Sheikh Hasina: The Saga of the Phoenix

If anyone wants to look into Sheikh Hasina's history, the story of the phoenix may be an appropriate example to explain her tale.

The mythological bird, Phoenix, acquires new life from its predecessor's ashes and her case seemed almost similar as she finally emerged as the redeemer after the carnage of August 15, 1975, when the country was subjected to a protracted wasteland, reports BSS.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's elder daughter, Sheikh Hasina survived the killing spree along with his other offspring, Sheikh Rehana.

The murderers tried to eradicate the entire bloodline of the man who established an independent Bangladesh, leading a lifelong fight to uphold his people's integrity and rights.

But the Almighty had a different plan: Sheikh Hasina, a classic imitation of Bengali women, made her way to be the nation's steward, perhaps to fulfill the Father of the Nation's unfinished mission.

I am none other than your daughter, your sister, or your mother, who can be reached whenever one wishes. Not a distant one, I am. I'm really similar to you,' she once said when sketching an interviewer for herself.

"Look at my name — Hasina. In thousands of different households in rural Bangladesh, HA SI NA, you can find this plain and simple name.

With a daunting task to lead a revived effort to restore Bangladesh, she made the remark a few years after her debut in national politics in 1981.

The partition of the Indian subcontinent, with the end of the 200-year British rule in 1947, was born in a small southwestern village in what is now independent Bangladesh, as world history has just witnessed a major change.

She was born in a middle-class family that was not remarkable until then, save for the admiration it drew for its kindness and keenness for education.

While nature grew up as a politician to her father, always holding him away from the family to be the future founder of a nation and Father of the Nation, Sheikh Hasina grew up in the open air of her Tungipara village along the bank of the Modhumoti River like other ordinary children.

Sheikh Hasina remembered her childhood when, mostly searching for green jujube, a typical lifestyle of a child in traditional Bangladesh, she used to wander around with others of contemporary age on country roads.

She loves to remember how she used to join other children in catching fish with an "ocha" that needs one to walk with a small fishing net connected with two bamboo sticks through the shallow waters.

She revisited fond childhood memories and found herself as a truant child in her village home decades later in an encounter with a group of children-climbing trees, swimming in the canals, catching fish, eating green mangoes from the trees of other people.

“Those were the best times of my life,” she said.

She was absolutely a family girl at home, being the eldest of her parents' five daughters, with great love for her parents and her younger brothers and sisters.

A sense of caring for people as well as the world, the ability to understand social fabrics and traditional wisdom or indigenous knowledge were instilled in her by her acquaintance with nature and socialization with ordinary rural people.

Her fundamental character was influenced by this appreciation and respect for nature and human beings, combined with her inherited family values.

Anyone, whether her admirer or critic, would inevitably call her urban, considering her natural smartness, progressive outlook, passion for culture and a unique style of herself, in terms of her beauty, attire and interactions, notwithstanding her infallible and everlasting links with the village.

Several of her close friends remember that her personal bookshelf was packed with rich literature and biographies of great people while she was a university student.

She loves Rabindranth Tagore 's literature, though her favorite authors were Poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, Jibanananda Das, and Sukanta Bhattacharya. Her favorite novel is the well-known Pather Pachali of Bibhutibhushan Bandopadhyay.

The passion for the literature perhaps enriched her with an extra eye to understand the human nature and life – a very, very crucial quality needed for a political figure and statesman of her standard.

The passion for music , movies and history is also seen in her by individuals in her near periphery or those who hold an eye on her as a public figure.

She shares her own appraisal of a poet, a singer or a musician and an actor as a connoisseur in her immediate periphery.

Acquaintances claim that one can engage with her in debates alongside politics on a wide range of topics such as films , television shows, literature trends, and the price of necessities.

An inborn standard of leadership, immense vigor, outstanding sense of humor, caring mind and integrity installed her at the core of every arena in which she was and is.

“I have been associated with the political ups and downs of the country and with the Awami League since my childhood,” she once wrote in an article.

Sheikh Hasina experienced the intolerable injustice faced during the democratic struggles by her father and colleagues as she also observed her mother Begum Fazilatunnesa Mujib leading the family and the party obscurely as well.

“My first lesson in politics came out of my family atmosphere,” she wrote.

Hers, however, was not the case of a lucky princess who emerged as the heir to the throne on a fixed point.

In reality, it was the experience of a girl who grew up watching her father fight for the common people's cause, sacrificing his own personal comforts and advantages.

She witnessed that the struggle of her father often subjected him and the family to extreme miseries, and his mission often prevented him from leading the life of an ordinary family man despite all the responsibilities, love and concerns for the family as a son, husband and father.

She learned how her father received the love and admiration of the downtrodden people who offered his services, even to people in distress.

When she gradually grew up, Sheikh Hasina saw how the mass movement was led by her father to accomplish the just causes of the common citizens he called "my guys." She watched him closely as he forged a distinct cultural and political identity for them; the dream of independence visualized and expressed for them and eventually led them in a successful battle to establish a country.

"As I turned over the pages of the notebooks and caressed his handwritten lines, it seemed to me that my father was telling me, 'Don't be afraid, dear; I am with you; go ahead and be determined.' It seemed to me that God had miraculously given me a message to be indomitable," she wrote in a piece. 

Happy birthday, Sheikh Hasina.