The day Shaikh Haseena fled from Dhaka I was in Bangladesh. I saw sloganeering, jeering, rowdy crowds cheering the opposition and overall chaos that ensued. It all started on 17th July 2024. I went to teach on a sabbatical to the students of the Asian University for Women, Chittagong, Bangladesh on 30th May 2024. Initially, it was great and I explored the country and the city as a newcomer would. My family accompanied me and we travelled to Cox Bazar beach, then to Dhaka on the road. Chittagong port is huge and the city is bustling. Dhaka looked like the Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, India. The area we lived in in Bangladesh was Banani, a tony upscale part of the city. Traffic was chaotic, and the heat was oppressive but it felt nice. We did Jamdani saree shopping and ate Hilsa, the queen of the Padma River. My family left for Kolkata and I settled back in Chittagong, as my teaching began. Since it is a university for women my students were all girls and oh, boy they came from societies which are oppressive and some from warzones like Afghanistan or Sri Lanka. They had a difficult past and teaching them gave me a sense of purpose in life. By my lectures, I did not only teach but offered them hope which stokes their fire in the belly. It was a fulfilling humanitarian experience I had. I have been a teacher since 2004 but this time it was different. I had always taught students who mostly came from advantaged backgrounds, few students I had dealt with were from disadvantageous sections of the society. But these girls, some of them were rescued from warzones, some of them were fatherless, and some of them came from countries unheard of like East Timor. So it was a challenge as well as a fulfilment to teach them and buoy their optimism.
