Mamunur Rashid

He is now 73 years old, he cannot even hold his guitar, like he used to. However, his mellifluous voice remains timeless – and he proved, like he always does, that every word, enunciation and tune – makes him forever an icon of Bangla music, Kabir Suman.

Every time someone gets “picked up”, reports are published in media. After being “picked up”, whereabouts of some become known, while the unlucky ones are never found. What is never known, however, is the way someone gets “picked up” and who does the “picking up”.

On February 21, 1952, police opened fire upon the Bangali population that sought their birthright—a right to use their own mother language. A boy of 17, and a Dhaka College HSC student at the time, Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury had rushed to the hospital to visit the injured.

The queues and chaos in front of TCB trucks have only been growing recently due to reduced earnings of low- and middle-income groups and price hikes.

“I want to tell the politicians -- bring in the architects to transform cities and communities. Create opportunities for them to study more, so they can get better and more competent. It is a tragedy that city planners never get to implement their plans.”

It has a history stretching back millenniums. Emperors have patronised it, poets have romanticised it, monks have used its colour in their robes and worshippers have adored it. Popularly known as “Red Gold”, the crimson hued saffron has been used for culinary, medicinal and aesthetic purposes.