Sender: Nahian Iftekhar Senders Location: Glasgow, UK Receiver: Minhazul Islam Receiver Location: Rajshahi, Bangladesh Hey there! I hope things are going great for you and I’m really excited to write this letter to you! It’s been quite a while since I wrote a letter to anyone about anything so I apologize beforehand if there are a few mistakes here and there. Like many people born in the 90s, the last few years were quite challenging, mostly thanks to COVID-19, one of the deadliest pandemics in the 21 st century. We’ll talk about that soon. Before that, let me tell you a little about ‘pandemics’. Although the definition of a pandemic is broad and debatable, generally any physical and mental health conditions that extend over large geographic locations, that could be transmitted from one place to another, has a high attack rate, have minimal population immunity, and is widely infectious could be called a pandemic. In that sense, COVID-19, AIDS, Cholera, Den...
Sender: Nahian Iftekhar Senders Location: Glasgow, UK Receiver: Minhazul Islam Receiver Location: Rajshahi, Bangladesh Dear Minhaz, As I’m writing this letter, I’m still mesmerized about your letter. You talked about your favorite river as if it was your friend, not just a river flowing through the land to meet its end at the ocean. Reading your letter also made me want to meet your friend and walk along its banks. Someday maybe. As the month of April is passing by, the first thing it reminds me of is Pohela Boisakh, the first day of Bengali New year is on the horizon. Growing up in Dhaka, Pohela Boisakh has always been a festive occasion in our family. I used to wake up, freshen up and start the day by eating panta bhaat and mach. Although the trend nowadays has been to eat Ilish maach, my mother used to cook multiple fish es on those special occasions. On some years we used to join the Mongol Shovajatra organized by the students at the Institute o...
Sender: Rehaan Syed Senders Location: Glasgow, UK Receiver: Nabil Hasan Receiver Location: Rajshahi, Bangladesh Dear Nabil Hasan, I want to thank you for sharing your experience with the OSCH and the efforts you and your team are making to preserve the disappearing languages and cultures of ethnic communities in Bangladesh. Your story about visiting the Rai Para and the Munda community was very touching, and it is heartening to know that people like you are working to preserve the diversity of Bangladeshi culture. I was intrigued to hear about the challenges you faced during your trip, particularly the difficulty in communicating with the people because of the lack of a written form of their languages. As someone of the Bengali diaspora, it’s easy to forget how ethnically and linguistically diverse it is there so it really surprised me to hear that the difference was so large that you were having troubl...
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