“There are a few in the back of the shop, you can check them out,” the shopkeeper replies. 

Jabir walks over to the other segment of the shop when he sees a book with a man pushing a boulder up a mountain on its cover. The book intrigues him, and more importantly it only costs Tk150. 

That evening is his first interaction with a man named Albert Camus, the writer of the book. 

Personally, I feel that it is an absolute blessing that art of any form exists on this planet, simply because of how they allow interactions between people of completely different times and cultures. I like to think that the best way to know an artist is to learn their art. There must be some place where a man’s subconscious comes into its own, and that place is the canvas, the paper, or the modern ‘doc file’. One of my favourite things is to imagine the writer directly speaking to me like a friend speaks to you at the back of a classroom. 

Oh, let’s get back to Jabir now. Camus begins his conversation with Jabir with a barrage of philosophy, all of which goes past him. But the man knows that he isn’t letting go of that Tk150 that easily, so he googles who the man on the cover of the book really is. He finds out that the man is none other than sisyphus. 

He also learns about the mythical story of how Sisyphus was struck with the curse of pushing a boulder up a hill everyday, for it to only come down the next day. It struck Jabir’s mind when he read Camus’ interpretation of the story. ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy’ he said. Why so? Because everyday Sisyphus lifts that boulder and walks back down to watch it fall. He knows it will fall down yet again, but he will lift it again, and that is where his freedom lies. Camus argued that despite the lifting being a curse, the fact that Sisyphus simply accepts his fate and continues going on with life is an act of ‘rebellion’, a message that maybe those above him can dictate the things he does, but never the way he feels. He truly owns his own consciousness, and cannot be psychologically defeated no matter how horribly repetitive his never-ending loop of boulder lifting was. The novel ends with the line ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy’. 

Jabir closes the book and stares at the wall. His thoughts were close to none. He really couldn’t comprehend how one could even dare to imagine him happy, which was absurd.  

The next day, Jabir leaves for his university. He’s stuck in traffic, and a 9 year old walks up to him all of a sudden. A strap around his neck, attached to a basket full of flowers. Two more flowers in that basket and he’d tumble over. 

He plucks a rose out of the basket, and hands one to Jabir. Jabir, for the record, has never given anyone a flower and also, unsurprisingly, never gotten one. He crinkles his forehead and looks at the boy with flary eyes. The boy’s hand hangs in the air, Jabir does not bother taking the rose. The boy offers it again, and says ‘take this lily’. ‘Haaaaaah! That’s a rose’ says Jabir with a smirk on his face. “Where are your parents? You can’t sell flowers if you don’t even know their names, go away!’

The kid holds the lily in the air, almost taken back by what just happened. ‘I really wasn’t aware…you seem to know flowers well.’ Jabir nods his head. The traffic doesn’t seem to move, and neither does the kid. After a minute of thinking, the kid goes ‘Bhaiya, what is in a name? The rose smells just as sweet even when you call it something else.’ ‘Who taught you that?’ asks Jabir with a raised eye-brow. ‘I was selling flowers yesterday and there was an open book stall..The shopkeeper wasn’t anywhere near so I read a short story, I just suddenly remembered this’. The kid holds the ‘lily’ towards Jabir again, who sniffs the flower and smiles. ‘SEE, THE LILIES SMELL SWEET, TAKE ONE!’ shouts the kid.

His campus is a busy place today, with an apparent ‘career fair’. Jabir is as sceptical of the fair as he was of the flowers. ‘These people simply offer jobs to people they already know, someone like you or me can never get a job through random stalls. Like imagine going from interview to interview, and never landing a place but then a random guy in a stall gives you a job? Never!’ Jabir tells Farah, his only friend on campus that day. “It annoys me. It annoys me to see how adept you are at hiding your pessimism behind so-called logic. The world outside is not our classroom, where you solve problems like a musician playing a note. 

Real life is a stage where musicians rush onto the stage and fight over the spotlight, playing their pianos with their mouths and their violins with their fingers. Things happen when they happen.’ Jabir does not bother looking at her, almost dismissive of her uncalled monologue. She snatches the roses off his hand, and goes ‘Until you go and you sign up for three appointments in these stalls, forget the roses’. And as she does, Farah is scrolling reels when Jabir returns two hours later and swoops the roses back again. “Guess who landed an interview!” 

A week later, I stumble upon Jabir outside the company premises after the interview. He tells me about his aching back from those creaky steel benches he had been waiting on. His fidgety side clearly on display, he anxiously narrates the events of the interview. “They saw my papers, asked me a few questions, just the usual. I could tell nothing from the poker faces.’ We walk towards a shawarma place, and come across an optics shop. 

The cricket match playing on the TV inside, I stand and watch for a few minutes. I suddenly don’t see Jabir anywhere near me. To my surprise, an aquarium on the other end of the street caught his eye. “I don’t know why, but seeing these fishes go left and right all day doing nothing else gives me such peace,” says Jabir. I tell him how much I hope he gets hired because if a nervy interview does this to him, imagine what absurdity the world would witness if he doesn’t end up getting the job.

I quite often find myself holding grudges. Not a typical ‘I want payback’ type of grudge, but rather this sense of dissociation where I willingly withdraw attention off people as an act of rebellion. Rebellion towards what? Maybe towards their lack of regard about how disproportionate our relations become when I offer them my friendship but they disappear on me. Oh yes, you guessed it right. He landed the job but didn’t bother telling me. 

But then sometimes I feel I’m too quick with escalating things, because certain people like Jabir are especially bad at handling rough schedules. Jabir calls me a month later, apologizing for not letting me know. I, as always, let it slide and ask him about the company. ‘I love being here, it’s tiring but it’s everything I could’ve asked for…the long hours are particularly bad, but everyone likes me’ Says Jabir. “So what’s next? Do you ever plan on giving us a celebration for the job we pushed you towards?”

 I ask him. ‘I wish…I had planned it out too, but the work keeps piling up everyday. Every evening I leave hoping for less the next day, but it never happens. Next Friday maybe?” 

“Sure.” I imagine Jabir happy.