Although not a runner myself, last year I ran the London Marathon as a personal challenge just to see if I could do it and found the experience exhilarating. They say running marathon is one of the most amazing things one could do in a lifetime and I couldn't agree more.

My time wasn't great but being a thirty -year old male smoker (couldn't give up during training even!) I managed to do it in 3:58:22 a sub-4 hour first marathon is not bad for a novice. I also raised two thousand and five hundred pounds for Marie Curie Cancer Care (Hampstead, London) in memory of my late mother.

The four month training was tough but I learnt so much about the body, nutrition and the positive benefits of regular exercise. You won't be surprised to learn that inevitably I started thinking about setting up a marathon in Dhaka. I don't know why but I think I want to give something to my motherland.

For over a year now, I have given this great idea a good deal of thought and looked seriously at the practicality of setting it up. I have taken the first step and registered www.Dhakamarathon.com domain name. The next step would be to set up and register a not-for-profit charity with a Dhaka based board to make this a reality. I look to DS readers for suggestions and participation. All profits would go to Bangladeshi charities after expenses. The runners would also raise money for charities.

We need to get a big sponsor like a bank or a big consumer brand in Bangladesh to sponsor the event and three media partners: I suggest your newspaper; another mass market mainstream Bengali newspaper and state TV to show the event live on TV. Overall, Bangladeshi charities would benefit and it could become a national event. We would also need to get Bangladeshi national sports, TV, film, musical, literary and political personalities involved to give this the required unity of purpose and exposure in the media and elsewhere to make it a success.

Please contact me via email with your thoughts, advice and suggestions. Let me know if you would like to come onboard to ma`y is it that when one party loses an election they have the audacity to claim that they represent the "people" of Bangladesh? I hate to state the obvious. If you're in opposition, then you cannot speak for the "people" because the majority voted against you. If you're preparing for an election, then "people" don't want something because you're not in power.

Bangladeshis love to talk for the rest of us. It is high time that "we" make an effort to stop talking as though our words represent the "people" of Bangladesh.

If one were to seek the definition of the phrase "Too many Caesars, not enough soldiers" the answer should be "Bangladeshis".