A word from a helper
My family and I lived in East Pakistan/Bangladesh (between 1964 and 1972).
My best childhood memories are of growing up in former East Pakistan. A place so beautiful that leaves an indelible mark on you. A people so pleasant that makes you connect with their culture.
All this serenity was shaken when the war of Bangladesh's independence started. At this time, my mother, my siblings and I were in a city called Khulna. My father was visiting Dhaka and got stuck there due to the onset of war. We were forced out of our own homes and took shelter in a local civil contractor (a friend of my father) who was paying weekly protection money to Mukti Bahini. It was during this time that we met many families who had taken refuge in the same house. Some of them had lost their family members to the violence. We learned horrific stories of marauding mobs killing non-bengali people. Many young girls/women committing suicides to protect their sanctity. Men taken away and murdered. Their loved ones to never know what happened to their fathers, brothers, husbands.
For over a year we did not know if my father was alive or was he killed? He was eventually able to reach Khulna almost a year after the war ended. My father was very well known in Khulna and Mukti Bahini was looking for him. We had to flee and so we did to India, leaving behind everything that our family had from worldly assets like a house, cars, jewelries to my parents college degrees and everything in between. All we could take with us was what we were wearing and a few hundreds or local currency.
My childhood's best experience of growing up in Bangladesh was forever eclipsed by the pain and suffering that family bore. I saw the fear and hopelessness on my parents' face everyday. I feel they died a little everyday ever since. Our lives were irrevocably altered forever.
Having gone through the above debacle, I must concede that Allah has been very kind to my family. None of us were killed nor were physically abused. It is for this very reason that I feel that everyone of us, who have been blessed by the Almighty, owe it to those who have not been as privileged because we could very well be living in those refugee camps today. And, if we were, would we not want those with resources to extend a helping hand?
-Anonymous Donor