Rubana Huq

1 and 9 have always been the most significant numbers in my life. Most of what has happened to me (save one) has always taken place on dates that add to either 1 or 9.

I get apprehensive every time I discover a questionnaire on my table. Each questionnaire seems to be arriving with a specific agenda.

I saw a butterfly following me around. Usually, butterflies mean either death or marriage in the family. Every time, I see one, I shudder in fear and uncertainty.

The BGMEA building has been termed a "cancer". Today, it is almost symbolic to bring the BGMEA building down.

Strangely, we are not where we used to be anymore. Students who used to steer movements against tyranny have themselves become tyrants.

A car hit one of the workers working in our house this morning. He was cleaning the wall and the car smashed his bones.

What has actually gone wrong in the South Asian landscape? If one singles Pakistan out in this South Asian equation, one then naturally wonders, why the leaders of a single country that is projected to take off as the next investment friendly area, be unwise to jeopardise regional integration that could turn South Asia to record the highest GDP growth by 2030?

Bangladesh has not become the second largest exporter of apparel because of media spotlight. Bad press affects us, but does not kill us, as we know how to rise from the ashes. Negative publicity may dampen, but does not annihilate us as we are far stronger than expected.

In our lives, we try and look for social proofs and replicate other events, other practices, other lives, et al. We also try and promote ourselves, our lives, our products with valuable virility. Most of us use social media to be viral. But being viral with responsibility is a difficult task and being responsible while reporting to the public is even more challenging.

It's called a sprawl. We just happened to experience a mushroom growth. It happened to us when schools, garment factories, stores, boutiques, offices just stealthily popped up in our neighbourhood.

Ironically, access to loans is most restricted to people who really need it, who could actually use it and who possibly have the best intent to pay it back. That was a moment to step back and relook at our entire financing scene.

Does it really benefit opening and reopening boxes piled with grief and tears on a daily basis? How brutally insensitive some of our media outfits become? And how fast are we ourselves spreading rumours and fear that are, at times, unsubstantiated? The stories have to stop, and the gossip must end.

That is what happens every time we turn the other way and decide to be indifferent. This is how we are losing the proud flag of secularism at our end. This is how this year Brussels Airport was struck in March, how Istanbul got hit in June, how we were blown over on July 1, and that is how three Saudi cities got rocked in less than 24 hours.

LISA, a thorough Texan, had left the United States only once for a vacation. She had never travelled the world before.

Uber offers private rides in private cars at your own convenience. It means you don't have to wait for the rain to stop; you don't have to queue up...

When you go to a Chinese mall, you haggle to the last cent. I remember being rudely pulled aside and being told by a Chinese vendor...

The fact that the country's actual default loan amount - including that of written-off loans - in the country's banking sector has exceeded Taka 1 trillion mark for the first time, qualifies us to be one of the leaders of the corporate shame club.

Every time I travel, I get acutely conscious of my habit of praying in public places. This time, I was stopped by security twice and I ended up joking with a Pakistani man.

Rossing thousands of miles to come to the Bay area should have been fun. Contrary to my expectations, the journey turned out to be a straight disappointment.

Neither am I surprised by what the Commerce Minister asked a high-powered delegation visiting Bangladesh, nor am I going to be