Before the tribes and kingdoms of pre-medieval Bengal could unanimously elect Gopala king in 750 CE, they had to endure a hundred years of utter lawlessness, infighting and bloodshed. We know how Gopala’s Pala Dynasty heralded a golden era in Bengal, little is known about the dark age, and what came before.
If I were the type to actually pour the unholy sherbet of bleaching powder and Harpic down my sink, I would at least keep mum about it. Unshakable faith in the Devil’s Rooh Afza is nothing to be proud of.
AB is no more. The nation is in his debt, and there's nothing we can do about it. There are murmured demands for some sort of a national tribute or recognition. If you ask me, a man, who has won over hearts, has no use for medals.
Anyone who has played “alley cricket” will know that it has its own rules: e.g. two “chiefs” get to select players in tandem, and (s)he who sends the ball over the wall must fetch it. Another such rule is that the owner of the bat will have an automatic place on the team. This last provision is an everyday example of a “quota system” where able performers are replaced by those wielding power over the selection process.
Though he thought he had already died, the old poet found himself stumbling around a shady drugstore. Exhausted, as though from a long descent, the poet fell to the curb in a heap.
It is certain that the present Rohingya sensation will soon die down, and be replaced in public memory by something far more banal.
Social media has opened floodgates of unexamined causes and unstoppable rebels. With the license to post/share anything and zero accountability, young men and women have taken to protests and activism over anything and everything.
When alleged rapist Shafat Ahmed and accomplice Shadman Sakif were arrested, and the former's father brought under investigation, I had decided not to write about the rape incident that took place in a hotel in Banani.
Sometimes it seems that Bangladeshis have been debating the same thing over and over again, failing to reach any consensus and only
ONE day, the town's new conqueror asked Nasiruddin Hodja, “If I were a slave, how much would I cost?” “Five hundred tomans,” Hodja responded.
World War I was once thought of as 'the War to End All Wars'. But the hypothesis that “violence can be extinguished with greater violence” has since been thoroughly disproved and should have no place in modern statecraft. Yet it is the bedrock of anti-terrorism.
Wars on abstract concepts (e.g. terror, freethinking) are dangerous because they can be aimed at virtually anyone and can be invoked to launch every missile and curtail every freedom.
Would the news stories be the same if the apparatus were based in Muslim countries and owned by Muslims? Would we not hear more of the ravages perpetrated by western colonialism and invasions? Would Facebook profile picture campaigns then be about Paris or Beirut?
In the past week, waves of protest against the imposition of VAT on higher education brought Dhaka to a standstill, causing the denizens to take notice.
