Nayeem Islam Nibir
Most of the time in recent times, the mind is very bad due to various unexpected issues of country-nation-state-politics. Due to which nowadays I often listen to classical music while analyzing various factors with my eyes closed. I have been in a completely isolated position from my friends and relatives for several months now. The means of communication also turn off the mobile phone, close the doors and windows of my flat in an aristocratic area of the capital, practice politics, and write column in newspapers. And it would not be wrong to say that I have not done any work for the time being except telephonic contact with some very close people besides listening to Classical music.

A 500-page book can be written about the experience of going to the Korbani cattle market with the protocol force at 12 or 1 o’clock the night before the moon night, ending my house arrest political day. Tired all night and chasing the cows, we were returning home in the morning with a dilapidated four-legged Hubla calf. Then I know why my mind began to be very irritated. After saying goodbye to everyone, I came home and went to bed as usual, trying to get some sleep.

Many Eids of life are spent outside the family. This time too there was no exception. I can’t tell you exactly whether the joy of Eid touched me when I was child. But as far as I can guess, it seems that several years ago I went to my village home in Patuakhali to celebrate Eid with my family a month ago. It was probably early winter. Adding the memory of the sacrifice to the pre-Eid preparations of that time and the joy that followed the Eid with the winter is an impeccable story. No other episode as sweet as his has happened in my next life. As a result, when it comes to the celebration of the holy Eid-Al-Adha, I reminisce about the first Eid of my life and those days of winter, which revolve around a kind of nostalgia. At one stage of remembering the moment surrounded by so many happy memories, I suddenly remembered the korbani of 2016. One of my well-wishers of the service called me before Eid and gave me a cow as a gift in return for my love and said that I should sacrifice that cow among the disadvantaged people.

I also disobeyed him and slaughtered a total of two cows. Then I saw how happy it can be to have a bag of meat wrapped in a sheet of poverty. What a joy it can be for a parent to put a little good food in their children’s mouths. I just stared in amazement that day and just handed them the bags of meat. And I thought to myself, what is our responsibility for these people? What should we do? Why are they bowing down to life and livelihood today? Have we politicians really been able to ensure their rights? What is their fate by joining the war of life we are not taking away? I can’t explain to you the faces of these people that floated again and again when I was returning home with all these speculations and burdened minds. From that day on, I swore that as long as I live, I will dedicate myself to these people and go into politics. And since then I have been korbani for people in Dhaka or in my Patuakhali every year personally or as a family. I thought it might not be possible to feed these people this time, but this time he did not deviate from the infinite blessings of the Almighty.

Dear reader! The main purpose of my article today is not to tell you the story of my korbani. In today’s article, I am going to discuss with you a person who is a follower of a traditional religion and the chairman of the executive committee of a famous temple in Dhaka. You may think that you start talking about a Hindu person in korbani. This is one of the faults of your politicians. This person of traditional religion is not very close to me, but he is not far from me. My soul’s relationship with him. He is a symbol of Bangabandhu’s ideology in non-communal consciousness. I didn’t eat a penny of logence or Coca-Cola on his behalf, nor did he feed me. But perhaps on the day of Vijaya Dashmi of Durga Punja in 2016-17, I was dancing with him to the beat of drums and the sound of conch shells.

The title of my article is ‘Chitta Ranjan Das’, a person who is inspired by non-communal consciousness and is discussed today. He is a follower of traditional religion and president of a famous temple in the capital and general secretary of Dhaka’s Sabujbag Thana Awami League. In personal acquaintances he is a man of pure mind. Due to which he is referred to as the common ‘social friend’ of the area. This time, this man has set a precedent by korbani 12 cows on his own initiative, forgetting his religious feelings for the poor people who are suffering in the korbani and embracing Bangabandhu’s non-communal Bangladesh.

I don’t know if it was done by any other Hindu community before or after the independence of Bangladesh. Forgetting one’s own religious sentiments, one goes out of one’s religion-tribe-community and pays homage to the Muslim religion and pays homage to the history he has written. However, many able-bodied Muslim families are busy buying the largest refrigerator on the market before buying a sacrificial animal. These are about Muslim families on the other hand, when an interview with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina came to my mind while listening to loud music to alleviate my grief by thinking of the very poor and disadvantaged people, I could no longer keep myself in check.

