Dear Shadhin Bangla Generation C (“C,” since you were born during the third decade of Bangladesh), hello from Shadhin Bangla Generation A.
As you already well know, it has been impossible to not think about the state of the world, especially in the last couple of weeks.
Some of you are taking part in these wars in the frontlines. Some of you have left Bangladesh and joined death missions.
We are all searching for you now, you are no longer another invisible person walking the streets of Dhaka.
We have finally turned our attention towards you, finally thinking about what an 18 to 20-year-old Bangladeshi mind looks like, and as I got to thinking more, I realised, we, Shadhin Bangla Generation A, owe you an apology.
You see, we did not realise that we were no longer as young, that there are younger ones who need examples from their fathers’, mothers’, brothers’, and sisters’ generations. I thought some more about who you looked up to, who did we offer to you to feel motivated by. Shakib Al Hasan? Not possible to be him for most of us, is it?
Did we offer you a good politician from our generation? A philosopher who enriched your mind, someone who took interest in you and didn’t dismiss you because you grew up watching Hindi-dubbed Pokémon?
How about your spiritual teacher? Qur’an teaching hujur? Oh never mind, that was already labelled uncool before your time came along.
When we were young, we were handed rows of Muktijoddhas, in books, posters, and banners, everywhere, everywhere really. We were to look up to them. And we did.
And we devoted ourselves to whatever we thought their cause was, they freed the country and then … what? Well, we, Shadin Bangla Generation A, became the “then … what?”
As you may know, on Martyred Intellectuals Day we had lost such a severe part of the brain of our country -- that was December 14, 1971.
We declared a generation gap between you and us, and decided you were an afterthought, mostly to criticise. We had no time to understand your definition of cool or sad, or what have you. Perhaps validating your vibrant youth would have made us lose a little of our diminishing one
Out of unfiltered reaction, our parents dreamed that we would grow up to be substitutes of the lost brilliance.
Those same parents of ours, knowing hardship as they did, wanted us to grow up with the best they could offer, perfect celebrations, undying nationalism, best schools, the gift of culture, and the denial of a failing political system.
We grew up under the impression that the ultimate had been achieved, and now it was up to us to take it somewhere else. Where though? No one ever really talked about that.
And many from our Shadhin Bangla Generation A, carrying all the weaknesses of our ego, we created things, big and small, real and mediocre. What we created were catered for our past, that was our ultimate validation, our audience, our parents, only they could decide if we were doing justice to our forefathers.
By now, we picked up our parents’ hints about becoming intellectuals, and social media also made it easier for us to put up our opinions. In no time, we all turned into couch intellectuals, without the real taste of genuine loss, we deciphered, and Googled, and posted, and read, so that we would win arguments and be somebody, so that we could get rid of the “…” and the “what?”
In the process, we forgot there were others behind us, born long after us, growing 10, 15, 18. We declared a generation gap between you and us, and decided you were an afterthought, mostly to criticise.
We had no time to understand your definition of cool or sad, or what have you. Perhaps validating your vibrant youth would have made us lose a little of our diminishing one. We had our backs turned to you, couch intellectualising the “…” of then.
So, that’s all really. I am sorry from Shadhin Bangla Generation A, for not acknowledging your presence the way we should have.
For not giving you a better Bangladesh, better role models, a deeper interest. I am sorry for our selfishness, for our self-serving-ness, for our judgements … I am so, so sorry.
