When a mad dog attacked two months ago, Lal Miah came away from the fight with lacerations, not just bite marks. But no one could persuade him to get the rabies injections. "God let this happen, let his will be done," was Lal Miah's response to Chan's pleading. Everyone knew Lal Miah as kripon -- a stingy hoarder -- so guessed the 2,000 taka price tag for the injections may have had more to do with his refusal. (To illustrate just how stingy Lal Miah was, Chan described how he ate wheat bread for every meal -- big slabs of wheat may fill your belly, but imagine giving up rice to save a few taka on food!)
Soon after his death, Lal Miah's relatives came from Dhaka to take care of his stuff ...and what a lot of stuff there was. Four van-rickshaws loaded up the scrap steel and other sell-ables. After they were done the house was a pile of ruins.
So the man who didn't want to pay for medicine, had everything he owned sold to pay for his funeral. Today was the milad, the prayers for the dead, which were followed by a meal for everyone in the village. The Tk. 30,000 they earned from selling Lal Miahs stuff paid for a cow and 120 kg of rice. He had no children, so his land will then be sold to provide for his wife and old mother.
Lal Miah's was the second untimely death this month. Just a couple weeks earlier, a young girl from the other end of the village committed suicide. She was from a poor family, and had a boyfriend in another village who was more well off. When the parents found out, they intervened, and she hung herself. Her grave is in a bamboo grove right across from our house.