Dear readers, this time I will end the article by saying something to lose you in my Eid memories and in the context of today’s headline. Every day and night before Eid in Adampur village of Dashmina upazila of Patuakhali district was a living dream village. The whole village was submerged in the flood waters. There was a lot of discrepancy between the flood waters of Ashar-Shravan and the waters of Bhadra month. In our area, at the beginning of the month of Ashar, there would be heavy rains and the rivers and tributaries would be submerged in the water in the season when the tide would come.

Ordinary crop lands had up to 10-12 feet of water and according to the infallible laws of nature, crops like jute, paddy, dhaincha, sugarcane etc. could grow with water. The whole town seemed to be a green sea of water. The youngest children in our area used to go to the water when they were swimming. If I wanted to go with them, everyone in the house would say that there are jokes in these waters and there are tangra fish which enter through human nostrils and secret holes.

After listening to the above, like other minors, I was terrified and kept my mouth closed during bathing in such a way that not even a drop of water could enter my mouth. On the Tuesday a week before Eid, my father went to the market with me and took the body, head and foot measurements of others to buy clothes, shoes and hats. The way the memories of the first Eid Bazaar of my life are still colorful in my mind, cannot be compared to any real or dreamy scene of the next life. I can still see with my own eyes that on that Tuesday in the month of Bhadra, everything in Nalkhala Bazaar was painted with Eid colors.

Row upon row of fireworks shops. Then shop for many more children’s products including paper hats, flutes, dolls, latims, lozenges, royals, colorful biscuits. Dad visited every store and bought everything for me and the younger brothers. After buying clothes and shoes, he also bought a tin pistol. When I was returning home after buying everything, it seemed as if I was returning to my home in the guise of a prince of the jinn-fairy’s dream kingdom, conquering many kingdoms.

As soon as I returned home, I hid my Eid shoping in a secret place so that no one could see it. Then, waiting for the next seven days for Eid and realizing the opportunity, I took out the gift from the secret cell, saw it again and again, smelled it, and held it with my body, especially my chest, for a while. Redemption is not possible with anything other than that. After waiting, I took a bath with soap in the morning on the day of Eid. After putting on new clothes, I would get on the boat to go to Eid Gah with my uncle with snow-powder and perfume on my body. After wearing new clothes, I will get on the boat to go to Eidgah with my uncle with snow-powder and perfume. Just then my grandmother came with a kajaldani panting. He put the tip of a kajal on the left side of my forehead with his little finger so that no one would look down on me.

All the boys of the village appeared in the field of Eid. Everyone wears a colored paper hat, wears new clothes, a flute in hand or neck, a pistol or a small wooden sword at the waist, and a stick lozenge in the hands of many. The whole Eidgah is abuzz with the noise of children and teenagers, the bragging of Eid gifts and naughtiness. The elders said, “Prayers cannot be offered for them.” Because as soon as the congregation starts, it will start laughing which will make the old people laugh too. When we stood in the prayers, we really created a history of laughter, which caused the virus of laughter to spread among everyone, and the situation was such that at the end of the prayers, there was no one to blame for the crime of laughter. On the contrary, during the sermon at the end of the prayers, many rabbis bowed their heads and kept their smiles down and shed tears. In my present time, in the middle of the month of Jilhaj of 1442 AH, that is, on Thursday, when I was going to the mosque for Eid prayers, many crooked incidents of complex life, the epidemic of Corona, Instead of thinking about wailing for competent leadership, power in the hands of corrupt bureaucrats, respect for politicians, lockdown in Bangladesh, cries of the people, etc.When I was reminiscing about that Eid of my childhood, the miraculous joy of Eid came to my mind without knowing it and took me from this time to that time.

Nayeem Islam Nibir is a young generation political leader and columnist in Bangladesh.
He can be reached: [email protected]