Tohon

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Oct 13, 2024, 11:54 AM

“You look sad”, my friend observes. “My mind is occupied by the suffering world”, I respond. “At least you need not agonise for me, for I am always happy”, my friend tries to cheer me up. “I am sorry that you are...

Oct 13, 2024, 5:21 AM

The Casualties of War

Recently I watched Casualties of War on TV. The 1989 war drama film is based on the events of the 1966 during the Vietnam War, in which a Vietnamese woman was kidnapped from her village by a squad of...

Oct 12, 2024, 4:33 PM

Meeting at a Crossroads I met Masud at a crossroads in 1968 at the Engineering University at Lahore, then West Pakistan. During our final year of undergraduate engineering while I was working on a petroleum engineering oil field development study, Masud’s...

Oct 11, 2024, 4:43 PM

It was the year 1960. I was in Grade 4 attending Kurmitola Cantonment Primary School, Dhaka, Bangladesh (then East Pakistan). My father was in the Pakistani army and we lived at the military compound. There was a parade ground...

Oct 9, 2024, 10:50 AM

The Final Journey

After the liberation of Bangladesh in December 1971, the Pakistani government interned the Bangladeshi military personnel and civilian bureaucrats living in West Pakistan. In late 1973, after the signing of the India-Pakistan-Bangladesh War Repatriation Agreement, we (my parents and...

Oct 7, 2024, 8:15 PM

I read Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom back in 2000. His story in the Robben Island invoked my sentiments. In the one hand, I was saddened for his inner turmoil and, on the other hand, I asked myself,...

Oct 6, 2024, 4:48 PM

Messenger from Heaven

In my childhood in Dhaka, Bangladesh there was a lanky, stray dog in our neighbourhood. Occasionally I would offer him leftover food. In return, he started guarding our door and wagging his tail as an expression of his gratitude. While...

Oct 1, 2024, 10:04 AM

A Way Out of My Depression

I am seventy-five years old and in retirement. Yet my day starts bad, every day. Because every morning I read dead body counts in the newspapers and the video of destruction and littered dead men, women and children I...

Sep 29, 2024, 9:09 AM

The Day I Became a Dog

The other day I went to the neighbourhood parkland for my walk. I saw a young man with his dog entering the area. The moment he picked up a dried piece of stalk, the dog’s joy knew no bounds....

Aug 9, 2024, 6:38 PM

Political Uprising

Bangladesh is the recent (August 2024) example of a political uprising. There have been many such uprising in the past: Arab Spring in Tunisia (December 2010), Libya (2011), Egypt (2011) and Yemen (2012). There have also been many failed...

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About Me

Tohon is the author of 'My Awakened Soul', New Generation Publishing, London, 2023.

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