The title of this column is borrowed from a very popular song from many years ago which we used to hum all the time. It was a
So, I came back home at long last. The first few days of me being home was spent as if I were in a daze. Everything I saw around me, my favorite city seemed to be very attractive.
I was thinking of how the future would be in this new-born nation of ours. Looking at the void, ruling over the dark waters of the Jamuna, I was ruminating on the immediate
I arrived in Dhaka on the 10th of January. Pakistani occupation army had surrendered after an ignominious defeat in the hands of the joint forces comprising Mukti Bahini (Liberation War Army) and the Indian Armed Forces on the 16th of December 1971.
The day came and went! In fact, three of them in a row. 2018 was the golden jubilee year of the foundation of Nagorik Natya Sampradaya, the theatre group I belong to. More importantly, this is the year that marked the forty-fifth anniversary of continuous staging of plays in Bangladesh. This was a singular achievement of my group. No mean job, that!
I started working at the Shadhin Bangla Betar Kendra, the Radio in exile of the independent Bangladesh one fine morning. Alamgir Kabir was my superior as the Programme Organizer of the English Language Programme. This programme of special broadcast was introduced in consideration of the fact that the world had to be told about our war and the reasons there of. This included politics, economics, sociology and culture of the population that inhabited Bangladesh.
The train started rolling at around nine in the morning. We were initially busy with making ourselves comfortable.
Agartala's population had doubled by March 1971. Therefore, when we arrived in that town it did not seem like an Indian town. Almost everyone was speaking in our language, nay our dialect.
Bhaiya, my elder brother, woke me up at about mid-day and asked me to crawl under the ceiling of the boat. Asked about the reason, he pointed towards the river bank. Pakistan army strolling on the bank could be seen clearly.
I managed to collect myself from the stupor that the immersion of the two 303 rifles handed over by the policemen had caused me and woke up to the present. The place was bereft of any human beings.
Things were very tense through the month of March of Nineteen Seventy-one in the then East Pakistan. President Yahya Khan of Pakistan left Dhaka on the night of the third of March leaving a dialogue with Bangabandhu inconclusive.
So, I was back home again! Though I missed Karachi, it was great to be back. Dhaka was the same. No major changes had occurred except that its citizens became politically heated.
Karachi was a popular city with the young ones for a variety of reasons. First and foremost was the glitter and the glitterati of this city and the second was the vibrancy.
I had decided that I would not burden my readers by going in detail with my boring and mundane journey through life.
I had promised my readers that I will come back to them again with my favourite city of Kolkata for it is impossible to wrap up an
Kolkata has been the city of dreams of my childhood and continues to be so until now.
Life in Ganderia was most engaging and colourful. I had developed friendship with a number of local kids of my age.
Dhaka was already getting crowded and there were a very few places where one could seek seclusion. So my visits to the outskirts of the town became frequent. During this time, while in town, I picked up friendship with some original Dhaka dwellers. These people, even today, are known as Dhakaiyas and are full of wit and humour.