Blind pants! Blind Pants!

The taunts rang across the volleyball court, and I kept my head down and pretended not to have heard them.

That was almost 40 years ago — lunch break, outside my classroom at Greenherald, where I was a young 14 — in grade 9, with lots of hair.

The times weren’t easy for us. We had just returned to Bangladesh after my father passed away. We had not yet recovered from losing everything during the Liberation War (and several years of internment, that’s another story, another movie, another day). During our four years in Malaysia, we were just beginning to rebuild.

But here we are. In Bangladesh. I still am not sure what sleight of hand my mother pulled to get us (my brother and me) into Greenherald while we could only afford to live in a tiny 2-bedroom place in Kalabagan that we rented out for 500 takas.

Let’s get back to the blind pants.

We had uniforms at Greenherald — bottled green pants and a white shirt. That is the school uniform color still.

We could only afford one pair of pants for each of us. These were made of polyester, and because they were hydrophobic, we could wash them overnight and wear them to school the following day.

No, I did not wear the same unwashed pair all week long.

Anyway, I was getting ready one morning and realized they were wrinkled and needed a pass with the iron. So I laid the pants on the bed, plugged my iron in, and laid it on.

I had made a colossal mistake.

The smoke and acrid smell wafting toward me told me all I needed to know.

I looked down, and a patch was missing near my right front pocket.

A panic attack ensued. I did not have a second pair. I could not afford a second pair.

Mom to the rescue.

There was enough fabric left inside the pocket flap for her to patch in the burned bit. But to do so, you had to sacrifice the pocket.

And so we made our obeisance to the trouser gods and sacrificed my right pocket. Where the pocket used to be, I had a green patch that covered both the opening and the burnt bits.

And thus, blind pants were born.

I survived. I graduated with top honors — the first Bangladeshi 6P (top in the world). Took all the academic awards. Made the papers. In spite of it. Or, perhaps, because of it.

What does not kill you only makes you stronger.

Now, look where I am.