It all started more or less a year ago after reading an article Dr. Habib Siddiqui had written about contemporary Bangladesh and while my motivation should have been interest, the truth is that it was embarrassment.

I felt embarrassed with the fact that I know a lot about India and Pakistan, past and contemporary, but I know so little about Bangladesh. Actually I knew more about the planet Mars than I knew about Bangladesh. To make things worse, in a small survey I did among my friends, I was not the only one who knew more about Mars than Bangladesh.

The South Asian state, while the eighth-most populous country in the world, gets barely and very rarely a line in our newsfeeds and only when it comes to poverty, immigration or …war. Very few people know about its rich cultural heritage and even less about the painter Shahabuddin Ahmed or the activist writer Sufia Kamal. I’m not trying to be clever, I did a lot of research to find them and it wasn’t always easy since it seems that it’s not just me that sees Mars …closer than Bangladesh.

So I reached out to Dr. Habib Siddiqui, since he was somehow responsible for my …Bangladesh fever, and thankfully our email-exchange led to this book.

“Bangladesh: A Short History of Its Birth”, by Dr. Habib Siddiqui; a man who actually has personal memories from the March 1971 uprising.

Commemorating and honouring the day that marks Bangladesh Independence, we are publishing this book, hoping that it will help you/us to bring Bangladesh and its people closer.

You can download the book from our Ovi Bookshelves as PDF and in formats for tablets, e-readers and mobile telephones, HERE!

After thanking Dr. Habib Siddiqui for his amazing work, the usual ending for a new book is, enjoy it; but in this case it is:

Learn from it!

Thanos Kalamidas