1. Maybe the August is a sinister month for Bangladesh. I don’t know how but sad incidents happen in this month. The bad times certainly will be over, but when it is time to go through these, then the mind becomes sad.
Sad incidents started with the flood. The vast area of the country drowned in flood water; fields, schools, houses went under water. Those of us who have spent the whole time on dry land, they cannot imagine how it feels to spend twenty-four hours a day in the water drowned areas. I'm holding my breath waiting the flood water to subside totally so that the people of the country get a new life.

Not only the overflow of rivers caused the flood in the country, but many areas of Dhaka city are now submerged due to water logging. People are crossing through the water accepting this as the way of the life. The people who live there are basically poor and common people. And for this reason, their voice cannot reach to the authority. They have accepted that they are to survive in this way.

Every year, the flood comes at a time and then I think with a wonder that due to some mysterious reason the word ‘Bonna’ (flood) is not a negative word in Bangla language. If it was a negative word than the parents of our country would not give their daughter’s name Bonna. I have never seen people with the name of Khora(drought), Bhumikompo(earthquake) or Ghurnijhor(cyclone). But 'Bonna' is a quite popular and sweet name.

It seems that the people of this country know the way of living in flood waters for many years. From the news of flood in Texas, it becomes clear. It seems that our newspapers are fond of the white-skinned person; that is why we know every detail of the flood condition of Texas. It is very clear that The US cannot tackle this type of disaster. The fact what appears differently in my eyes is the curfew during the flood. When people left their houses because of the flood water, many people began to loot the houses and curfew had to be issued to stop it! During the flood time, we face problems of thousand kinds but I have never heard of issuing curfew to protect the houses in our country.

This is not something new for America- once blackout happened in New York City for some hours and loot happened all over the city. Blackout is a casual incident in our country and luckily we haven’t adopted the American bad habits!

2. Everyone knows about the saddest incident of this August. A college girl named Rupa was gang-raped by a driver, conductor, helper, and killed in diabolic cruelty. The first time when I had seen the news in the newspapers, I moved my eyes away from it as if I hadn’t seen it. I am a weak person and I cannot tolerate such news; so I want to take my eyes away from this type of news and protect myself. But human beings are not ostrich that can protect themselves from all the cruelty of the world by burying their heads in the sand. So gradually I had to know the story of this young college girl named Rupa.

I have known about the incident but I cannot understand the fact that how these people can do such thing. Separately, one or two people who have become mentally ill with a distorted mentality, we know that they can do such horrific deed without any guilt or become happy by doing such thing. But I really don’t understand how some family persons can do such cruel work together.

But do we have to accept that as such incidents are happening all the times and those who are doing these are getting escaped most of the time, so a group of people has accepted it as a simple fact? As we know only one or two incidents, is the real picture of the society is out of our sight? Those incidents which get published in the newspapers are trails of those done? Are the convicts get punished?? Tanu murder case is a stirred incident- as it happened inside the Cantonment; will the trial of the killer take place ever?

There was no word like gang-rape in our dictionary (such an ugly word, the pen does not want to move while writing!). We only found news about this incident in Pakistan and became shocked. I don’t know how, this incident has started to happen in Bangladesh, now it has become a regular event. A girl was raped and murdered on a bus in Delhi in the same way and right after this, such a thing started happening in the buses in our country. Is atrocity to be imitated? Is it a matter to learn? Can psychologists explain these issues by researching it?

Nowadays it has become tough to take newspapers to read. It seems that the whole newspaper is full of the news of rapes. Rape by the Chhatra league or Juba League leaders, grandfather raped granddaughter, rape to enjoy Eid day joy, raping female friend, husband rapes housewife, rape of young children- anybody would become sick after reading only these headings.

I am not a person of psychology or sociology, so I do not know how an isolated man or a society does injustice or resist it. But some issues always have made me confused. Once I went to the mosque for Eid prayer. Thereafter the prayer, at a time of making dua (final words) the Imam said those who were involved in sins, may Allah turn all 'sins' of them into 'reward'. I was surprised because if dua of a single day transforms all the sins of life into virtues, will not it inspire people to do injustice? If all the wrongdoings throughout life like killing, wounding, stealing, defrauding, raping can be redeemed in a process at the end of life, then it must be the most shortcut method to gain many virtues.

I do not know how deeply this explanation of religion penetrated deep into the society. I have no idea about how this affects the thinking of the people of this country. (I have grown up hearing a beautiful and humorous explanation of religion in my family. Allah has certain rights over human beings and human beings also have certain rights. If someone does not obey Allah and seek forgiveness crying, Allah may forgive him. But if someone does misdeeds towards other human beings, he will not get redemption until he gets forgiveness from the affected person. In this explanation of religion, there is no scope to convert all sins or erase sins in the last age of a person!)

Everyone who has committed this brutal torture on the girl named Rupa has been caught. Their parents are also suffering from acute guilt, saying that they should be punished with genuine punishment. We do not know whether they will get punished or not. We also do not even know whether they will get escaped from it because of the gaps in the law. Bishwajit was hacked to death in public in front of television camera by some Chhatra League activists and yet the verdict of the hanging of those who have been caught is waived. Within a few years, they will become more big leaders! So, we do not know the future of these murderers of Rupa. I don’t know what they think while they are in jail, do they feel the bite of their consciences or even guilty I cannot even guess this.

But we can imagine that what Rupa was thinking at the moment before death. Certainly, this young girl was deeply frustrated and upset with this world. This country, state or even society, nothing could protect her - she had to depart from this world with such terrible pain and suffering!

I cannot even imagine such pain!

3. Another sad incident in August is the persecution of the Rohingya people in our neighbouring country Myanmar. After the Rohingya extremists attacked the Police Military Camp, the vengeance is being taken against ordinary Rohingya people. More than 500,000 Rohingya are living in Bangladesh as refugees for more than a decade. After the genocide of Rohingyas in the last few days, about 1.5 lakh Rohingyas have rushed into Bangladesh to save their lives. This is a big incident; this has agitated the whole world. We know that nothing happens at the end after this type of agitation. Agitation will go on to the Rohingya people but no one will take responsibility for them. These helpless people will have to live a miserable life in this country. Do you remember how many decades the Bihari people had spent in the Geneva Camp as a citizen of Pakistan after 1971?

I find a little peace in seeing that the Rohingya people are not returned to the valley of death and are being provided shelter in Bangladesh for humanitarian reasons. I cannot forget the events of 1971, almost ten million people of this country took shelter in India as refugees. If India did not give us shelter then what would have happened to us? In 1971, the number of refugees from Bangladesh was more than the total population of Agartala.

It is a very great job to give a shelter to these helpless people who face the fear of death. As human beings, we must do this for other human beings.

Whether The Nobel Committee, which gave the Nobel Prize for Peace in Myanmar's leader Aung San Suu Kyi, regretting or not, I would like to know about it.