Gopalganj’s village Tungipara was once situated on the banks of the Madhumati River. Today, the Madhumati has shifted quite far away. Known as its branch, the Baigar River now flows past the village of Tungipara with a gentle, murmuring rhythm. When sunlight scatters or moonlight falls, the water of that river shimmers like silver.

Bordering the riverbanks are clusters of catkin grass, paddy, jute, and sugarcane fields, rows of date, palm, coconut, and amlaki trees, thickets of bamboo and banana plants, patches of wild vines and leaves, and long, fresh, slender blades of green grass. The chirping of starlings and sparrows, the call of doves in the tired afternoon—all combined to create a deeply endearing picture, like a piece of art.

I was born in this village of Tungipara on a golden, sun-drenched afternoon in the month of Ashwin. I grew up amidst the shade-drenched, affection-filled natural beauty, calm and quiet environment, and the charm of a simple, ordinary life in the village.

Our homestead is probably more than two hundred years old. Brick buildings constructed before the Sepoy Mutiny are still standing there. Our relatives live in those. However, most of them have collapsed, and they are now a haven for snakes. Our ancestors had many conflicts with the Indigo planters. Lawsuits took place. Clashes with the British sahebs were also a regular occurrence. Once, in a lawsuit, even a British saheb was defeated and fined. Standing as a silent witness to history, that ruined mansion still remains in a devastated state. During the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, the Pakistani army attacked that building. They made my grandparents sit on the front road and burned it down.

Traveling to our village by Dhaka steamer used to take seventeen hours. There were practically no roads. Boats and walking paths were the only reliance. Yet, that village held a tremendous attraction for me. Now, of course, one can go by car. Keeping pace with time, it is also possible to go by speedboat. Traveling from Gopalganj to Tungipara by boat takes three to four hours.

The colorful, dreamy days of my childhood were spent in the soft alluvial soil of rural Bengal, the mud and water of the monsoons, the sweet winter sunshine, among grass flowers and leaves. Breathing in the scent of dew, listening to the chirping of crickets in the firefly-lit darkness, gathering water lilies from the pond and shiuli and bokul flowers to weave into garlands, getting covered in dust and mud, and playing soaked in the rain. My father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was involved in politics. Most of the time back then, he was kept locked up in jail. My younger brother Kamal and I used to stay with our mother in the village home with our grandparents. When I was born, my father was studying and doing politics in Kolkata. Even upon receiving the news, he came to see us much later.

Whenever my father got the time and opportunity and came home, we would not budge from his side under any circumstances. Sitting on our father's lap and listening to stories, eating with him—whatever I received in my childhood felt like a great deal.

Once, when my father was brought to the Gopalganj police station, Kamal and I went with my grandfather to see him. Kamal was born while our father was in jail in Dhaka. He hadn't even seen our father up close back then. He would listen to stories about our father from me with wide-eyed fascination. We were standing by the pond near the Gopalganj jail, waiting to see him when they would take him to court. Kamal came up close and whispered: "Hasu Apa, will they let you call your father 'Abba'?"

This deep feeling of Kamal's remains vivid in the depths of my childhood heart to this day. During our childhood and adolescence, we very rarely had our father close to us. Because we were deprived of paternal affection in childhood, we received endless love and affection from our grandparents, relatives, and the people of the village.

For our family, a Maulvi, a pundit, and a master used to live right at home. All the children of our house learned their lessons from them morning and evening. I also studied for some time at the village primary school. Although I lived in the city from my adolescence, I maintained a close connection with the village. In 1952, riding in our family's private boat with my grandfather, I came to Dhaka city for the first time. My affectionate grandparents and most of our relatives lived in the village. Whenever there were school holidays or other festivals, I would head off to the village about three or four times a year. To this day, the nature and childhood of my village pull strongly at my heartstrings.

The days of my childhood were immensely full of memories. Today, the memories of those days come flooding back again and again as if the southern door of memory has swung open. I cannot help mentioning one incident. A paternal cousin of my father, who would be three or four years older than me. All the children of the house were going to school with that aunt. There was a bamboo bridge over a canal. We had to cross over that bridge. How terrified I was on the very first day.

