India, May 3 -- In early-1972, me and another school-friend decided - on a total impulse - to travel to the newly-liberated Bangladesh from Kolkata. For both, it was our first 'foreign' visit and we didn't even have passports - just a piece of paper allowing travel to Bangladesh. The week-long visit to Dhaka (or Dacca as it was then spelt) was memorable, exciting and instructive to our teenage imaginations. A narration of that visit should await our memoirs, if either or both of us should care to write one.
In these lockdown days what suddenly came to mind was the experience of a medical student who was also an activist of the National Awami Party led by Maulana Bhashani in East Pakistan. Although distinct from Sheikh Mujibur Rehman's Awam...