Yes, I am.
Oh, you mean the note? OK, OK, I'll read it.
Keshto Ghosh.
How I wish you were wrong.
You misunderstand the matter. That IS the inherent difference between north and south. The north is emotional, quick to take offence, and display their hostility very quickly on provocation. The south is rational, calm and generally stable and kindly to other profiles. Both, I am proud to corroborate your statement, were intensely loyal to India, until recent developments, that made them feel that their own soil and their own land was being torn from them.
If I was a religious person, I would have called down the wrath of God on the bigots who are driving apart our communities.
I don't see why the annexation of one by the other even comes up.
What interest would Bangladesh have to dissipate her hard-won economic gains to nurture many millions more along the same path? Why should she take on the additional burden of defending larger territories, before perfecting her hold over her existing land (and sea - her vast ocean resources are very ill-served)? What will these teeming masses bring her in exchange, other than a lower standard of living, and a population wholly uninterested in defending their common territory?
Why can't Bangladesh be left alone to prosper and to gallop along at the highest rate of growth in south Asia, as she has been doing? Why are Indians always thought to be eyeing that country as a fit place for domination and conquest? I would be happy going back to Dhaka, as I was used to do, meeting my friends, those who are still alive, alas, and visiting
Jagannath College University for sentimental reasons, and our old house in Ganderia. Or, as a cousin has done, eaten the magical mishti doi of Bogra, my maternal grandmother's home, or seen the vast waters of Barisal, my maternal grandfather's home.
I think these suggestions spring from indigestion.
Chhagole ki na khaye....
Ooooh.
Weak with laughter.
@Mentee, my dear, you couldn't be more wrong.
@itsanufy, you're right. Let him come to Hyderabad, and see how Bengalis dominate the corporate world. Or Bengaluru, or Mumbai, or Delhi. Bengali doctors have always been at the fore; all over UP and northern India, you get these hopeful boards proclaiming Bangali Doktor, behind which the local Licensed Medical Practitioner lurks, waiting for a patient on whom to pounce. Ditto, ditto with Bengali accountants or journalists; just look at the masthead and the attributions in any of the media. Let it not be forgotten that The Knob is Assamese, NOT Bengali, and continue from there. And teachers? Professors? Ask me. And let's not get into culture and the film world.