My hands and feet were trembling. My aunt gave me courage, held my hand, and helped me cross the bridge. After that, I was never afraid again. In fact, I would always be the first one.

Waking up very early in the morning and walking along the riverbank with peers, soaking my feet in the warm water of the river on winter days—these were immensely enticing to me. Floating twin coconuts in the river or dropping a banana tree trunk to swim across, spreading a towel to catch Tengra, Puti, and Khalla fish. During the monsoons, many water hyacinths would float into the canal. When those hyacinths were pulled up, 'Koi and Bain' fish would emerge from their roots. Once, I got very terrified seeing a snake.

In the month of Baisakh, plucking raw mangoes, chopping them into tiny pieces, mixing them with ground mustard and green chilies, then filling a banana leaf folded into a cone with that spiced mango mixture, and sucking out the juice—the joy and taste of that still overwhelms me. Whoever has not tasted this spiced mango mixture wrapped in a banana leaf will never understand its flavor. And when wrapped in a banana leaf, the aroma of that mango mixture was entirely different. We used to fight so much over eating mangoes like this. We would shake the branches to pluck jujubes (borui) and scramble to eat them. On the bank of the large village pond (pukur) stood a massive jujube tree. As a result of the shaking, the reddest, most translucent jujube would fall deep into the pond, and since it was impossible for anyone to retrieve it, how can I ever forget the lingering sadness in my heart for that single jujube?

We used to roam around riding small dinghy boats through the middle of the jute fields. My grandfather had a large boat, inside of which there were two rooms and even large windows.

At the back of the boat was the rudder, and in the front were two oars. Sitting by the boat's window, I loved watching the blue sky and the distant village surrounded by lush green trees. During the Liberation War of 1971, that boat was broken and destroyed. That village left behind in my childhood still feels to me like a fragrant painting.

My father's birthplace is also Tungipara. He now rests in the shade-cooled environment of that village's soil. Right beside him are the graves of my grandparents. Those who filled my life with boundless love and affection now mingle with the soil of my village. On August 15, 1975, by the ruthless bullets of assassins, I lost my mother, father, brother, and many relatives. The country and the nation lost all their potentials for survival, their independent entity of hopes and aspirations—Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

The band of assassins removed that great man from the core of Bengal, Dhaka, and buried him quietly in rural soil. They made a futile attempt to erase him from the pages of history—but could they?

I used to spend a lot of time close to my father. I also got the opportunity to discuss many things about the future of his life. One thing he used to say comes to mind very strongly today. He would often say, "In my final days, I will live in the village. You will look after me. I will stay with you." Those words still echo in my ears. No matter where I am in the world, this pull of my father's mausoleum in the silent environment of the village draws me back to my village again and again.

I have now involved myself in politics. I am proud to be able to dedicate myself to the welfare of the country and its people. I want to spend the final days of my life permanently in Tungipara. I have a strong desire to build a house by the river.

I have a desire to write a memoir about my parents. Everyone knew my father as the politician Mujib. But I want to write about how great an ocean of a heart the individual Mujib possessed.

I naturally want to find the village again just like the village of my childhood. But it won't happen just because I wish for it. Times are changing rapidly. Through the touch of mechanization, busyness and dazzling changes have crept into the simple, ordinary life of the village as well. People are also gradually getting used to it.

Living in this century, there is no way to deny the blessings of science. Modern technology is being utilized for the improvement of rural life standards and labor in the developed countries of the world. We too must move forward.

Despite all my busyness, whenever I get a little time, I leave for the village. Why is it that whenever I feel like it, if only I could get back my childhood village. When the earthen path of the village loses itself somewhere far away, I feel like singing at the top of my lungs, "Gram chhara oi rangamatir poth, amar mon bhoolay re..." (That red clay path leaving the village, it captivates my mind...)

The poems related to villages in my childhood and adolescent school textbooks were very easy for me to memorize. "Amader chhoto gaye chhoto chhoto ghor" (Small, small houses in our small village), "Tumi jabe bhai jabe mor sathe amader chhoto gaye" (You will go, brother, you will go with me to our small village), "Bohudin pore mone pore aj polli mayer kol" (After many days, today I remember the lap of the rural mother), "Bhash baganer mathar upor chad utheche oi" (The moon has risen above the bamboo grove), "Mehena parer chhele ami" (I am a boy from the banks of the Meghna), "Chhipkhan tin dar, tinjon malla" (Three slender oars, three boatmen), "Talgaach ek paye dariye" (The palm tree stands on one leg)—I still remember these lines of poetry.

