‘ll let you in on a secret we in the newspaper world experience four or five times a year. On the third day of Eid, when my family is still making plans to watch a movie or visit a talk-of-the-town bridge, I have to explain why I am going back to work. “Already? You have work tomorrow?”, “But it’s a national holiday.”, “But it’s Pohela Boishakh.”, “Can’t you edit the news report later at night?” The conversation unfolds anew each time ~ “Yes, I have to go in today because you expect your newspaper tomorrow. I edit this article right now because you may not read the news in the middle of the night, but some people do, and that’s why some of us are editing even then.” This isn’t a diatribe against work culture in the news industry, nor against our families’ expectation that we spend a healthy amount of time with loved ones.
In fact, people in both these parts of my life are known to show monumental amounts of patience and understanding given the circumstances. It is a rant against much more ~ my work emails at least are legally, professionally, and for decency’s sake required to wait until the holidays officially end, but there are still about 12 messages in my inbox that require replies, and they require that I complete certain tasks before I can begin to form a response. Completing each of those tasks would take an hour at least. Add them to the hours I need for the more urgent items on my to-do list, and the math shows that my holidays ended before they even began. I don’t suspect ~ I know that this applies to my friends who work in the media world, in the advertising world, who teach, who are studying, and those who are raising a child.
The truth is that, even as you sit reading this article, some corner of your mind is worrying about a text you haven’t replied to, an email you have yet to open (thanks for the third reminder, Google), a call you promised you’d return, a lunch you promised you’d make time for… are you even still reading? Do you still sit and read things longer than the length of an Instagram caption? Instead of these pressing tasks, our weekends, holidays, even the end of the workday, are supposed to be about reconnecting with things we don’t normally find time for. You want to finish a book that has been on your nightstand for months. You want to watch a TV show everyone has been talking about. It’s 2022 and you’re still only on the second episode of Stranger Things (Season ONE). What even is a Wordle? We call Dhaka a noisy city, but hardly ever do I feel like the noise stops at our doorsteps. Like the honking that crashes in through windows and walls when we’re attempting a rare nap, the noise of life ~ of how much we’re expected and required to communicate, communicate, communicate, reply, reply, reply, reply, pick up, ring back, like, comment, subscribe, “hello-can-you-unmute-your-microphone-please?” ~ the volume is deafening.