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India is not only Kolkata

India is the 7^th largest country which has the second largest population in the world. The country is filled with the greenery of hills and mountains, peaceful beauty of ocean, steamy hot sun burn desert and fizzy cozy white snow. Each and every place is so distinguished with its beauty, culture, lifestyle and language. So, it is not worthwhile to compare one part of the country with another. For its diversified character it’s being called incredible India.

Here in Bangladesh most of the people have a very limited idea about India. Though every year huge number of people travel to India, their perception about India is very one sided. On the name of India they think of only Kolkata. They think the whole India is just the same like Kolkata. The people on the other side of the border are Bengalis and their language, culture and geography is almost similar to us Bangladeshis. Even once Bangladesh was a part of India so we have our relatives staying in India. So, most of the people in Bangladesh go to west Bengal, in the name of visiting India. The way they behave, the way they talk, the nature of Kolkata people is all we know about India. Even now-a-days people watch Kolkata Bengali series a lot which provides them only a specific idea about India. They don’t even think out of the box.

In my perception people should know more about the country which will increase their level of knowledge about a particular country. Here, I want to mention some points to help you know that Kolkata is a part of India, just one state capital. There are more to know about India.

Geographically India- India is a country which is a combination of 29 states among which 9 states are bigger than Bangladesh. Moreover, the biggest state In India is Rajasthan which is more than two times bigger than Bangladesh. So, with this estimate we can imagine how different India will be geographically. One part of it is entirely different than others. Like a part of India Rajasthan; is desert. The camel rides in the desert is a perfect adventure there. Moreover, if you want to have a walk in the beach and amazing bonfire, Goa, Pondicherry, Kanyakumari , Kerela etc beaches are there to give you the chillness of the beach . Furthermore, Kashmir, Shimla, Manali can give you a wild ride in the snow. Even the hilly greenery of Kerela, Tamil nadu, Kashmir, Madhapradesh will show you how we can touch the sky by from the ground. That’s why people say, if you have seen India, you have seen the entire world.

Here, in the graph below you can get an idea on state wise top 10 geographical area of India:

Language in India: Some people in Bangladesh think India is a country where people talk in Bengali or in Hindi. So, if we know these two languages, it’s more than enough. Yes, these two languages will help you a lot while traveling to India, but that’s not all about India. In Hindustan times it is reported that, India has a total of 780 spoken language but 250 were lost in last 50 years. Moreover there are 86 scripts being used according to PLSI chairperson G.N. Devy. This shows the diversity around the country. While traveling through India I also came to know that there almost every people know more than two languages in spite of their mother tongue.

Culturally India- India is a country of diversified culture. Each states of India have a different food habits. Like north Indian prefers pow vaji, samosa, matar paneer, rajma where south Indian prefers dhosa, idli, sambar, rasam. Panjabi’s can not go a day without meat where Rajasthani’s stay far from meat . So each and every place is a new place to invent. Without exploring it, there is no way to understand what India is.

Moreover, people in different part of India celebrate different festivals. Like, North India celebrates Holi the biggest and colorfully, where Holi is nothing but a simple puja in South India. Though the young generation now-a-days celebrate Holi but south Indian Holi has no comparison with North Indian Holi. South Indians especially for Karnataka people Dasara is the biggest festival, where on the same time the west Bengal people celebrates Durga puja. Moreover, the Karnataka people are more concern about the cleanliness and hardly can you find beggars there, but if you go to west Bengal it’s full of dirt and dust around and beggars everywhere. Moreover, if you go to a beach in Goa, it’s totally different than a beach in Pondicherry. Goa is a party place where Pondicherry is far calm.

Indian Lifestyle- If I talk about the lifestyle of people that is also different from one place to another. The city life is different than the village life; the life of the hill station is different than the people in the desert. If you think alcohol is available all over India, than you should know In a country like India, they also have a dry state (alcohol free) where alcohol is totally prohibited. Moreover, People in Goa walk late night in the street where in Delhi, people; especially girls are scared to go out late night. They have a lifestyle where some people wear shari and mini skirt as well. Some girls don’t drink alcohol and some are smoking openly.

So, this is India, a country with diversified culture. Before going to India my perception was also like every other person in Bangladesh. But after visiting different places in India I have changed my way of thinking towards India. So, if I can change my idea by exploring the country, I think my article will help you to think out of the box at least for once.

A journey through hell

It was 8 o’clock at night. It had been an hour I was waiting for the bus. Thought of going home early, but as all the buses were overloaded with people, I could not get in easily. Finally I got in the bus and managed to get a seat. I saw a girl entering in the bus somehow but could not manage a seat. I just looked around and asked her to go and get a seat on back but she hardly could pass that small route to the seat and no man left a way to that seat. Everyone was busy to block her way and she got stuck in that place. So, this is the current situation of bus transport in our country, Bangladesh.

As we don’t have an available train facilities inside the city, most of us have to depend on the bus, especially the middle and lower class people who can’t afford a car of their own. We do have auto and rickshaw as other means of transport, but auto’s are highly expensive and rickshaws are not allowed in the entire route. So, bus is the ultimate solution for transport in the city.

As the population is very high and most of them belong to the lower and middle class, we have to depend on bus. There are hardly few seats in the bus for woman separately, where half of the country’s population is women. The government bus has only 6 to 9 seats which are not enough for woman. So, the woman has to get in the bus and have to stand with every other guy. Standing along with the guys would have never been a problem if there would have been mutual respect for each other’s gender. But what a woman gets while riding in a bus is indirect physical harassment.