When I entered the golden gates of Bengali literature and culture as a reader, I was just an adolescent. Later, I became a student. Whenever I got the opportunity, I read village-based novels, stories, and poems. Bibhutibhushan’s Pather Panchali completely captivated me for the first time. Even now, whenever I find it at hand, I flip through the pages. The love, affection, and playful bickering of the two siblings Durga and Apu, wandering all over the village, sharing whatever they got, Durga's sense of duty towards Apu, Durga's illness and death. Apu's sorrow and the pain of losing his elder sister, old grandmother's hurt pride, sorrow, pain, and helplessness. Apu's mother Sarbojaya, whose constant companion is sorrow and poverty, her constant struggle alongside life, her affection for her children. Apu and Durga's father's migrant working life, the saree the father brought for Durga after her death—so many fragmented pictures of such small, sorrowful real-life still exist all across the villages of Bangladesh. Pather Panchali reminds me of my own village. Pather Panchali is the greatest novel in Bengali literature. Rabindranath’s village-based short stories are also deeply dear to me. Artist Zainul Abedin's sketches depicting the village are also true to life. I still remember the picture of a bride wearing a nose-ring amidst a thicket of banana plants.

Our cultural heritage is by no means negligible. Baul songs, Vaishnav songs, Bhawaiya, Bhatiyali songs of the boatmen—all of these are glories of time immemorial. The village is our life. The glowing, modern capital and cities are being sustained by the rural economy and its people. Every village, big or small, must be developed as a modern and ideal village in accordance with our heritage.

For rural development, the very first necessity is a proper electrification system. Every village should have hospitals equipped with modern instruments, schools, maternity centers, agricultural and technical training centers, cultural centers, playgrounds, and so on. Housing conditions must be sturdy and clean. Roads must be widened and paved, and transport arrangements must be facilitated to ease communication with the city.

Agricultural lands should be consolidated through cooperatives, and initiatives must be taken to ensure fair distribution of agricultural systems and produce, marketing of harvested crops at fixed prices, and hygienic food preservation systems. Food grains produced in the village must be made easily accessible to ordinary people. Exported produce and raw materials for factories must be brought under government management for smooth supply. Agriculture must be modernized and brought under scientific management. Seasonal crops should be produced two to three times all year round. Not a single plot of land should be left fallow. Fish production must be increased by cultivating fish in rivers, canals, marshes, and ponds. Farms should be established with the objective of massively increasing livestock and poultry production. All over the world today, new methods are being invented to increase food production. I believe that in our land of sorrow, poverty, and famine, increasing food production should be given national priority. Only by increasing food production will village people not crowd into cities. By providing them with proper training and ensuring easy availability of agricultural inputs, they should be kept active and busy all year round. Cottage industries in rural areas should be upgraded and widely expanded in accordance with our culture and heritage. Pathways must be created for the development of rural agricultural products and all kinds of small and large businesses and industries. This will also create employment opportunities. I believe that a modern, up-to-date agricultural system can be our primary tool in increasing production. At the same time, we must change the burnt-out, famine-and-poverty-stricken fates of the oppressed, deprived, and neglected farmers who have suffered for ages, and ensure their minimum right to survival. The girls and women of our villages are the most backward. The web of social restrictions, religious bigotry, and superstitions continuing for ages must be shattered to pave the way for the development of their talents. Their labor force must also be engaged with equal dignity in increasing production. In the social sphere, they are often victims of various injustices and transgressions. If girls get the opportunity for universal education, stand on their own feet economically, and get the chance to establish themselves with courage in mindset and personality, no form of oppression or exploitation will stand in their way. Women must take the struggle to establish their own rights and dignity firmly into their own hands. However, the state must ensure their security and provide them with all kinds of cooperation.

One more issue regarding village development fills me with immense dread.

