The fellow who sits in the air-conditioned office <br /> is the one who in his youth raped <br /> a dozen or so young girls, <br /> and, at cocktail parties, is secretly stricken with lust, <br /> fastening his eyes on lovelies' bellybuttons. <br /> <br />In five-star hotels, <br /> he tries out his different sexual tastes <br /> with a variety of women, <br /> then returns home and beats his wife <br /> because of an over-ironed handkerchief or shirt collar. <br /> <br />In his office Mr. Big puffs on a cigarette, <br /> shuffles through files, <br /> rings for his employee <br /> shouts, <br /> demands tea, <br /> drinks, <br /> and returns to writing people's character references. <br /> <br />His employee speaks in such a low voice <br /> that no one would ever suspect <br /> how, at home, he also raises his voice, <br /> is vile to his family <br /> but with his buddies on the porch or at a movie <br /> indulges in loud harangues on politics, <br /> art, literature, and how some female - <br /> his mother, grandmother, or great-grandmother - <br /> committed suicide. <br /> <br />Bidding goodbye to his buddies, <br /> he returns home, <br /> beats his wife <br /> over a bar of soap <br /> or the baby's pneumonia. <br /> <br />Next day, at work, he pleasantly brings the tea, <br /> keeps the lighter in his pocket, <br /> receives a tip of a couple of taka, <br /> and tells no one that he divorced his first wife for her sterility, <br /> his second for giving birth to a daughter, <br /> his third for not bringing a sufficient dowry. <br /> Now, with wife number four, he again has someone: <br /> To beat over a green chili or a handful of rice.<br /><br />Taslima Nasrin<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-the-back-of-progress/
