A Few Youths In the Moon

Humayun Ahmed's 'A Few Youths In the Moon' opens with a narrator who insists the story is fictitious, yet claims the city, the moonlight, and even the incident itself are real. The strange thing is the moonlight, breaking into the place like a sea, that creates an illusion where the unreal seems real and the real seems unreal.

The first youth introduced is Alam, Shamsul Alam, who completed his Masters in Sociology three years ago. At twenty-five, he is thinly built with an oval face and big eyes that always look astonished. His nickname, Khoka Babu, meaning 'big baby', hints at his calm nature. For three years he has been searching for a job without success. Once he got an appointment letter as a sales representative, but it required two character certificates and a twenty thousand taka security deposit. He could not arrange the deposit, and thankfully so, for an acquaintance who did pay it was sent to a Chittagong address, only to find a restaurant no one had ever heard of. Alam's father, Mr Saifuddin, a quiet and peace-loving insurance officer, was beginning to lose patience with his son's inaction, often calling him a big ass.