A Few Youths In the Moon

“এ ফিউ ইউথস ইন দ্যা মুন”The first part of this book:
Let me tell you a story about a few young men who lived in a city. The story is after all a fictitious narrative but the city is real. The moonlight which provides the setting of the story is real too. The persons who go to the making of this story live there and the incident of the story also did really take place. Why then did I call it a fictitious narrative? Look at the moonlight and you’ll get the answer. The night in which the incident took place was moonlit – a sea of moonlight broke into the place. Now moonlight breaking into a place like a huge surge is something strange and there is always an element of illusion in it. And illusion is what makes the unreal appear real and the real, unreal. Let us then get started with the story. Let me first of all introduce to you the youths in this story. The first youth’s name is Alam.
Shamsul Alam did his Masters in Sociology three years ago. He is twenty-five, thinly built with an oval face. He has big eyes that have a perennial astonished look. He was nicknamed Khoka Babu in his College and the University. The name which means the ‘big baby’ suggests an element of calmness in his nature.
Shamsul Alam is looking for a job for the last three years with no success except once when he got an appointment letter as a sales representative in a commercial firm. The appointment was subject to a few conditions – two character certificates from gazetted officers and a security deposit of taka twenty thousand. He could not arrange for the deposit, thank God, he could not, for one of Alam’s acquaintances gave the deposit and was asked to proceed to an address at Chittagong where he found a restaurant. No one had ever heard the name of the company.
Alam’s father, Mr Saifuddin, was an officer of middling rank at an Insurance Company. He was short and like all other Insurance men devoid of anger. Quiet and peaceloving, Mr Saifuddin never lost his temper, but he too was showing signs of impatience with his son’s inaction and worthlessness. Quite often he was beginning to refer to Alam as a big ass the like of which he had never seen in his life. He