I used to like buying balloons, as a kid growing up in Bangladesh there wasn't too many other entertainments. There was a small shop in the village selling biscuits and the likes. It was by the shores of the Kushiara on the way to my school, Chorya Prathomic Biddaloy Primary School. Often, if the village crazy man wasn't sitting outside, the group of children I would come home with would stop at the shop and buy Ozmi, balloons and Potato Crackers; it made us feel grown up transacting. My fascination was balloons, but really I hated it when they inevitably popped and would always cause me a fright, which I still seem to suffer from today. I noticed the shop was selling a different kind of balloon which looked bigger, firmer and made to last longer. It was hanging from a hook on front of the shop like AK47 ammos adjoined together around the chest of John Rambo going into war. I thought I'll buy those instead but the shopkeeper wouldn't sell it to me, he said these are not balloon. I said well what is it then? The man looking uneasy and flustered replied how many do you want and sold them to me. I indeed felt like a grown-up transacting.
I was made to throw away all my balloons by the head-teacher, which I bought from my pocket money. It took me a decade to understand why he made me throw away my oily balloons!
That was the story of the very first time I bought condoms. Come to think of it I did have a great childhood, until I was banished to an unforgiving, cold and mean-spirited land for all my sins.
