Remusings

The descent into dystopia often happens in deafening silence. It happens by normalizing the absurd, by justifying the unjustifiable. It happens through the silent strangling of morality, the whitewashing of lies, and the unnoticed yet violent evanescence of truth. At first, the darkness creeps only as a grey shadow; unthreatening, almost charming, like nostalgia on a cloudy day. In moments of fleeting clarity, those guarding the light can sometimes notice the gaping abyss that lies beyond. Some may even try to speak, but only to have their whispered words dissolve into the wind. And those who already lived with the shadow in their hearts, notice nothing, as they are cradled softly into the sordid embrace of the night.

There is a song by a Bengali folk singer Dwij Bhushan, in which he revels about being alive and the great fortune he had of being born in a human form. In the song, called " Hridmajhare Rakhibo ",  Dwij Bhushan is grateful to life and feels blessed to have the chance to enjoy the beauty and brilliance of this world. Some of the words (roughly translated by yours truly) are as follows: If we let go of the divine touch  Of life that is within us, We will never get it back again. So, I will keep this life close to my heart, I will never let it go. The sentiments are indeed heartwarming. Every time I sing this song, I can feel the beauty that he speaks of, often leading me to verge of tears. However, in the face of endless war, poverty, disease and ecological crises in this world, I can imagine how this sentiment can feel quite hollow. Not to mention, given the fact that humanity is the source of so much malaise on this planet, one is naturally led to wonder whethe...

This is a story set in my city, Dhaka, when one autumn day in the early '90s, hundreds of people gathered outside Dhaka Central Jail in protest. They were seeking to stop the hanging of a man who was apparently on death row, within the premises. However, the problem was, the man was not in the jail at all. In fact, he never existed. When I was 8 years old, Bangladesh was a country of 120 million. Dhaka was a city of 7 million. And we all had 1 television channel we could watch - Bangladesh Television. Back then, a TV was a matter of novelty. And coloured TV sets were only the luxury of a select few in Dhaka. It was a time when people across the country were crowding around the one television set in their villages. Congregations formed inside lone huts juiced up by a stolen power line, where scores of people would gather to watch the entertainment. The magic box would bring us a select range of programming - from the state-scripted nightly news, to heavily censored 80's Ame...