George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh on iTunes Homepage

"Organized for the relief of refugees from East Pakistan (now independent Bangladesh) after the 1970 Bhola cyclone and during the 1971 Bangladesh atrocities and Bangladesh Liberation War, the event was the first benefit concert of this magnitude in world history."

Enlarge the images to read the summary- proceeds from the album will benefit the George Harrison Fund for UNICEF.

You can read more about the fund here:

http://theconcertforbangladesh.com/aboutthefund/

and about the concert here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T​he_Concert_for_Bangladesh

In light of Mladic's extradition...

I am reminded of the millions exterminated in my birth country that will never have "justice." Human Rights Watch published an article last month on the Bangladeshi government finally bringing those that took part in the 1971 genocide to trial. You can read it here:

http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2011/05/19/bangladesh-unique-opportunity-justice-1971-atrocities

I stopped reading it when I saw this:

"In a concession to Pakistan, the law excludes the prosecution of Pakistani military officials and soldiers."

Granted, many of those responsible have died anyway- receiving full military burials with honors (and praise from the late Bhutto herself).

The story of Bangladesh
Is an ancient one again made fresh
By blind men who carry out commands
Which flow out of the laws upon which nations stand
Which say to sacrifice a people for a land
- Joan Baez

Words I never said

I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful/and I believe in the people

-Lupe

Dad in South-West Africa under aparthe

id

"I, the heroine, speak"

"It is the most incredible, calculated thing since the days of the Nazis in Poland."

-Time

“Bengalis were often compared with monkeys and chickens. Said General Niazi, ‘It was a low lying land of low lying people.’ The Hindus among the Bengalis were as Jews to the Nazis: scum and vermin that [should] best be exterminated. As to the Moslem Bengalis, they were to live only on the sufferance of the soldiers: any infraction, any suspicion cast on them, any need for reprisal, could mean their death. And the soldiers were free to kill at will. The journalist Dan Coggin quoted one Punjabi captain as telling him, 'We can kill anyone for anything. We are accountable to no one.' This is the arrogance of Power."

"In East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) [General Agha Mohammed Yahya Khan and his top generals] also planned to murder its Bengali intellectual, cultural, and political elite. They also planned to indiscriminately murder hundreds of thousands of its Hindus and drive the rest into India. And they planned to destroy its economic base to insure that it would be subordinate to West Pakistan for at least a generation to come. This despicable and cutthroat plan was outright genocide."
-R.J. Rummel, professor emeritus of political science at the University of Hawaii.

The title of this post refers to a work by Bangladeshi writer Nilima Ibrahim. She compiled accounts of the thousands of women that were raped, tortured and impregnated during the war. The word "heroine" refers to the title given by Sheikh Mujib (Bangladesh's leader) to rape victims in order to remove the stigma of their situation.

One story I want to write about is shown in this video.

Pakistani army surrendering to Indian forces.

The Liberation army

Ted Kennedy visits

"Pak Army suddenly attacked E.P.R Base at Pilkhana, Rajarbag Police Line and killing citizens. Street battles are going on in every street of Dhaka-Chittagong. I appeal to the Nations of the World for help. Our freedom fighters are gallantly fighting with the enemies to free the motherland. I appeal and order you all in the name of Almighty Allah to fight to the last drop of blood to liberate the country. Ask police, E.P.R, Bengal regiment and Ansar to stand by you and to fight. No compromise. Victory is ours. Drive out the last enemy from the holy soil of the motherland. Convey this message to all Awami League leaders, workers and other patriots and lovers of freedom. May Allah bless you. Joy Bangla."

