Tara
Tara looked at the door in front of him with a mixture of familiarity and alienation. He had been to the apartment that lay behind it more times than he could count, but it had been years since his last visit. The once-red door was now painted blue, the number 2B now in white instead of black. The drawings that lay beside the door remained the same, though — sketches and paintings that Tara’s friend Niloy had done all the way back in first grade. Tara spotted the classic গ্রামের বাড়ি with the mud house, the zigzagging river and the sun tucked away in the corner.
Judging from the lack of shoes, Tara realized that he was the first one there. So much had changed since the last time he had seen Niloy. That had been nearly a year ago, when Niloy had come to see him at his graduation. Tara remembered feeling very grown-up at that moment — that he was no longer a child and had finally taken his first steps into adulthood. Now, not only was everyone in the friend group a working man, but they were also starting to get married.
Tara, like the rest of the group, had wanted nothing more than to be a professional football player when he was younger. He had wanted nothing more than to be able to lace up his boots and sprint across the grass for a living. He had wanted to be like Cristiano Ronaldo, tearing down the wing with an arsenal of tricks, stepovers and feints up his sleeve. He had dreamt endlessly of his name on the back of a Manchester United jersey, daydreamt about playing in front of thousands at Old Trafford.
But as he got older, Tara had to reluctantly admit that being a professional footballer was not a feasible dream. So few made it in the long run, and Tara did not have the confidence that he could be one of them. Even at the interschool tournaments he played, he saw players who were better than him. This, coupled with the poor footballing infrastructure in Bangladesh, made him realize that he had to give up on his dream.
Tara poured his energy into his studies and focused on getting into a good university abroad. He was surprised that Sakib and Fahim had decided to continue their football pursuits. Seeing this, a part of him wondered: what if? What if he joined them as well? What if he actually had what it took? But he would quickly snap out of these daydreams. He felt it was only a matter of time before that dream failed — that it was better he had gotten out early. Yet there was a slight pang of jealousy whenever he heard his friends talk about the academy.
Tara would eventually succeed in getting into a university abroad with a scholarship. He was going to Temple University in Philadelphia to study Economics. Economics was not something he was particularly passionate about, but it was something he could tolerate well enough to build a degree around and eventually secure a job. With their applications settled and their A Levels over, Fahim, Niloy and Tara could finally enjoy a break for once. They used the break to spend as much time with each other as they could, and to play as much football as they could possibly manage.
With the summer over, it was time for Tara and Niloy to depart. Niloy left first, and Tara and Fahim bid him goodbye. Tara would leave for America just a week later, and this time it was he who was bid farewell rather than doing the bidding. Tara wondered how things would be the next time he came back to Bangladesh. He remembered a quote that said things are never the same once one has left their hometown, for the person does not return the same and the city does not remain unchanged.
Tara took a while to adjust to living in a new country all by himself. This was made a lot more difficult when he tore his ACL while playing football just a few months into his university life. Tara remembered feeling a sharp burst of pain before collapsing onto the ground, writhing with agony on the pitch. He could feel tears in his eyes and put a hand above his face so that people would not notice. An ambulance was called, and he had to be carried to it, unable to walk on his own.
Surgery followed, after which Tara had to spend a month on crutches. He would have to do nine months of rehab, slowly and painstakingly nursing himself back from his injury. Tara’s injury not only affected him physically but emotionally as well. Not being able to play football felt like a part of him was missing, that he was not whole. He would find it hard to focus on classes in his current state and would often spend time in his room by himself instead of socializing with his friends. Football was the thing that brought Tara the most joy in the world, and being robbed of it made him feel lost and hollow.
The summer after his first year in university, Tara returned to Dhaka for summer vacation. Niloy and Sakib also came back to visit, and the friend group was reunited. The boys were all elated to see each other, and very quickly the regular hangouts at Niloy’s house commenced once again. There were plenty of football games as well, which pained Tara to see. It hurt him not to play football in general, but it hurt even more not to be able to play with his friends. When the rest of them played, Tara often stood at the outskirts of the field. He would watch them play, itching to join them.
Tara recovered from his ACL tear in his second year of university and was finally able to get back onto the pitch. While he was happy to be kicking a football again, the noticeable changes to his game depressed him. He was slower and clumsier and could not control the ball like he once could. The nagging fear of picking up an injury again made him second-guess everything and robbed him of the free-flowing style he once possessed. He hated that he couldn’t do things that had seemed natural to him even a year ago, and that he appeared to be a shadow of the player he once was.
