 So I'm going to read from my story The Memory of Water, which is part of a linked collection I've just finished working on. And the linking element is the setting, which is pretty much the place I grew up in, which was a tiny college campus town in Bangladesh during the 80s. And the stories are kind of a tribute to that place and that particular moment in time. And they're also kind of an examination. And so one of the things that fascinated me, fascinates me about where I grew up and how I grew up is this idea that we were all kind of, that we grew up in an egalitarian community, which was true and not true at the same time. And so one of the things I tried to explore in my collection, and in this story in particular, is this idea of insider and outsider, who belongs and who doesn't. And also this construction of different hierarchies, which we can so very easily dismantle, but we don't. So my story is called The Memory of Water, and I'm just going to read the first couple of pages. The year the waters rose to submerge a third of the university campus was the year the school hired Anisul Alum as the music teacher. The floods came almost every year, but not everywhere. On the campus, the university students raised funds for flood relief. The university itself made a donation, usually to the President's Relief Fund. The actual handing over of the check from Vice Chancellor to Chancellor usually merited a captioned photo in the national dailies, perhaps five seconds on the evening news. Teachers and officers donated a day's wages. Students and teachers joined forces in distributing relief materials to nearby villages. The campus itself never suffered much beyond a few parcels of lowland becoming ankle deep in malodorous green water and the dearth of fresh produce in the markets. Housemates and their mistresses suffered extra from the sludge being tracked into houses. The planners had built the campus on higher ground for a reason. Anisul Alum hailed from the low lying lands of the Southeast, where some flooding was an annual occurrence. The rivers and the swamps swelled with the advent of the monsoons and were awaited as much as they were reviled. In its wake, the overflowing water left silted over land. Earth so rich and warm and moist, you could breathe on it and grow something green, people said, stand still in it for an instant and you could feel your feet take root in the loam. But it had been years since Anis had seen any of that. The way his home became impassable during the rainy months. During their weekly calls, his father told him point blank that he was not to jeopardize his studies or himself trying to visit. Even in the years of mild flooding, people would drown or be electrocuted from the unfortunate conjunction of live electrical wires and swaths of water. Launches capsized, boats upturned, electrical poles toppled, vortices formed. Who didn't know about the vagaries of flood season? Anis liked imagining home during those calls. His mother had probably served dinner early so his father could take a leisurely pace in getting to the tea stall that had the phone. At the stall, his father would sit right beside the counter to be on hand when Anis called from the pay phone at his student's hall. He would order a steaming cup of milky tea and sometimes his words were punctuated by loud slurps. He would linger afterwards for gossip and neumes. The walk home would be amid darkness but maybe he would find someone to walk with, at least part of the way. He would have his heavy aluminum cased flashlight. It's beam able to cut through even heavy rain. His mother would be waiting to hear of her son. On those evenings, her worn prayer mat served merely as a waiting station. Anis felt caught. His years of study and work in the city had left him unready to fit back in his village. But he was worried of the frenetic city life of cobbling together a subsistence through private tuition gigs, seven to a room living, and the interminable twice a day meals at the nearby chapara. This existence was not what his father had hoped for. When he had packed Anis off at 17 to a distant relative in Dhaka. His father had sent Anis whatever they could spare. They did well enough in the village. The city was a different beast. Neither father nor son had ever imagined the ability eventually leading to a degree would be singing the Nambi Pambi skill that had always been an irritant on his father's skin. Whoever had heard of going for higher studies to the city to study music, that the university even allowed it seemed a joke to the old man. How could this be a serious thing? And Anis was certain this would make him employable? Where other aspiring families had only sent their sons to public college in the town or perhaps even east to Kumilla. He had reached higher and sent Anis to the capital. His bitterness seemed to make his beardy burn faster and the stench of it more accurate. At least Anis had a fallback, he would sigh. He could always come back and oversee the men plumbing their land, reduced as they were by having to finance him. The campus seemed perfect before Anis even visited. It seemed his degree might indeed lead to a regular job. He pulled in every favor he was owed and some he wasn't to get an interview which went well. He had acquired reading glasses on the advice of a sidewalk quack and he thought the square black frame made him look intellectual. He felt confident. It was the interview board comprising the headmaster and three school committee members who seemed more anxious and shift-eyed. They had never interviewed a music teacher before. His academics were in order and he came with good recommendations. But how did one decide who sang well and who didn't? What if a student had an awful voice but sang well? How would he deal with girls and boys trying to mingle too closely? The headmaster had more solid questions about curriculum and grading, but these dried up soon and the board members seemed to be fuddled by his answers to their fumbling questions. The headmaster called the following week. They thought he would fit in well. But you must understand, Anis Shahib, as an optional subject, you might not always have a full load and we will expect you to take on other responsibilities. Anis already knew that. All he could think of was the red earth, the sun striking still waters through leafy branches and the smell of freshly cut grass as he had waited for the bus. He said yes. Thank you.