The Telephone
In Anwar Accawi’s story “The Telephone” had a deep explanation of the importance of community. This essay reignited my feelings about the community I had back in Bangladesh. I used to live in a setting similar to Magdaluna’s. It was a neighborhood where everybody would know everybody else. If anybody would get sick, other people would come to see and wish him/her quick recovery. People tend to ignore sick people nowadays but there was a time when people would go visit their neighbors and extend their helping hand. The sick would feel a lot better thinking somebody is there for them whenever they are in need. And, that helping hand would do a lot of good to a sick patient than a small pill can do. That was the strength of a community and the relationship between people. He remembers, for example, how events were dated by their proximity to other events. When Accawi asked his grandmother how old a certain woman is, she did not give him a date; instead, she said that she was born the same year that a big snow caused the mayor's roof to cave in, which was the same year that an earthquake damaged their kitchen. Though born decades after those events, Accawi immediately understood how old she was. This style of history, as it were, speaks to the closeness of the community, for it was only possible because everyone shared the same experiences. Accawi states in his short story that the telephone was bad. I agree with him to an extent. The telephone had a bad impact on the village, in that they were torn apart from each other, and changed a way of living that was truly unique. A way of living in which time did not matter and where there were hardly any worries. Before the telephone the places where everyone socialized and relaxed were always bustling with people. Now that there was a telephone, everyone would sit around it, waiting for his or her turn or opportunity of a lifetime. Im Kaleem, for example, was a woman who pleased the men of the town. She was the "town