In this short story, Raza Ali narrates the tale of a child and his shenanigans at school in a heart-warming tone with the innocence of the child beautifully intact.
Bunking school was not something that Shahed had ever contemplated. In fact, when his new neighbour Farhad asked him if he had ever bunked school, he hadn’t even understood what this meant. Farhad was a year older and the mere fact that he had spent the last few years in the capital Karachi which was supposedly a more sophisticated place than Dacca as it was then known meant that Shahed stood in awe of him and would follow his lead in everything. They did bunk school not long after the idea came up. They spent most of that day in Ramna Park. Among other things, they raced each other and had an evenly fought wrestling match. Shahed was pleased that he was able to give Farhad some real competition. The highlight was eating street food with the money that they saved by not taking the bus to school. Shahed was amazed at how easy it all was. When he got home around the time he usually returned from school, who would have remotely suspected how he had spent his day?