আমি ঢাকা

I had gotten my visa extension about two months back and the first thoughts in my head were I have to go home. To kolkata. I had asked my manager then only but finally that Friday morning my manager came up to me and said I could look to go back home end of October if I wanted. That's all I needed. I booked my tickets within the next 5 hours. The flight is apparently on a Monday and would reach on Tuesday and I would lose two working days. That will affect my utilization and then my rating. But who cares? I am going home. That's what mattered. I decided to meet up CGNC. I had been cooped up inside the house all week.I was just in one of those moods where I did not want to meet anybody and was feeling like a hermit. But the fact that I would be going home needed to be celebrated. It was around 8 in the evening when I met CGNC. I was bursting at my seams. I just blabbered whatever happened throughout the day. Any celebration needs food and that's like a CGNC and me tradition. We meet up once a couple of weeks and go and dine out and make a day/night of it. He listened to me and said you must want Indian food today and to that I told him that what I wanted that day was good bengali food and I went on to add as to why the Bangladeshi/Bangali community here have'nt opened a true-blue Bangladeshi restaurant. And then he said " Hey ! Have you been following what's happening in Bangladesh today." I had read that a Hindu priest was hacked to death the day before and I silently nodded. "Why do you thing their commandos are taking so long to take any action? Why are they not barging into the cafe?"  I realized he was talking about something else. "Cafe? What Cafe?" He replied "A bunch of terrorist have stormed some cafe in some city in Bangladesh. I can't remember the name. The ISIS have claimed responsibility."

I was only half listening to him. I was already too busy trying to find the details on my phone. Bangladesh. I could not believe it. I know politically, geographically it is a different country but I have always felt that it's not that different. I mean, everyone in my mother's side of the family converse in fluent "bangal". How many times have I heard my pishi telling me "এহ তুই  মিষ্টি  খাস না . তুইও  বাঙ্গাল তোর  মা'র  মতন ."

All kidding apart. We speak the same language, eat the same food, share the same history, are nourished by the same river. We are the same.

And then I found out. A cafe in Dhaka. Dhaka! I had always imagined it to be like a soul-sister city to Kolkata. You know how we read about "সই " in old books. Something like that. I don't know why. But I needed more information.
More information than that there were Italians and Japanese citizens trapped inside the cafe. I needed more information than, the RAB was standing right outside waiting to take action. I needed to know who were inside. Who were those people. I needed to know how many terrorists. And yes I desperately needed to know what the RAD was still waiting outside for. I needed real-time update. Sitting in the U.S we keep getting real-time updates about a Bangladesh-India cricket match. Why not about this? Why not about what is happening in Bangladesh? If this was Paris or Brussels or Orlando, then there would be updates..that would have been the only news flooding my feed.

And then I went to Bengali daily news sites. And then I got what I was looking for. I don't even know what I was looking for anymore. I learnt about Arushi. And Arushi's friend. Farhaaz Hossain. The boy who could have left and saved his own life. But chose to stay back because of his friends and was hacked to death. The boy who was just 20 and far wiser and braver and noble than any one of us could ever be. But then the boy who hacked Farhaaz to his death was like Farhaaz and yet so unlike him. Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz and Meer Saameh Mubasheer. They were not older than 23 themselves. They have studied in the best schools, travelled, and have been exposed to the world. Yet, they were completely okay with dying, because they believed they would go to heaven. More scarily, they were completely okay with hacking someone who was exactly like them. to death, not shoot them, but hack them with a machete, in the name of religion. Someone they might have had common friends with. Someone they could have easily had a conversation with, or shared a cuppa joe with, in some cafe.

But instead all of them lie dead. All of their lives cut short by machetes or bullets, brutally. And all, directly or indirectly because of this arbitarary "thing" called religion.

And that brings me to the point I have found hard to shake off my system. A point which would offend a lot of people. Everyone I know, have strongly condemned and been shaken by what happened in Bangladesh. But then there are many among them who are also strongly religious. Devout Hindus, Muslims, Christians and/or Sikhs. And to them I want to ask and this is a genuine question. Not an abstract condescending one. What is the point? What is the point about having a religion?

I really don't know the answer. All I know is that it could have been me. I am just like any of them. It could have been me sitting in a cafe with my friends, when a bunch of religious fanatics might decide to storm in and hack people to death. I don't know if they would have decided to spare me if I identified as Hindu or a Bengali or not. All I know is that I would bleed too. I already am. Because at some level I might not be as brave as Farhaaz Hossain or as cruel and clueless as Nibras Islam, but I am still them. Maybe not exactly. But still. A lot like them.