekta lal goru bajare jacche' (A red cow is going to the market). Another time, someone said, 'Cell er bhitor nucleus thake' (There is a nucleus inside a cell) came out to be 'Biriyani te mosla kom' (There is less masala in the biriyani). These ridiculous sentences made us even more attached to the game. And we filled our pouches with some colourful school memories from those days!

Oyessorzo Rahman Chowdhury
SFX Greenherald International School, Dhaka.

Explosive Mistake

Back in our school days, we used to enjoy our lab classes. There is a Chemistry lab and whenever we had classes, we were under close supervision. There was this friend of mine who studied Commerce but was very enthusiastic about chemical reactions and lab experiments. As he was not in the Science section, he was not permitted entrance in the Chemistry lab. One particular day, we were busy with an experiment when the only teacher in-charge got summoned urgently by the principal. He left us immediately. Suddenly that friend appeared from nowhere in the lab. Since we were all well engaged in our work, we did not pay much heed to him. He was examining the chemicals and apparatuses with silence. 'Boom!' The next thing we noticed was black smoke all around the room. Within seconds, that guy was nowhere to be seen. He ran away! Our Chemistry teacher came back and as expected, with awe and bewilderment ,covering his face. But, surprisingly enough, he did not question us about how it all happened. Rather, he felt guilty with himself for not leaving us under supervision.

Afnan Bin Ashraf
Academia, Dhaka.