Mon 7 Jul 2008
Whether a mugging, road accident, or protests against a national policy — whenever something goes wrong in our country, violence breaks out. Actions one would never even imagine taking individually are carried out by groups or “the mob”. Is this anger a response to a failing social system where people feel forced to take the law into their own hands? Does this violence erupt all of a sudden, or is it dormant inside us all, just waiting for a trigger to set it off? (more…)
Wed 20 Feb 2008
I can make an easy assumption here. If one does a quick poll on how many people knew of film star Manna, I am pretty sure, 90% would have answered they never heard of Manna. And I am pretty sure the numbers would have been respectively 99% and 100% negative if the questions were how many saw a Manna film and how many of them were Manna’s fans.
On February 17, Dhaka film star Manna died of heart attack. For me, I heard of Manna’s name as a Dhakaiya film actor but never saw any of his movies. (Even If I did, would I confess it in this forum? Mere knowing of Manna, forget about watching his film or becoming his movie, is a blatant sign of cultural backwardness and social downwardness among the members of my class).
When I was watching TV footage of the crowd at United Hospital where Manna died, I thought, OMG, Manna must have been a popular hero. It was a surprise. But that surprise was nothing compared to what I saw the following day, again in TV news footage. Tens of thousands men, young and old, from all over the country, gathered in front of FDC (Dhaka version of Hollywood Film Studios); only to have a glance at Manna for the last moment. Failing to enter FDC campus, those gathered got involved in a pitched battle with the police. E-Bangladesh posted a story on this event. The body was supposed to be taken to Shahid Minar for public viewing. Another mass, tens of thousands strong, also gathered there. And more people were thronging along the way from FDC to Shahid Minar. The clash between police and the mourners got ugly. Fearing people power, the military government forced the FDC organizers to cancel the Shahid Minar viewing.
The spontaneous gathering of people was remarkable. Dhaka has not seen such spontaneous gathering in many years. Even during the peak days of recent anti government movement, all the organized gatherings were not as big.