That is the high number of malnourished, skeleton-like children who form our most neglected and helpless segment. In every village I have visited across the country, I have seen these same children. When these children are born, their future must undoubtedly be made promising and secure. We must take the initiative to make their childhood, adolescence, and youth joyful and happy. Thinking of their prosperous and enriched future, we should adopt the firm mentality of dedicating our present to them. And along with that, everyone must be selfless. By halting population growth, capable people must be engaged in productive work.

By the process of village development, I do not believe in any token or temporary measures. We must build modern villages by comprehensively reforming the traditional mindset of the ancient agricultural system accustomed to a backward lifestyle shrouded in darkness for ages. I do not want grant-based or promise-driven development; I want "total" or "comprehensive" development. If necessary, a nationwide movement must be built for this, and the educated, conscious youth community must be put to work.

I have observed countless characters of rural life very closely. I am reminded very much of Akkel’s mother from our village. She has grown old now. She has three sons. She was widowed at a young age. Her movement across all neighborhoods and houses in the village is unrestricted. Every household's daily affairs are at her fingertips. She is like the village gazette. Whose house needs cooking, who needs to make pitha (rice cakes)—Akkel’s mother is present for all tasks. Whenever we visited the village, she would be called for making pitha or making taler phuluri (palm fritters). If you stopped by her house on the way, she would definitely make you sit on a low wooden stool (pipi) and feed you betel leaf and nuts.

During the harvesting season, many people used to come from the south. They were known as "Porabasi" (foreigners/migrants). They performed tasks like harvesting and threshing paddy. They would build small huts and stay for the entire season. Once the harvesting was done, they would leave with their respective shares. During the monsoon season, Bede (snake charmer/nomadic) women would come in boats. They would press and put colorful glass bangles on our wrists. Bringing ribbons, alta (red dye), combs, mirrors, and various toys and makeup accessories, they would arrive right on time during the designated season of the year. Sometimes they would also show snake dances, playing flutes and singing various songs. The village wives and daughters-in-law would gather around them to get native herbal medicines. They would hand out all kinds of amulets and exorcisms to everyone. In exchange, they would also take paddy, rice, broken rice grains, vegetables, eggs, and chickens.

Along the paths, fields, and farms of rural Bengal, there are countless such diverse life characters. The farmer who labors from sunrise to sunset with the aspiration of two handfuls of rice, who plows the arid fields scorched by Chaitra sun, who dives into chest-deep water in the monsoons to cut jute, who harvests crops enduring the bitter winter shivers—is his life struggle any less valuable than any other struggle?

I know that those beautiful days of my village will never return. One by one, everything has vanished. That familiar village of mine, those people battered by the blows of life are no more. That human spirit and life are gone. Everyone seems defeated by the war today. Even that tender essence has died. Today, there is only a competition for survival. And thus selfishness and conflict have increased. The sense of brotherhood has vanished, and outstretched hands have shrunk. I do not know where this will end.

I was born in a village, and I enjoyed the colorful days of my childhood in a village. I have a deep relationship with rural habits, manners, lifestyles, and mentality. Even now, whenever I get a little time and opportunity, I feel breathless and head off to the village. Taking a break from the mechanical, busy life of the city and going into the quiet, still, peaceful nature of the village brings a peaceful sleep to my eyes. Getting such sleep in the capital is difficult. The air here is very heavy, and just breathing is a struggle. The open sky full of night stars is so vast there. The free wind comes rushing, touching the leaves of neem, kadam, palm, and coconut trees, creating a rhythmic sound. Bibhutibhushan's Ruposhi Bangla seems to be my village—my eyes are filled with joy seeing the lush green nature and crop fields. From the quiet afternoon floats the call of doves and moorhens, and the kingfisher can accurately dive straight into the river to fetch a fish. There is no other attraction, allure, or satisfaction greater than this in anything else. The dust-covered village life is the love of my birth. The deepest emotion of my heart.

Author: Sheikh Hasina, politician, five-time elected Prime Minister of Bangladesh, President of the Awami League, and daughter of Bangabandhu. Translated from Bengali by Anowaruluzzaman Chowdhury, politician and Mayor of Sylhet City Corporation.