Chapter 24 / 51 · 2 min

Gausia Super Market

Our fourth date was supposed to be at some posh restaurant. Instead it was at Gausia Super Market.

At the last moment Nira informed me she had to buy earrings that day. The moment we arrived at Gausia, she asked, “Can you haggle?”

I remembered the last time I’d tried to buy a pair of jeans. Using a technique a friend had taught me, I offered one-third of the asking price. The shopkeeper said, “You won’t even get underwear for a hundred and fifty taka. You came here to buy jeans? Go on, get lost!”

So I said, “No. Not at all.”

Nira said, “Fine. Today you’ll learn from me how to haggle. Next time you’ll do it.”

I said “Alright” and trailed behind Nira. The wandering never ended.

We spent the last hour and a half walking a mile because we couldn’t get a two-hundred-taka item for one hundred and ninety. I wanted to tell Nira that all this walking, a hundred minutes to save ten taka, you could earn ten taka with less effort than this. There was no point taking on so much trouble to save ten taka. It was a little stingy.

But I said nothing. These are things you can say to a girlfriend. You can’t say them to someone who isn’t your girlfriend yet.

Nira won the battle over the ten taka. By then we were both drenched in sweat. As we came out I was looking for water, and just then a beggar approached and said, “Help me out a little.”

I was annoyed. The moment a beggar spots a boy and a girl together, they swarm. Thoroughly irritated, I said, “Go on, forgive me!”

As the beggar turned to leave, Nira said, “Wait, Uncle.” Then she pulled out a crisp ten-taka note and said, “Here, take this.”

In the first second I was surprised, about a teaspoon’s worth. But in the second second, I looked at the watch on my wrist.

If Nira and I ever get married someday, I’ll tell her: on a Saturday in January, at four forty-one in the afternoon, at Gausia Super Market, I fell in love with you.