‘Ma’— the first word we, the Bengalees, cried with after we were born. The newborns gave birth to a word unwittingly: Ma. How simple the word was. Yet how difficult it was to utter officially as Rafiqs, Jabbars, Salams, Borkots were bullet-holed by the rights-usurping administration in 1952 in Dhaka, East-Pakistan.
A nation was built to save a language, to protect it from being trampled down nineteen years after the language martyrs were brutally killed. It was more a demand for language sovereignty which triggered a political one.
Bangla – the language was born off a revolt; a revolution.
2017: ‘Ma’ is replaced by ‘Mom.’
The blood, shed on the Dhaka university campus in 1952, has dried..
It is now cool to use ‘Mom.’
The warmth is gone.
The chorus of revolt has calmed down.
So ‘Ma’ has gone. ‘Mom’ has come.
Let us celebrate “Amor Ekushe (Immortal 21st February)”as International Mother Language Day with songs, dance, recitation and what not!
Let Rafiq, Jabbar, Salam and Borkot lie in grave peace in their tombs.