হসন্ত-২

When Did Margarita Become “Our Girl”?

Everyone was waiting for her appearance, staring at the entrance like butterfly will come out of its cocoon and will start dancing. Though, she is familiar with this moment like hundred times, in different intensities may be—yet it was no ordinary fraction of seconds for her life! It was Olympic games Rio 2016 and Margarita Mamun was taking her last short deep breaths before starting.  Audience’s eye met a new super-woman, gliding in the ground with utmost flexibility, unlatching her flamboyance in the air with time. Audience may took a sip from their drink but their eyes didn’t leave Maragrita’s performance for a fraction of a moment. Then the moment came when Russian-Bangladeshi gymnast Margarita Mamun won gold in the women's individual all-around rhythmic gymnastics event at Rio de Janeiro's Olympic Arena on Saturday.

The incident delineated here is certainly a matter of achievement for Russia, whereas Bangladeshi people are considering this as an achievement of their own too. No wonder, merchandising their asset and then acting that as own possession is Bangladeshi’s life-long nature. Apparently, 20-year-old Margarita’s father is an engineer from Bangladesh settled in Moscow, therefore, making her a half Bangladeshi too. It seems, our too-hyped nation took this so called half-bengali title too seriously, making it a hot potato. Our newspapers are charmed to entitle her as “our girl”—unluckily, my little brain is failed to unclasp the claim—when did she become our girl?

I believe, picture paints a thousand words, thus, I am trying to doodle a simple scenario here. Simply put, if Margarita was brought up in Bangladesh, would she be able to conquer her dreams? Rather than, she would tangle her dreams with forensic medicine book or circuit math may be?  May be she would never know what her dreams was due to controlling her remote from Star Jalsha to Zee Bangla instead of controlling her life. Her long cherished dream would be suppressed for good only because-- what will others think? This society has created a parameter of “good professions” which only include doctor, engineer, lawyers and dumps others in the black hole of societal disdain. We, certainly stopped living our life just because what would someone think of it. Well, that defines pretty much why we are one of those 75 countries which never have Olympic medal in their pocket! There is a troll went viral about Margaret in facebook saying- I am lucky that my father went abroad, otherwise I would be running for medical coaching in farmgate instead of winning Olympic gold medal.” Well said, right? It’s obvious. Then again, giving the benefit of doubt, I am saying we could accept her talent. Still, when “our girl” would go to participate in rhythmic gymnastics in such short dress, would our society accept that? Wouldn’t they cut her head twice by criticizing virtually? Yes, that’s the picture of our country, that’s how we treat our talents-smothering by society. Where we don’t have any contribution in nurturing her talents, can’t provide proper environment for her to grow up, how can we even slightly think that she is “our girl”?

We might misjudge our talent, but our gem did not forget to reminisce her root. Margarita came here with her father in 2009 to participate in Olympic from as a representative of Bangladesh. They even contacted with Gymnastics Federation and Bangladesh Olympic Association (BOA), yet no respond came from the authority. While asked, authority explained that they did not have enough facilities to provide her back then. Truth is, we didn’t even try to arrange something for her passion, because we didn’t believe in her. Now when she dug out the gold from coal all by herself, we are claiming, she is “our girl”? Ridiculous, isn’t it?

I feel like living in a live circus, seeing people giving proud hashtags for “our girl” Margaret who has upheld our country’s name in world map, spewing so-called “classy-intellectual” statuses for her titling as “Tigress of Bengal”. Is that so? Or we are just demeaning ourselves, showing the world how ignorant a nation can be, exaggerating our fault-lines as our success in virtual world. Same case happened when Nadiya Jamir Hussain, a British-Bangladeshi baker got opportunity to bake queen Elizabeth’s cake after winning a renowned baking competition. Our too-hyped nation took full credit of that too!

This is a country of executor from the very beginning. Long before political or religious death massacre, our guardians are being the metaphorical murderer of their child. Sir Abdullah  Abu sayeed said it right, “Our parents are manslayer of talents, the student who was supposed to be Einstein, parents make him engineer, the student who was supposed to be Rabindranath Tagore, parents make him doctor.”  Therefore, I believe, even if Margarita is the “Tigress of Bengal” we don’t have the right to call her that, even if we are happy for her, we can’t claim her. Even after having Bengali bloods running in her vein, sadly, she doesn’t belong to us. Our country could have done so many things, lugubriously, ignorance interrupted the path. The greater fighter we are, the lesser successful we are as nation. “Freedom is hard to preserve than achieving”-we are just the best example of this quote!