You may question me that, “we have heard about physical harassment. But what is that indirect harassment?” To make it more specific, I have named this kind of harassment as ‘indirect harassment.’ Harassment need not to be physical only, with the gesture also a woman can be harassed.

For an example, when a woman gets into a crowded bus, the thing she has to face is getting a seat which guys hardly will sacrifice for a woman. Even the 6 /9 seats reserved for women, they hardly leave that for a woman. Moreover, if the woman does not get the seat, the male around her try to harass her by touching the untouchable parts of her body. From the back and forth they try to harass her in such a way that she would never complain. If a woman somehow complains, there are hardly found anyone who will stand by her.

Moreover, there are other kinds of harassment which is also harassment but by not touching the body part, but by gesture. We can also get a clear picture of man harassing a woman by his eyes and expressions. Some guys try to look at girls in such a way that that embarrass the girl. Similarly, some guy’s smiles at the girl and with different gesture harass the girl in such a way it makes the girl uncomfortable. Even, sometimes guys follow the girl till home and keep bothering continuously. These are nothing but a little example of the incident happens with the girls on everyday bus ride.

Not only indirect harassment, even we have set examples of direct physical harassment in the bus journey. So, a journey by bus is nothing but a journey through hell for a woman which is happening each and every day. There is no protest and no say about it. Now we the women have learnt how to survive in this as we choose to be silent mostly. But do those culprits deserve our silence? Should we let it happen? We are modern women of the century, if we don’t take a step forward, the country will never change and these kinds of harassment will always continue to happen. So, why not take a step forward make a change to the country.

By Debesree

Dhaka Being Delhi

‘Dhaka being Delhi’- you people might have thought that how Dhaka is becoming like Delhi. What are the improvements placed in Dhaka all of a sudden. For the time being the people of Dhaka might have become really happy that we are in such a position that we can be a city like Delhi. May be you have thought that I am writing about the metro in Dhaka which is going to be constructed soon. To prove you all wrong, I am not discussing about all the development and improvement happening in Dhaka. I am talking about the sexual assault and rape happening in the city recently. Within these last one month three major incidents were reported which is questioning the security of the woman in the city.

As we all know Delhi is called ‘the rape city’. The city is that well developed that it can give complex to any big cities of the world, but still the city could not ensure the security of the woman till the date. The rape in the bus inside the city is the biggest example of it. Recent incidents in Dhaka, indicates it to become a rape city soon. Three big molestation and rape incidents are pointing a figure on the security of woman living in the country. These are just a few of those, what actually happens in the country in actual. Most of the time, these kinds of incidents goes unheard and unknown, only few comes in the limelight.

The 1st incident I want to mention is the harassment happened in TSC of the Dhaka University Campus that made the biggest education institution of the country ashamed. In the occasion of Bengalis biggest festival 'Pahela Baisakh' (Bengali New Year), several girls were being harassed and undressed in public in the street of Dhaka University. There were no authority to stop them and no people came forward to help them out. People were seen to be busy in enjoying the view and clicking photo to upload on Facebook and other social networks. And after the incident the step taken by the authority was not effective which resulted in the culprits to escape even when the people protest the police beat the protester and even the woman present in the rally which is against the law of the country.

The second biggest incident happened on this 13th may. A 28 year women was going to her hometown Kishorganj from Dhaka via Mymansingh. The bus driver managed to get all the passengers out from the bus with an excuse. Only the driver and the helper of the bus were present and they promised the lady to drop her at home and managed to keep her in the bus. On the way they tried to rape the lady and to save herself she was about to jump from the bus and some people saw this and saved her. The bus driver and his helper were arrested.
The third incident happened on 21st May at around 9 p.m. A 22 years indigenous ‘Garo’ lady was on her way home after work. Suddenly a microbus with 5 people stopped before her. The two guys took her in the car by showing her weapon. They tied and raped her in the running bus. At 11 p.m. they threw her in the street and went.

So, this is how the condition of the woman in the country has become. Already a kind of fear has arisen in the women’s mind. They are scared to go out, especially at night. Though in Dhaka girls staying out late night was never a culture, but to compete with the world for the survival staying late sometimes becomes a must. As I have visited Delhi, I have seen the same kind of fear in the woman’s mind staying out late. Specially, the molestation and rape incidents happening in Delhi make the girls scared to go out. The woman’s security is always a question there, just the way it is becoming a question in Dhaka. So, I don’t think it will be wrong if I say the Dhaka is becoming a second Delhi in this sense. Molestation that happened in TSC, Dhaka can be the worst that can happen to any nation. Publicly sexual assault can never bring anything but a shame to the nation.

We are a nation who fought for the country, who fought for the respect of our mother, sister and daughter and even for our mother tongue. As a nation we never supported any disrespect to the woman. Our history tells how we struggled to get an independent nation. We are the only nation of the world who fought for mother tongue. These Dhaka University students died establishing our right to mother tongue. So how can we forget our mothers? We are the warriors, we should come forward, take a step to make our country worthwhile place to live. And a perfect living can only be possible if both the man and woman in the country can live independently together supporting each other.

In- Sight

India is not only Kolkata

A journey through hell

Dhaka Being Delhi

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