Tara would also have less and less time to play football as university progressed. Harder classes, summer internship applications and an on-campus job meant that Tara barely had time to relax. Football was becoming more of something he could do every once in a while, rather than an everyday habit.
With football receding further into the background, Tara was finding it harder to find things that brought him a sense of fulfilment. The degree he had chosen not out of passion but to secure a job had begun to weigh on him. He put less effort into it and would even have to repeat a term because of his poor academic performance. The feeling of having a part of him missing, which he had first experienced in his first year, only grew with time. It felt like a significant part of him was lost and that he was no longer a complete version of himself.
Tara would eventually finish university, taking an extra year to complete his degree. Despite not liking it very much, he had been able to power through and see it to the end.
At his graduation, Niloy came to visit Tara — a year after Tara had attended Niloy’s own graduation. Tara was somewhat ashamed that he had not done his best to uphold the promise of keeping in touch with the group. He was not the best texter, and sometimes weeks would go by without him sending a message in their group chat. The days of the friend group telling each other stories of their lives in person were long gone. Now the only time Tara heard from his friends was when they had a major life update to share.
Tara’s parents had not been able to make the expensive flight out to America to attend his commencement, so Niloy acted as a stand-in of sorts. He came with flowers and cried when he saw Tara in his graduation cap and gown. He clapped loudly when Tara’s name was announced and made sure to capture a picture of him receiving his degree. Both of them felt very emotional — they had both come a long way from two kids who had bonded over a Manchester United backpack.
Tara and Niloy would spend the weekend together. When the two of them had first gotten into university in America, they had told each other that they would save up money and visit all the time. But this had not gone according to plan. Both of them had been extremely busy during university and rarely had time to breathe. Even during the holidays, they would often spend time with their own university friends. Before Tara’s graduation, they had only gone to visit each other once.
Tara showed Niloy around the city. They went bowling, caught a movie and ate out at Tara’s favourite restaurants. Niloy told Tara about his work and office politics, and Tara told Niloy about his struggles with his degree and his worry about finding work in the current job market. Niloy met Tara’s university friend group and told them stories about their childhood. At the end of the weekend, Tara saw Niloy off at the airport. As he watched his friend depart, Tara wondered when he would see him next.
The next year would see Tara wade into the job market. To Tara, it was the worst market he had ever encountered. He would send application after application and check his email multiple times to see if he had received any responses. In the first two and a half months, he had sent out nearly 400 applications but had only managed a dozen or so interviews. In the end, he landed a position as a market analyst for a local business firm in Philadelphia.
Tara hated that job. It was long, hard, dreary work with almost no reward. Every weekday he woke up, he would groan knowing he had to go into work, and every weekend he would dread going back. It did not pay well and involved long hours sitting at his desk. By the time he got home, there was barely enough time to shower and eat dinner. By the time he had finished eating, his eyes were tired, and when he woke the next morning it would start all over again.
Sometimes at work he would question what wrong steps he had taken to end up in this position. He regretted not studying harder, kicking himself for taking five years to complete his degree instead of four. He told himself that he should have networked more within his field instead of staying in his room all the time. The only solace he could offer himself was that this was not a permanent position — that it was something he was doing only to pay the bills.
Tara received a call from Niloy one day while he was at work, which surprised him because Niloy had never been much of a caller. When he picked up, he found out that Niloy was getting married. He warmly congratulated his friend and asked when the wedding was. Niloy told him it would be in December, just a few months away, and said that Tara had to be there — his presence was non-negotiable.
Just before flying back to Dhaka to attend his childhood friend’s wedding, Tara quit his job. He was tired of sitting at a computer all day crunching numbers and writing reports. After quitting, Tara felt like he had been freed from unseen shackles. But this feeling of freedom only lasted a short while before he realized that it was time to wade back into the job market once more. It was time to start the cycle of applying and praying for a response all over again.
After landing in Dhaka, Tara was overjoyed at the thought of seeing all his friends again after so long. There was so much to catch up on and so many new stories to tell. However, in the days leading up to the dawat, he grew apprehensive. From the sparse updates in the group chat, he had only a vague understanding of where they all were in their lives. He felt they were all far ahead of him — Niloy with a good job and about to be married, Sakib playing professional football, Fahim working in a field he was passionate about. There was pressure to measure up to his peers, and Tara was worried that his old gang would judge him for his current lack of success. But despite his fears, the dominant emotion in him was excitement at the prospect of being reunited with the old gang.
Tara stood outside the door with a box of sweets in his hand. He took a deep, apprehensive breath before ringing the bell and waited for his friend Niloy to open the door.