::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Dhaka Diary

A few of my friends and I went to visit The National Memorial at Savar during Independence Day. There were a lot of people all around. It felt good to see people of all ages showing respect to the martyrs by offering flowers. But what was very depressing was to see how the visitors were stepping all over the graves of the martyrs in a hurry. Some of them did not even know that they were walking over the martyrs themselves. It is because of the freedom fighters that we are what we are today. It is because of them that we have our country. In the 36 years of our liberation, we have been unable to show our martyrs the respect they deserve and live up to the their expectations in every sense. The martyrs are remembered only on special days in a year and then literally walked on the rest. Is this the price that they have to pay?

Onio
University Laboratory

Traffic jam and the hot weather of Dhaka, combined together can prove to be the deadliest weapons of all time. On one such hot day, I was walking back from class when this incident took place. As I was about to cross Mirpur Road, I found a crowd of people looking intently at something. Maybe an accident, I thought, and went forward to investigate. When I was finally able to make my way through the crowd, I saw a foreigner kneeling down, and saying something to a small boy in worn out clothes. The small child was crying because his mother had left him to ask for alms. The foreigner was talking in a very soft and soothing tone to the kid, just as a mother would talk to her child. As I walked away, I couldn't help wonder that although there is a cultural, racial and religious barrier that separates us from each other, there is something that binds us all together, and that is love!

Redwan Islam Orittro
Maple Leaf Int. School

An Effort

Often my friends and I have discussions on the poor street children, especially those who live a miserable life on the footpath of the Dhaka University area. The other day we planned that every week we would try to help at least one street urchin in any way that we could. For this, we had decided to contribute a particular amount of money from our pockets. We realise that our efforts might not do a lot of good to the street urchins but it can certainly bring a smile of satisfaction on the face of a street child for a few moments.

Our first expedition was one sunny Monday. After class we went roaming about in the university area in search of a child who would probably need help of some kind. On the walkway of Rokeya Hall, two scraggy boys were quarrelling over a piece of loaf. Later, we got to know that they were brothers. Intellectuals might write lengthy articles criticising the government obstinately if they could see such austere reality in front of their eyes. But we realised that hunger is one problem that cannot be solved with mere speeches. Hence we fed the two brothers with care in the famous 'Mama Hotel' of Nilkhet and briefed them to be hard workers and honest in their lives. We know our efforts will not change their lives but we believe that they will keep in mind this day for the rest of their lives. Hopefully, hey just might thin about moving on with ambition and had work in mind to lead a better life. We hope that more people will come forward to help the street urchins not by writing intellectual articles but by adopting authentic actions.
Amzad Hossain

Dept. of English
University of Dhaka