Be Positive!

“Introspectively and in retrospect, this nation began its journey with nil..zero capital, baffled identities, ill political maneuvering, death of intellectuals, plight that came from natural disasters..the list goes on! Some would say 42 years should have been long enough for the wounds to heal but what about the ones that strike us down continually on a daily basis in the guise of corruption, treason, derailed govt regulations? And despite all that it is being said that Bangladesh "is one of the fastest growing developing countries", "has made remarkable progress in declining child and maternal mortality", "8 million Bangladeshi overseas workers in more than 155 countries, who remitted over $14 billion in 2012", "is one of the world's leading exporters of ready-made garments, ranking second in the world after China". Let's take a moment to contemplate the positive progress we have made so far, because to be honest, we could do with a bit of positivity right now! "

This pronounced statement above was the result of my positive-ranting (yes there is such a thing, only in my books though, I too often wonder if I do not have a biological defect!) resulting in a facebook status back at that time, at the end of February, when an apparent positive affair called the ‘Projonmo Chottor’ made me witness things I had neither heard nor expected in the history of this nation - Bangladesh! These two simple words, together, produced a platform that put forward a belief, resurrected an emotion in every single Bangladeshi, which at least our generation, the millennium, who had grown up only been regaled with tales of heroism from 1971, was suddenly awarded with an extraordinary opportunity to be a part of! All those hundreds of movies(when one thinks about a Bangladeshi movie or drama serial, you can only see visuals of 71!) that we had been watching ever since we were born, all the brilliant anecdotes recounted by our mothers and grandmothers so often that they came alive in front of our eyes and suddenly all those pent-up emotions revealed like a bare wound, in public, to be critically assessed, by those two really simple words! Those, couple of months, were tough I must admit.

I must also admit that I did not expect any specific outcome out of the movement from the beginning. Yes, even an overly emphatic optimist as myself! It was not like I did not want our lives, or the lives of the citizens living in Bangladesh at the time, to experience something as brilliant as the stories depicted so often on celluloid: a raging war, arrival of a messiah and a happy ending. As much as I enjoy an unhealthy dose of a Bollywood flick every now and then, even I am more realistic than that! Sometimes I blame these unrealistic portrayals in cinema for raising our expectation bars so high that real life cannot cope with it!

What did we expect? Suddenly a hero was going to descend from the seventh heaven, okay, let’s say from amongst this bunch that founded the chottor, fight our battles, awaken us from this nightmare that we call life here and basically rescue us while we stand on the sideline, all safe and secure, under the protection of our family names and inherited power and only contribute to the war cry? Sorry but I just smiled out of grief and I believe all the thousands of heroes that once made our blood boil, from celluloid to real life, from William Wallace to Bhagat Singh, all just ganged up on me and smiled the most derogatory smile I have ever seen! Battles are not won that way, fights are not fought that way and life, my friend is not that easy, they say. Some things can only be achieved the good old-fashioned way!

It would be fair to say I did not mind the effect that Projonmo Chottor was able to create – a reason to unite, stand together – and I would risk sounding like a broken record if I repeat all that I had said back in early February 2013. I did absolutely jump on the bandwagon, locally and overseas, virtually and in real life, I debated in my sleep over sweat and blood! But it was not in the hope of seeing sunshine, no, because I believe the only place capable of producing sunshine is not somewhere we can spot outwardly, but lies within the deepest wells of our soul, in each of us. It lies with our core belief. And that belief had moved mountains centuries before us and is still capable of doing so! Then why does the human form this energy takes distract us? Why do we doubt in our own individual power to change this world?

In a matter of a few months I witnessed families drifting apart, friends turn foes, couples breaking up – I must admit these were astounding feats! Never before had I seen this country or its countrymen displaying such deep-rooted, brash emotion towards anything other than that, which concerned their bread and butter. It was impressive. We can argue through our teeth over why and hows and also who was behind the ‘show’ but the motion was a success from the go!

The sad part, personally though for me, lies in the fact how a dark eerie shadow seem to lurk behind every Bangladeshi citizen in the form of this negative energy. If it was the Treta Yug or epoch, when Lord Rama lived, I would have vouched it was the work of the evil Asuras! Because it is not just in matters related to this nation that we are negative about – it is anything and everything! Say you pay a compliment to someone within the earshot of another, within seconds the eavesdropper would feel the need to make up some story to make the person spoken about sound horrible! The Asuras may have lost in the Tetra Yug but alas, the presence of the evil still lives and will only be defeated once and for all when each of us, individually and intrinsically, delve into that well of power and declare war! A war against everything that is wrong in our backyard, in our vicinity and a war against everything big and small we have been silent about for so long!

A messiah has arrived – can you see? It is YOU. 

P.S. For the umpteenth time, NO I am not under the influence of anything when I talk dirty-positive! Ask my friends and family - they shall vouch for it!