Afsan Chowdhury

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Articles

Jan 9, 1972: Public and private memories of Dilu Road

Jan 17, 2025 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

Jan 10 is a major event in the list of public events of Bangladesh history. Sk. Mujib, who was interned in Pakistan during 1971, was released after the war was over formally after the Pakistani forces surrendered on December 16. He flew into Dhaka on January 10 1972. This also meant that from December 16 to January 10, 1972, nobody was really in charge of the government.
Westernizing Maulana Bhashani Project

Jan 10, 2025 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

Efforts to prove that Maualan Bhashani was greatly influenced by Western sourced radical ideology have been on for some time. This has some connection with his "discovery" by South Asian radicals living abroad -read 60s Leftists of the UK - who rejected the mainstream party politics of the Awami League and looked elsewhere for a hero. They wanted to anoint him with Western ideological colours because his "radical" robes looked rather too indigenous for an international figure.
When did the 1971 struggle for a state begin?

Dec 6, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

The big political space in which politics has erupted has led to conflict and even violence including when it was about the 1971 history. Something is deeply unsettling that we can't look at history without taking an extremely exclusivist view. It's not just about a collective inability to do research or discourse on a historical topic but also about making the study of history a junior official of politics whose only task to serve a political party ends, whichever party that be.
Cheating in exams: A personal historical view

Nov 29, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

Why do people cheat in exams? The answer is simple. To get good grades. Why didn't they study to do so? There are many reasons. The student was busy elsewhere. The exam he is taking is very tough and he desperately needs to pass. He is lazy and it's much easier to cheat and get away. It's a way to be creative. Some just like to cheat. Is it worth it? Unless you are caught and punished which is rare, it is very much so. How do we know that?
Belal bhai, what were you running away from

Nov 22, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

A week or 10 back, it was Belal Bhai's birthday on 12th November and I wonder today how much he would have laughed knowing that I was writing on him so formally. Over time he has become more of a legend for the way he led his life. He was a poet that gave him a kind of license to live life as he wished but was it so? Or was his life a ceaseless effort to run away from a culture he was never comfortable with?
Tiffin time !!!!!!!

Nov 16, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

On Facebook, everything can be found, every memory offered for re-tasting. So something that happened years back suddenly returns, ticked off or triggered by a stray remark by someone on some issues of the past or present and it's all over back again.
Short stories and the tyranny of length

Nov 8, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |America decides |Anisul Islam

For one thing, who decided what should be the length of a short story to be called that? If I remember my literary history correctly, none did except maybe some intellectually not so well off Editors who thought that we better call these shorter stories "Flash fiction" or something like that and then refuse to pay the same honorarium for the longer ones. Otherwise how can size matter when telling a tale?
A brief history of a journalist’s encounter with a sex worker

Nov 1, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

A journalist does media stories as asked by the Editor. The person in charge is that Chair and the said person is the one who decides. Unlike today's journalists who seem more interested in the political angle than the quality of their media products, we come from an earlier era where stories mattered not other issues. But then times changed.
Harun Bhai, this is your “anarchist” admirer and colleague

Oct 25, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

So dear Harun bhai, there you are, now gone home or the long home where you have now decided to locate yourself in. Death is such an inadequate word when dealing with someone like you. After all, you were generally unhappy with the state of the world and the way it was run. You had very little patience for fools and I understand that feeling. You just couldn't see why people won't make that extra effort, run that extra mile or do something a tiny bit extra to make things a bit extra better.
Memories of “ilish mach”: A fish without sharafat

Oct 18, 2024 | dhakacourier.com.bd | Afsan Chowdhury |Anisul Islam

Ah Bengalis, who love ilish. They have to make it into such a big thing that it sounds suspiciously like Patrick Henry, the US politician screaming, "Give me ilish or give me death". Overdoing everything is our national culture and we are at it right now. In fact it became a national obsession after prices began to rise. Why it has gone up nobody can explain very well.