Many say that the name of city of Dhaka has been derived from famous goddess 'Dhakeswari' the temple at Chowkbazar area of present Dhaka. The vibrant city amid its busy life and intolerable traffic snarls,speaks with its multiple colour, lures with its mouth watering dishes in plush restaurants and luxurious club culture. Aristocrat Gulshan enclave proudly heralds its money power and luxury along with its beauty and serenity. The city can boast of the beautiful piece of architecture of Baytul Mukarrom, one of finest mosque of south Asia.
At the same time this great city silently opened a window to show respect to a person, named Mintu Dey,without his contribution, the history this great city might not be complete. Mintu Dey a nonchalant sculptor was biologically born of late Shantilal Dey at Khulna, Bangladesh on 16th July 1978 who now resides at this historical city. Much before his birth, this beautiful city Dhaka bore the scar of most heinous and pre-planed genocide, where the famous university became a killing field. Whole world witnessed how on the infamous night of 25th March ,1971 dark night sky of Dhaka became darker with shame and dark thick smoke littered from heavy armoured cannon with sophisticated guns rolled inside the historical Dhaka University. Zahirul Islam Hall and Jagganath Hall of this famous university that proudly remembers the 'tlots' of shoes and tall strides on its corridor from taller and larger than life personalities like 'Boson' famous Satyen Bose or Dr. Suniti Kumar Chatterjee, was littered with thick human blood.Heaps of uncounted dead bodies of students laid unattended throughout this murky night.World knows how government machinaries were savagely used to tame its own citizens who only peacefully protested against the than Pakistan Government. Outside the University hundreds of poor were shot dead by army and those dead bodies were clicked by world press next morning.But thousands of bodies of those students inside the university were vanished in next morning by courtesy of Pakistan army who shoveled a long trench inside the campus and arranged for mass grave.
Infamous Mirpur brutalities of 1971 is probably known to all, where hundreds of migrated Bihari Muslims from India used to live. They were fortified from all sides and savagely killed. Interestingly, dead bodies of many were not found during the turbulent time.But a couple of years after independence in 1973, during sovereign Bangladesh government, few skulls and bones of human structure were unearthed when some digging was done for extension of a mosque in that area.It was believed that might be original mosque was erected over the mass grave during turbulent 1971 and thus the extension work was stopped by local authorities immediately to avoid any repercussion.
Mintu has not seen that night obviously, but he could never forgo the history.At the very tender age when people takes pen between the fingers he choose the chisel.He choose the hammer. He has not seen definitely those dark days of 1971 but his chisel spoke the history and whispered into his ears. The hammer he held in his hand has sang the song of independence, song of protest against inhuman brutality of dark days in his motherland. In present scenario of Bangladesh,who is more patriot then him?
He and his team are in continuous process of chiseling out the sculpture of those brutal episode of ugly 1971.They comprise of total 23 persons working tirelessly day and night to visualize the period.
He has selected to exhibit total 1071 sculptures and started the job roughly in September 2014 . They have selected to visualize 100 numbers of such heinous incident committed by Pakistan army in 64 numbers of villages.He will need 200 acres of land to keep his finished items and here the Bangladesh Silpakala Academy has come up to extend their help. It is decided that old airport will be place for his exhibition which he honestly wants to finish within December 2016 and dreams to do his presentation exactly on 25th March 2017.
Seeing his dedication towards the good cause and of course his undoubted patriotism,the Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University has kindly consented him to do his work at the large unused back space of his palatial residence, where Mintu has stored his semi finished items carefully.
He has started his job silently long back.Surprisingly he has not asked a single rupee for his project of such magnitude. Rather he and his team is continuously arranged their fund so far from sale proceeds of their art craft.
Mintu Dey is a natural wizard of art craft.With his untiring effort and dedication he could create a miniature 'Gitanjalee' of one inch size where he could store all songs of Tagore available in original Gitanjalee. He has created another master piece of half inch album contains clear pictures of all celebrity persons of previous centuries starting from Raja Ramohan Roy to Tagore and Ashotosh Mukherjee etc.His dedication towards his work has paid off and his name has been nominated for Guinness Book of World records.
He is definitely a hero of contemporary time and everyone who reads this blog is earnestly requested by me on behalf of Mintu Dey that kindly spread this to as many persons as you can so that his work reaches to proper fora and gets due recognition. Mintu Dey is a real hero of our time!
Infamous Mirpur brutalities of 1971 is probably known to all, where hundreds of migrated Bihari Muslims from India used to live. They were fortified from all sides and savagely killed. Interestingly, dead bodies of many were not found during the turbulent time.But a couple of years after independence in 1973, during sovereign Bangladesh government, few skulls and bones of human structure were unearthed when some digging was done for extension of a mosque in that area.It was believed that might be original mosque was erected over the mass grave during turbulent 1971 and thus the extension work was stopped by local authorities immediately to avoid any repercussion.
Mintu has not seen that night obviously, but he could never forgo the history.At the very tender age when people takes pen between the fingers he choose the chisel.He choose the hammer. He has not seen definitely those dark days of 1971 but his chisel spoke the history and whispered into his ears. The hammer he held in his hand has sang the song of independence, song of protest against inhuman brutality of dark days in his motherland. In present scenario of Bangladesh,who is more patriot then him?
He and his team are in continuous process of chiseling out the sculpture of those brutal episode of ugly 1971.They comprise of total 23 persons working tirelessly day and night to visualize the period.
He has selected to exhibit total 1071 sculptures and started the job roughly in September 2014 . They have selected to visualize 100 numbers of such heinous incident committed by Pakistan army in 64 numbers of villages.He will need 200 acres of land to keep his finished items and here the Bangladesh Silpakala Academy has come up to extend their help. It is decided that old airport will be place for his exhibition which he honestly wants to finish within December 2016 and dreams to do his presentation exactly on 25th March 2017.
Seeing his dedication towards the good cause and of course his undoubted patriotism,the Vice Chancellor of Dhaka University has kindly consented him to do his work at the large unused back space of his palatial residence, where Mintu has stored his semi finished items carefully.
He has started his job silently long back.Surprisingly he has not asked a single rupee for his project of such magnitude. Rather he and his team is continuously arranged their fund so far from sale proceeds of their art craft.
Mintu Dey is a natural wizard of art craft.With his untiring effort and dedication he could create a miniature 'Gitanjalee' of one inch size where he could store all songs of Tagore available in original Gitanjalee. He has created another master piece of half inch album contains clear pictures of all celebrity persons of previous centuries starting from Raja Ramohan Roy to Tagore and Ashotosh Mukherjee etc.His dedication towards his work has paid off and his name has been nominated for Guinness Book of World records.
He is definitely a hero of contemporary time and everyone who reads this blog is earnestly requested by me on behalf of Mintu Dey that kindly spread this to as many persons as you can so that his work reaches to proper fora and gets due recognition. Mintu Dey is a real hero of our time!
