Dhaka Diary

Recurring Shock

I remember a while back, my mother and I were in our car returning home from a long day of school. She seemed oddly distracted to me, so I asked her what was wrong, as I'm sure anyone else would have. Her answer shocked me. She told me she had been crossing the Gulshan One intersection and seen a young boy on a bicycle; just riding along. Suddenly, he was hit by a bus. The blow was so horrific that the boy lost his life on the spot. I know what she said shouldn't have shocked me as much as it did, after all we cannot pretend that this kind of incident doesn't happen fairly often. Yet, I still couldn't get the picture of this faceless boy being completely knocked away by a gigantic bus out of my head. My message to all is that you watch where you're driving, because you can never be too safe. You never know, you might just save a life in the process.
Zareen T. Khan
American International School Dhaka

A Muktijoddha's Wife

This year, on March 26, the Independence Day of our country, my husband Major General Dastagir (Rtd) and our daughter attended the reception at the Bangabhaban. When they returned from the reception, they narrated something, which made me very upset. A woman, who had introduced herself as the wife of a muktijoddha, was at the reception as well. Everything was fine till the people started for the food table. As everyone looked on, the woman began to stuff food inside her clothes! Kababs, oranges, rolls everything. She was wearing a chadar, which could cover everything. When she was asked as to why she was doing this, she explained that the food was for her family.
While everybody would sympathise with her situation, one cannot but think how a person could behave this way in a public place, that too in Bangabhaban. No matter how much suffering she was undergoing, a proud Muktijoddha's wife cannot and should not do such a thing which would tarnish her own and her family's name.
After 37 years of independence I know our country has not come to a stage where all its citizens can live with heads held high. But to steal food from Bangabhaban, that too a Muktijoddha's wife doing it, is not acceptable to me. This brings all of us to great shame, for the action itself and the circumstances that led her to do it.
Kohinoor Dastgir
Dhanmandi

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