I thank you guys for this thread. My mother often tells me about the war, and I kid you not, on every occasion there are tears in her eyes. My choto mama fought as a guerilla soldier, and my boro mama was to be killed as one of the "buddhi jibi", however he was in the U.S. at the time, and is now living here in Sydney, Australia.
My boro mama told me about a man who was a bihari, I think somewhere in the Narayanganj district (where my mother's side is from), who saved many, many lives in the region working as a simple neighbourhood guard. He'd travel from house to house, warning people if any Pakistani soldiers were approaching. He was a good man, and was apparently jumping around in joy on December 16th when independence was declared. The ridiculously sad part is, he was killed by our soldiers, who thought he was against us, on the same day. My boro mama cried quite a bit talking about.
I find it outrageous, that we killed this man, and let the razakars live. It sort of defines us as a nation really. I'm sure some of you have noticed that I'm extremely patriotic, and that's probably due to my upbringing, but when I look at the 40 years since independence, and the lack of patriotism and love for fellow Bangladeshis still hurts.
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