Wednesday, 06 August 2025
Where in the chest does a fire burn so deeply that words evaporate?
What kind of feeling chokes the throat, forcing the eyelids to drop into a hollow silence?
That day, over Uttara’s Milestone College, fire rose on the tattered wings of an old fighter jet—
and descended like a flaming curse upon the rooftop,
where dreams were in session,
and the scent of black smoke was turning calendars of hope into charred dust.
That warplane, tired and aging since 1976, had once again tried to touch the sky—
perhaps fate itself sighed in irony as it climbed.
But was the fault only mechanical?
No.
It was our conscience that burned.
It was our humanity that crumbled into ash.
The scorched bodies listed today—
they are not just casualties of a crash,
but the spectral questions rising from the graveyard of our indifference.
Children escaped from the abyss of smoke—
dropping their plastic-covered school bags,
suppressing their cries,
trying to scrub off the unbearable smell of burning flesh.
But what did they find outside?
Humans?
No—cameras disguised as people.
Onlookers weren’t reaching out to help;
they were busy filming.
Because sympathy no longer trends—views do.
Now, every scream is a clickbait.
We’ve turned pain into profit.
Rescuers, exhausted in the sweltering heat, entered the college canteen seeking water.
They were told, “Not without payment.”
And soon, the canteen was shut.
Because no one wanted to pay the price for compassion.
When some tried to carry the burned children to hospitals,
rickshaw pullers turned away.
CNG drivers demanded 1,000 taka.
Is this our city?
Is this our humanity?
A ride to the hospital became a business deal, not an act of mercy.
Private cars stood silently nearby—windows up, hearts sealed.
Their polished glass reflected the cold arrogance of apathy.
Why help?
The burned children weren’t theirs.
Compassion now seeks a surname.
And the children—whose faces were masked by white smoke—
they forgot their addresses,
some even forgot their mother’s name in terror.
Not one ID card had a parent’s phone number.
Beneath the sheen of uniforms, the cracks in our system stood exposed,
grinning in the darkness.
Even in hospitals, the show went on—
suits arrived for the cameras,
posing in choreographed concern.
Lights. Camera. Action.
A staged funeral procession dressed as sympathy.
Even the smell of barbecued flesh couldn’t break their performance.
The children who left us—
perhaps God saved them from this cruel, conscience-dead world.
And those of us who remain—
we carry a fire not in our skin, but deep in our souls.
Will we ever extinguish it?
Maybe we will—
if we forget caste, creed, class, and religion,
and remember how to be simply human.
Maybe we will—
if we stop judging by the color of blood,
and start protecting the life that flows through it.
“Blood needed, urgent—
we need blood now!”
But this call is no longer just to save a body—
it is a call to awaken a nation’s dying conscience.
So that another child’s scream never becomes a viral video,
and another life isn’t lost inside a livestream.
