In 1971, the year of our Liberation War, my elder brother was born. My father was in Rangpur for business at the time. When the war began, it took him seven days on foot to return to Dhaka—moving through fear, uncertainty, and danger. Later, I would ask him:
“Abba, why didn’t you join the Liberation War?”
He would quietly reply: “My war was to save my family.”
After independence, my father again took us back to Rangpur. I still wonder—why would a man leave Dhaka, the heart of opportunity, to rebuild his business in Rangpur?
My mother came from a respected family in Aminbazar, Dhaka. But her life in Rangpur was marked by loneliness. She often told us stories of long days spent alone at home. Sometimes neighborhood women came to talk. Among them was one she often mentioned. When I asked about her, people would say: “O daane aachhe”—meaning she had gone the whole day without food.
My mother recalled how many survived that way—waiting until night when a small bazaar opened, buying a little rice or lentils, cooking late, and eating only then. She never used the word “famine,” but I know now she was describing the hunger that swept through Bangladesh in the early 1970s, leading to the famine of 1974.
Our ancestors faced famine twice in living memory—1943 and 1974. They knew what hunger meant in the marrow of their bones.
The famine of 1943 was not only a natural disaster but a man-made one—grain hoarded for British troops, floods in Bengal, and Churchill’s cold orders that left millions starving. Three decades later, in newly independent Bangladesh, famine struck again. This time, it was not only international politics that worsened the crisis. In 1974, corruption, black-marketing, and government mismanagement deepened the suffering. Food did not reach the people who needed it most. While relief ships were reportedly delayed abroad, much of the tragedy was also created at home.
To me, there is a cruel difference between two kinds of death. A bullet kills fast, with the dignity of resistance. Hunger kills slowly, invisibly, stripping away both strength and dignity.
Even today, hunger is not history—it is our present. During Ramadan, when we fast and wait eagerly for iftar, I sometimes think of Palestine. There, children like ours are not waiting for iftar, but for food that may never come.
Every day, I see their faces. Every day, children in Palestine go hungry while violence surrounds them. For two years I have carried this weight inside me. It is the deepest trauma of my life: watching children starve, and watching lives cut short alongside hunger.
I often ask: “How do people survive such pain? How do they face it?” No answer makes it easier. Because hunger is one wound, and killing is another. Together, they are unbearable.