Feature

The way my 4-year-old daughter shaped my life and living and changed my dreams and desires that no one could possibly do or dare. My little daughter amuses me, at times also irritates me but mostly occupies me so much that I long for some space. After her birth, I have forgotten how to do anything just for myself and I have come to the conclusion that motherhood is about thinking of my child, above and beyond and to the exclusion of myself.

In her tiny life, I also occupy the most prominent place as I fulfill all her necessities and solve her problems. When she fights with her friends and comes running to me with quivering lips and tearful eyes, I have to console her. And when she goes to school with her little insecure feet and trembling heart, she looks back repeatedly and standing there I try to give her assurance that I am there. When she comes out of her class her eyes search for me and when our eyes meet, we smile together. Day by day my little daughter is growing up and I know these days of innocence will pass.

After a few years she will reach her teenage years becoming more independent and strong, as I wanted her to be and will give me more space than I desire. She will invent different ways to suffer as a teenager and I will suffer too, to see her sufferings. She will have her own sorrows and pain but then she would not come to me with quivering lips. She would rather share it with her other teen-age friends who will seem to her more understandable and sympathetic. Her eyes will no longer search for me but for more new fashion and technology.

With passing age she will become more independent who will choose her own subject, career and probably one day her partner also. I will be happy to see her as an independent, modern woman who has more voice, choices and freedom than the preceding generations. I will see that though she tried all her life not to be like me, she in most of the things resembles me unintentionally and unconsciously. I will see in her my own image, my own true nature.

In our changing and continuing life, I will grow old and frail. She will get upset with me for asking her the same question repeatedly, for giving her the wrong suggestions at the wrong time, for interfering too much in her life. But she will be also the only person who will come whenever I will need her, to take me from one doctor to another, for sitting by me and hearing the same story again and again.

I think that our life will be like this or a bit different. In the mother-daughter journey there will be ups and downs, love and fight but at the end of the day she will remain my precious daughter and I will remain her loving mother with all our own different shortcomings. I know all this because I am also a daughter and my mother and me took the journey before that I will take again with my daughter.

ACC Chairman Lt Gen (Retd) Hasan Mashhud Chowdhury inaugurated the event as Chief Guest and TIB Executive Director Dr. Iftekharuzzaman was present as the special guest. Patiya Upazila Chairman Nurul Islam, CCC Patiya Convener Professor Ovijit Barua Manu, member Shekhor Nath Pintu, Patiya Upazila Corruption Prevention Committee Member Secretary Dr. Sangha Prio Thero and member Shankar Sen Gupta spoke at the program.

A large number of enthusiastic crowd of around 20,000 youths watched renditions of some popular numbers by LRB and Ayub Bachchu, singer Jewel, Close Up-1 star Nishita Barua and Aurin. Israt Tanjina Jui, a Youth Engagement and Support (YES) member from CCC Patiya read the anti-corruption oath for the audience in between the songs. The local YES members also performed a well-choreographed dance with the TIB theme song “Jago Manush”. Earlier in the morning, an anti-graft procession was brought out from the Patiya Government College premise, which ended at Patiya Upazila Parishad office. Hundreds of students from different schools, colleges and some local people participated in the procession with great interest. The ACC Chairman led the procession that paraded different streets of the area. The event was a part of TIB's countrywide anti-corruption social movement.

(The writer is a YES member, CCC, Chittagong Metropolitan, TIB and student of CU)