A question for the Bengalis

I have a question for everyone(mainly the Bangladeshi's); how much do we know about the historical 71? How much? We might be informed about the death toll or casualties of the war. We might be informed about why we fought the war and some of us have heard about how, our fathers had fought it. But do we know any of the details, about the sectors in which the liberation war was divided into. About what had happened in the fateful night of 25^th march and so on, the list continues. Couple of months ago, I surely didn’t. Being sat at home in the empty Birmingham during winter holidays had given me an opportunity, an opportunity to take my time out and read about Bangladesh. I was missing my homeland. Even being from Bangladesh, I always felt like I didn’t know enough about our history. I really didn’t.

I came across in my little research of a man called ‘Rumi’. His good name Shafi Imam Rumi, the eldest son of the ‘Martyr Mother’ Jahanara Imam. Rumi in my eyes is nothing less than a hero, nothing short from any of the revolutionaries that had walked the land of Bengal, be it Masterda Surya Sen or Kalpana Dutta that had fought against the British. Having recently read the book, ‘Ekkaturer Dinguli’(The days of 71) by Jahanara Imam, had me in tears. Rumi, a young boy of 20 studying engineering in the College (Now Buet), in the time when the country most needed him had gone to war. He was a bright young man, well versed in the works of Marx, Lenin, was updated in the current world affairs at that time and came 3^rd in the whole of then Pakistan Board in his Intermediate examination. On the 2nd of May he left home and then crossed the border and took training in the Melaghar, Agartala under Sector-2. Sector-2 Was supervised by Then Major Khaled Mosharraf, another hero of mine. Rumi after training went to war and came to form ‘Crack Platoon’, a guerrilla group that operated in Dhaka. But sadly he was caught in 29^th of August 1971 and never returned home.

Shouldn’t it be the case, where we would grow up listening to the stories of these heroes? Shouldn’t we have their iconic faces on our t-shirts, just like we have the face of ‘Che’. Why isn’t it the case where we would grow up watching movies and television shows depicting these heroes? Rumi, Major Khaled Mosharraf and all the other heroes that was lost in undocumented history. A nation and a culture generate patriotism among its citizens by setting examples. Where was our example when we grew up? The corrupt politician, the extremists, the military rule. I am not surprised at the generations who do not feel much for the land and would be happy to just go away to another country.  Bangladesh is only 40 years old and I have been there for half of it. I feel for the goodwill of Bangladesh. More now that I have been away for so long.

 -Nirjhor Barua

11/04/2011

How Random?

How random? I asked myself. My friends had all gone home for Easter holiday, and I was alone yet still. Being alone is a curse one might say. But I say that it can be a gift. A gift only one can cherish if he/she understands the feeling of having time to oneself. Thoughts tend to run in our head when we are alone. We get some ‘me’ time to ourselves. In my precious ‘me’ time I usually listen to music, watch a movie, trek through YouTube channels. This time I sought to do something infrequently done. I decided to think. I know how weird and stupid I sound.  But how often do we think, not think regular things. What clothes I am going to wear today? How much work I would need to do to pass the test? The thoughts provoked by these questions are very ordinary. No. I am speaking of the random notions that go inside our head. The involuntary action of staring into space, thinking about nothing else but of how you will talk to the girl sitting beside you, random scenarios being acted out by the cast of your imagination, even though you knowing her for a while now never had ‘really’ spoken to her. This for some us may seem to be very common, ‘’Thinking about girls you say, we men always do it’’. But how often do you think in specifics? How often do we form conversations in our head that make us smile and say to ourselves “how foolish, she would never fall for that you crazy bastard?” How often do we simulate her reaction and then change the parameters in our thought in attempt to get a different simulated result? I think I have been doing this very recently, at least the acknowledgement of it.    

Just the other day I noticed this jelly of a man, his head close to being bald, with his wife or girlfriend, shopping for groceries, in their mid thirties I presumed, his partner totally flamboyant with her pink top, yet not flashy enough to take people’s eyes of his protruding belly. As I sort of spotted them while waiting in a queue at the till, a strange thought sparked in head, “When this couple makes love, does she hold onto the fat of his belly? What does she think when she sees him naked? Love indeed is strange. It’s how they say ‘beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’.”  Or when it comes to my turn to pay at the till, the woman handing over my change made me think to myself “my my woman, clean your  fingernail, they are big and they scare me, if those come anywhere near my face ever I will scream.”  It was strange of how I in the moment thought those meaningless things. I guess we all need entertainment. Even when doing mundane tasks such as shopping.

------------------------------------------------Nirjhor Barua (2/04/11) 

Generation

In the winter cold night, it was all black and dry.The fire was lit to keep warm.

The mother tells her so the tales she knew,that his daddy was a brave man.

He then asked his Maa, “where is my daddy now? Why did he go?

 When will he return to his home? So that he’ll never be away''.

He is Sleeping in some foreign fields and he fought for his King.

The boy now a young man, he has a family of his own.

He has gone to war in the land of the rising sun.

When he was marching in the mist, the bugle blows a tune in the wind.

He then saw a boy shivering in the cold.

It must have been us, he thought, that killed this young man’s dad.

What have we done for our King?

Why are we fighting?

We killed men in thousands,

and this boy has suffered the same fate as I.

----------------------------------------------------------------(Nirjhor Barua)/1/04/11

This is a poem/lyrics that i have written. to see more of my written poem, articles etc also visit

http://www.newsgrape.com/u/nbarua/

A friend of mine had posted a Sri-lankan tourism advert on his page. So I decided to put up a tourism advert for Bangladesh. The advert was made for the World cup Cricket 2011 hosted in Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

Before we sleep(original)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74yRhUVNktc

this is a song i have written. Recoding sucks.i did it with a headset microphone. Tell me what you think. also suggest a name.
lyrics:
" we are here now, please tell me its time for the world to get lost.

lets just get a glass, we'll sit by the balcony and drink.

I'll sing you sad songs I've written for you my love
I'll play you everything my heart can think of
and tell you, I can change
for truth, I'll be the same.

we can roll a joint, and smoke into the night and get high.

love will be in the air, emotions will fly so high.''

thank you.

Love for Anime

My drawing, produced from a random drawing from the web. This of a samurai, people usually see in an anime movie.