The Blind Beggar

Alexander Antonowich Rizzoni; Young Girl and Blind Beggar, 1888

The Blind Beggar

The universe is dark for the beggar

Presence of a girl makes him a fighter.

When he walks through the streets of city

Her whispering portrays outside beauty.

Beggar sings with a hope of a coin

She thanks God when each donor join.

Walking together mile after mile

She rejoices blind beggar with smile.

One day beggar leaves last breath

She remembers beggar's blind faith.

Dhaka mega city needs decentralized action plan for it's future

Dhaka city is growing haphazardly in an uncontrolled manner. Unbearable traffic jam has already made this mega city in the list of unlivable cities. Overpopulation along with lack of necessary civil amenities and poorly planned infrastructures have turned this mega city into a concrete jungle. No parks, no playgrounds and no place for recreation have made 200 years old Dhaka city a dirty place and no room for healthy living.

It is prime time to move the capital elsewhere from Dhaka. Government should take plan considering time frame of next 200 years. Within next two decades most of the world population will live in cities. China is a big example where moving rural population into urban dwellers changed the landscape of their economic future. Cities are the future junction point of civilization. Because large scale efficient economic consumption and production is only possible in cities. That is why it’s easier to find jobs in cities. Now in today’s world major cities are competing for talents. The city which can attract more talents are the most vibrant. Therefore, we must rethink urbanization for future of Bangladesh; not only for sustainable growth of Dhaka mega city.

Unless we can value the struggle of the pasts, we will not be able to understand the liberties of present. Dhaka played a crucial part in the history of Bangladesh. Dhaka became the capital of independent Bengal more than 400 years ago. It is the fate of political destiny; we lost our freedom through British East India Company’s conspiracy. Still now we are not immune of such conspiracy. It is time to retire Dhaka from center of politics. Myanmar moved their capital to Naypyitaw; previously Pakistan and India did so to Islamabad and New Delhi respectively.

Dhaka has historical importance. But we must think beyond near horizon. As a nation as well as a vibrant nation Bangladeshis have long cherished dream to go. Time to time culprits have made no mistake to submerge this nation into conflicts and in the meantime realize evil agenda. Unless the countrymen are united under one umbrella of unity, equity, justice and patriotism; long term sustainable development will be difficult.

Final thought here is that Dhaka urgently needs decentralization for the sake of Dhaka. It is self-evident to save future Dhaka. Developed countries have many states with small population in comparison to Bangladesh. But Dhaka is overburdened with more than 160 million people without any other megacities in Bangladesh. Decentralization of capital Dhaka will increase public efficiency tremendously. We need another mega city with roughly half of the population of Dhaka. Then we need other few cities with population roughly quarter of Dhaka. Then we need to one by one sustain-ably develop some cities with population roughly one-eighth of Dhaka. We can prioritize district towns and turn them into planned cities. It is a strategic long-term plan and it is work in progress process. My last appeal please do some lobbing to save Dhaka as well as to save Bangladesh.

Flowers of monsoon

Monsoon arrived with surprise rain

Today rainfall started from early of the morning. Now it is 2 PM. Still it is raining. In Bangla year today is first day of Ashar, viz. starting of rainy season. Interestingly call of nature coincides with calendar month of monsoon.

To me monsoon is a boring season. You can't go outside now and then due to sudden and/or nonstop rainfall. It is quite common in Bangladesh. Beside this if you live in cities like Dhaka or Chittagong, you have to experience water clogging many parts of the streets.

I have many wonderful experience with water logged streets. Sometimes I roamed with bicycle to enjoy the knee depth water flooded streets. Sometimes I had to buy gumboot to cross the water logged streets in front of my home. Walking with gum boot is a different experience to me. 

The best part of the rainy day is you can sleep as such as you wish giving excuse of the rain. Your sleep is sound without worries. I think in the meantime your mind also gets some time to relax. I think worst part of the rainy day is unusual price hike. Go to the kitchen market and you will see price of almost everything goes up without sensible limit.

Happy monsoon to everyone! Enjoy the cool weather.

Words of wisdom from my professors

Within couple of weeks my childhood dream of accomplishing degree from highest echelon of academia is about to be realized. No matter how turmoil this journey was, I am hopeful for my next dream to return back to graduate school in my forties for PhD and create new knowledge in my field. Within MBA school professors tortured my mind with confusions, self-doubts and led to beware about having meaningful life. I am thinking many valuable ideas, lectures and guidance will be lost from memory in the course of time. So, why not write something in blog post as words of wisdom, so that I can look back 10 years later what I learned! Of course it's an interesting idea.

The most important thing I learned from my professors at MBA school is how to make good decisions and using various tools used in different decision making hierarchy. Accessing subscription based journals and digging articles for my purpose was the most valuable thing I learned so far. Reading is an amazing thing whenever you have peer reviewed articles of high quality. In third world country like Bangladesh I would like to compare it as a serious business like flying! Even from Islamic point of view Allah (God) ordered human beings to read on His name within the first revealing.

Today I am concluding with the complement from my favorite professor Dr. Nadim Jahangir Sir. He emphasized to read newspapers, magazines and other reading materials in English language; not Bangla. Because almost all journal articles are published in English. Reading journal articles require extensive vocabulary. Operational definition for working environment is sometimes different from our day to day definition.

Before I leave MBA school

I am at the terminal point of my University life. Very soon by the grace of almighty Allah I am going to earn the top most degree of the university. MBA was not just dream, it is life's greatest achievement beyond numerous obstacles I had to face time to time. Undergraduate life was full of adventure and excitement. But MBA life was a journey of endurance and sacrifice.

Life happens either I become proactive or reactive. Tradeoffs are at the heart of life. Academic degrees put aside me to a prestigious segment of my generation, my society, my country and within mixed segment in international arena. Being citizen of third world country, chances became low to study in world's high ranking universities. The upside is that marketers will place me in person with higher education segment in Bangladesh.

Life satisfaction will depend on factors those are not only objective but also subjective too. If salary is put in comparison scale then logic says the higher the better and happiness will be a function of salary. But just like economics says unless everything remain same, this tag should be attached. For some people life satisfaction depends on whether they live in City and for others making compromise between paycheck and rural living gives better life satisfaction. So, life satisfaction is always a relative term.

From first semester to till now I have met with hundreds of people. Many of them became friends, not just Facebook friends. I mean real life friend circle with supportive atmosphere to learn and grow together. The journey was about ten years with some breaks in masters level. Within this period I attended dozens of seminars, club fairs and also earned few bucks from temporary campus jobs. Constructing house for personal living within masters study was also a laborious experience. The life was astonishing most of the times.

As I spoke about the bright side of the university life, some unpleasant or uncomfortable times exist. Ones upon a time I saw in a docudrama a student from Harvard said, that Harvard is not Haven. IUB is not also a perfect. Students come from different background, different family and different faith. I met some wonderful and highly sociable friends who are just awesome.

On the flip side I had to experience offending situation from few handful so called classmates. Their attitude, behavior and body language remind me the remark made by a faculty member from my first semester maths class "some of you have come here at University not because have qualifications or you deserve higher education; your parents send you with their financial support." I think so for those handful classmates. If all of students of private university had to take loan from bank and repay after graduation, then how many of them will dare to earn, not get/buy certificates?

Hatirjheel view from Rampura bridge

2018-06-20 8:01 AM

My favorite cycling destination in weekend mornings. Before sunshine reaches earth and people wake up and make the streets gridlocked I find this circular road spectacular.