72 January

Photograph: Mohiuddin Kamal

Photograph:  Mohiuddin Kamal

For Luke Regan, there was nothing in the whole wide world as wonderful as the sound of the introduction to a Universal Studios film.  Nothing on this planet, could replicate the feeling of delight as the first few chords and the rise of the sun on the logo.  Slowly the world would come into focus as the giant letters in white overshadowed the green lands beneath. It was the tangible promise of good things.

Earlier that evening a few of the lads from the warehouse had asked Luke if he wanted to join them for pints but he said, “I think I’ll have an early one tonight, I’ll go straight home” and he clocked-out alone.  They made a show of sounding disappointed, but they weren’t Oscar winning performances; the boys were going out.  Out on the lash, out on the tear.  But he was going home and it was fine because Luke had a night of Universal Studio films ahead of him.

As soon as he returned home he was delighted to discover his landlords, Cynthia and Tom, were out for the evening and that he had the place to himself.  He read the note on the table quickly:

Dear Lucky Luke – lasagne in the fridge and some beers too – help yourself and we’ll see you in the morning – we won’t be back til late – Cyn 

Cyn and Tom were lovely people, but all three had somehow started a role-play in which they were the parents and he was their son.  Luke wasn’t quite sure how he had accidentally become adopted at 44, but there it was.  He took a beer from the fridge and went up to his room without taking his coat off.

As it was a Saturday, he would choose a film from the top five.  Usually he kept the top five for special occasions, but he’d worked hard all week, stacking and un-stacking shelves and so he felt that a reward could be given.  He looked at the five DVDs again:  Jurassic World, ET, Jaws, King Kong or Back to the Future.  He weighed-up the pros and cons of each one, and finally decided on ET.

The Universal Studios introduction began and he wrapped himself into his blankets and slowly drifted away.  Away from Dublin and away from it all.

Barsha Choudhuri was also enjoying a rare night alone in the apartment in Dhaka, near the Buriganga River.  Her cousins and their children were eating out for the evening, so she finally had some privacy and quiet, which she had planned to use to finish her assignment.  Her thesis was on cyclone shelters, flood protection and disaster risk reduction, but despite the importance of her topic, her mind was drifting elsewhere and she was distracted.  She was thinking of the river, of some new clothes for the summer, about ice-cream.  More than anything she was thinking about her husband and her children and how much she wanted to travel home down south towards to the Bay of Bengal and spend time with them all.  But instead she would have to stay in dusty old polluted Dhaka until spring, and until her assignment was complete.

She opened her laptop and read the last sentence she had written.

“Planting sunflowers is highly recommended as they thrive in saline waters and can be used to protect the shore line from the floods”.

What her heart knew as facts, her head couldn’t support with evidence and she had less and less references and more and more words.  She was slowly losing interest and patience, and she felt as if the laptop itself was conspiring against her.

In frustration she closed the document and mooched around her library looking for re-creations.  And there it was.  A Universal Studios film she adored and hadn’t watched in months.  She pressed play and breathed in and out slowly, waiting in delightful anticipation for the moment soon to come.  To Barsha Choudhuri, there was nothing as wonderful, in the whole wide world, as the sound of the introduction to a Universal Studios film.