-Sheikh Mujibur Rahman

A weekend in Boston

A few pictures from my trip this past weekend- was great to catch up with everyone there :)

Shruti's cake...I was good and avoided it :-)

2 years ago...pic of a pic in Shruti's bedroom

My professor's cat, Toots

Her other cat, Sam

Sam again

Boston Museum of Fine Arts

MFA, East Asian wing

Scaasi Couture exhibit

Plate from Iraq (reads Bismillah)

Inscriptions from the Quran, Persian origin

Mukti Bahini (The Freedom Fighters)

Today marks 39 years since Bangladesh declared its independence. I wanted to post a poem I wrote about my little sister (the younger twin) and her curiosity about the Bangladeshi Language Movement and Liberation War in general. This past February 21st was the 58th anniversary of the Language movement, and she watched a historical program with my mother on this date as she sat on the floor creating her Japanese cartoons. Her questions and innocence (along with the irony of the fact that Bangla will probably be lost during her generation) inspired this.

Queens, New York City. February 21st, 2010.

A nine year old girl sits
on an oriental rug in the living room,
empty printer paper and anime
sketches scattered about the floor
with littered pens, black and blue.

Her name is Naurene:
"woman of honor; light."
In the dim evening, her mother watches television
where film-grain images, four decades old
are broadcast in black and white.

They are images of men-
Men in loincloths, with bayonets
Men shamed, naked, proud
Men Hindu, Men Musulman
Men lifeless, tangled, in rotting masses
Men in marches, men with signs
in a tongue Naurene cannot read
Men barely of age, as valiant as Men
at their graves
and the graves of their severed children
All gone too soon.

"Who are they?" she asks in Bangla,
shading a white
hollow; a reflection of light
in the eye of her Manga character.

They are the meek; the Shaheed*
of dreams they never saw, and they died for you.
They died for you, Naurene,
and they did not know your name.

*Arabic for 'martyr' (literally, 'witness')

From Kristof's "Divorced Before Puberty" Times Op-Ed

Sent to me by Angie this week..a quote from a NY Times op-ed about Nujood Ali:

"Consider Bangladesh. After it split off from Pakistan, Bangladesh began to educate girls in a way that Pakistan has never done. The educated women staffed an emerging garment industry and civil society, and those educated women are one reason Bangladesh is today far more stable than Pakistan."

-Nicholas D. Kristof, "Divorced Before Puberty" March 3, 2010

He makes some pretty interesting points. Although, I should add that women in the Bangladeshi garment industry are often looked down upon by society (even today) because of the "independent" nature of their lives.

War.

Dulce et Decorum Est

Bent double, like of old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind:
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys!- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime…
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in sonic smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-
My friend, you would not talk with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

-Wilfred Owen (1917)

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

-Randall Jarrell (1945)

Blue Beret

He's smoking in the picture, but it's still one of my favorites. I hate to say that the cigarette adds a certain je-ne-sais-quoi.

This is circa 1989, South Africa.

Ankhnes-meryra

I'm blogging instead of typing up my study guide. My sleeping's all messed up...napped from 6PM-9PM last night and then went to bed at 230AM. As I'm studying Ancient Egyptian history for my midterm at 2PM today I can't help but give the Ancient Egyptians props for romance. During the Old Kingdom, King Pepy I, also known as King Meryra, married his wife and renamed her Ankhnes-meryra, meaning "King Meryra lives for her." The kings always renamed their wives after they married them and the names usually had to do with whatever god the king was into at the moment, so this was a welcome change.

I'm not even up to studying the Mayans yet....wow.

Language Martyr's Day

I know I left Dhaka when I was four and have only gone back a handful of times but I still like to commemorate Bangladesh's holidays and events. I guess I take a lot of pride in it because:

1. I taught myself how to read and write Bangla using old Bangali newspapers and books when I was ten. Because of this, I can't recite the names of the letters; I just know what sounds they make. Also because of this- I am a pathetically slow reader in Bangali.
2. It amazes me that these men and women were willing to die for a language. About twenty years later they fought to retain their cultural identities, and eventually, for the right to even exist in the first place. But a language...I can't imagine.

