No newspaper!

I am an addictive reader of your newspaper and I know that I am not the only one.

The inconvenience which was caused by not publishing these pages was immense. Please realise that for three days the readers without any newspaper were audience to discussion and comparison on the techniques and know-how of buying and slaughtering farm animals, their price and the market condition.

The cattle market is getting more organised than before as there was a separate enclosure for quality animals like those valued over Tk. 100,000 Wow! Yet another feather to enhance the male status-cap, how chauvinistic!

When these animals are slaughtered beneath the open sky, fresh blood flow all over making blood-pools and in the mean time the fallen animals are cut-up in whatever way, while the skin and the entrails of the animal are set aside for the scavengers to do what "he" or "it" would like done.

Aside the mandatory sacrifice of the animal there was another form of sacrifice, the human sacrifices during the 11, 12, and 13 January on account of natural and man-made calamity.

Severe cold weather was prevailing throughout the country. We were too busy to take cognizance of the meteorological forecast. There was no preparation for protection from this natural calamity. The poorer section of the population was severely affected.

Their suffering and inconvenience was acute when they were struck by cold, cough, or fever or even pneumonia. They could not avail of any medical services. Nearly all the clinics and hospitals on which these people depend on malfunctioned due to 3 days of Eid holidays. So human lives as many as 21 if not more were sacrificed to cold waves, which is our regular visitor during the Bangla month of Magh.

This is not the end of the story. As thick fog accompanied cold waves we did not choose not to drive through fog rather our choice was to drive and drive recklessly in faulty vehicles. There was no one to check or prevent us from doing this. So another 25 and 57 human lives were sacrificed to fog and funny road rules! The injured were rushed to hospitals without medical attendance.

There is some more to this account on sacrifices. Away from Bangladesh as many as 13 or more people sacrificed their lives due to the collapse of the building in which they had only begun to start living. There was no fitness certification by building inspector, so the boarders were fooled from which situation there was no turning back.

So after the three no-newspaper days, any reader would be severely affected by the omission of those three pages, particularly the literature page in my case.