You may notice that I spell Bengali "Bangali." Well first of all, Bangali refers to the people or something that pertains to Bangladeshi culture. If you're referring to the langauge, that's just "Bangla." "Bengali" is the British pronunciation and no Bangali will ever say that. If they try, it sounds like "Bengolee" and that is just weird. Unless you go to Calcutta because I'm pretty sure they say "Bengolee" all the time.

Today is "Ekushey February" (21 February):

• The Pakistani government declared Urdu as the national language (it would be taught and spoken in all schools, institutions, etc. and Bangla wouldn't be recognized).
• Dozens of unarmed civilians (students and activists) were killed on February 21, 1952 when Pakistani police fired upon them for gathering near Dhaka Medical College to protest the decision.
• After several years, Bangla was finally allowed to be "spoken" (that is, until everything else goes down in 1971), and the Shaheed Minar monument was built to remember the language martyrs.

"The monument stood until the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, when it was demolished completely during Operation Searchlight, during which the Pakistani Army estimates they inflicted 26,000 civilian deaths, while other organizations such as National Geographic estimate casualties numbering over 3 million. After Bangladesh gained independence, it was rebuilt." (from wiki)

Also, February 21st is International Mother Language Day as observed by UNESCO, and it "took effect on 17 November 1999 when it unanimously adopted a draft resolution submitted by Bangladesh and co-sponsored and supported by 28 other countries." (wiki)

Snce this is mostly a writing blog, here are the most famous lyrics ever written about 21 February:

Amar Bhaiyer Rokte Rangano Ekushey February
(My Brother's Blood is Stained on the Twenty-First of February)

Can I forget the twenty-first of February
stained by the blood of my brother?
The twenty-first of February, built by the tears
of a hundred mothers robbed of their sons,
Can I ever forget it?
Wake up all serpents,
wake up all summer thunder-storms,
let the whole world rise up
in anger and protest, against the massacre of innocent children
They tried to crush the demand of the people
by murdering the golden sons of the land
Can they get away with it
at this hour when the times are poised
for a radical change?
No, no, no, no
In the history reddened by blood
the final verdict has been given already
by the twenty-first of February

Wake up today, the twenty-first of February
do wake, please!
Our heroic boys and girls still languish in the prisons of the tyrant
The souls of my martyred brothers still cry
But today everywhere the somnolent strength
of the people have begun to stir
and we shall set February ablaze
by the flame of our fierce anger
How can I ever forget the twenty-first of February?

-Abdul Gaffar Chowdhury

Ozymandias

I think this is one of the most amazing poems ever written; it actually came up today in Archaeology & Ancient Civ. It makes me want to write more "historical" poems (like my Julius Caesar attempt). The Ozymandias of the poem is Ramses II of the New Kingdom.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

So what if our flag was "inspired" by Japan's flag

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh%E2%80%93Japan_relations

Pretty cool. Props to Japan for engineering our bridges yo.

Beware the Ides of March (April 2007)

I thought myself to be invincible
even when those eyes burnt
into some depth of me and gripped my heart
with the benevolence of a poison
and her parched hands clasped mine
with the desperation of a woman
often forgotten.

On nights like this I have seen the ends
of cities, gods, and ages:
rogues estranged from the seas to bleed
against skies and crosses
and men, vainglorious fall to swells
of sand and vicious waters.

Tragic,

but there is no honor in dying
by the sword of a man you loved.

The Cowboy (2004)

I picture a drifter, a man of few words
the kind that's had one too many black coffees
at lonesome diners in the southwest

a vaquero of sorts
rough around the edges,
learned hands tough with the experience
that comes from years of ranching stubborn cattle

he takes care not to overstay his welcome,
riding from the ruins of one ghost town to the next,
the romantic figure
with his dark silhouette against the fiery sunset,
lost under that vastness of desert sky

this solitary drifter,
graced with the presence of a million desert stars,
untouchable and free from the perturbance
of desolate city eyes
but no one to hold, as the cool dry air
tears away at his heartstrings.