PicStory : Power

Mahijur Rahman had felt intoxicated with power for the first time at the age of 16 when he was chosen as the Head Boy of his school in a small town in Bangladesh. Suddenly, the students feared him and the teachers respected him. This was not a feeling that he had ever felt before and he enjoyed it a lot.

Now he had to figure out how to hold on to that power. So in college he started participating in the elections and soon became the President of the University. It didn't take long for him to realize that no one is as powerful as a politician holding his chair. Bit by bit, year after year, Mahijur began building his clout and within ten years, he had become a critical member of the ruling party.

His golden opportunity arose when the party president and the running Prime Minister decided to step down due to health reasons. The party chose Mahijur as its face and all his hard work paid off. He won by a landslide and was chosen as the Prime Minister of his country. To Mahijur, there wasn't a high, bigger than this in life, and he relished every bit of it.

Unfortunately, this joy of his was short-lived as ten years in office, and he was shot dead by an individual who didn't agree with his policies and decisions. However, Mahijur had such a big impact on the citizens of Bangladesh in those ten years that they asked a well known artist to put up a wall art right at the border so that Mahijur could watch everyone entering the city.

Even after death, Mahijur continued enjoying his power over his country!

                        Pic details: Clicked on the streets of Porto, Portugal in Sept 2019

#PictureStory 45 : Heart

Even before he turned three, Alex's mother was telling him stories of different heroes and different personalities from various parts of the world.

She was keen to inculcate the values of equality, respect, tolerance and acceptance within him as she knew that the world didn't take long to bring its shroud of racism, bigotry, colour, caste, religion and many other filters just to keep differentiating one human being from another.

Quite often, the stories had characters from the figment of Alex's mother's imagination as her objective from every story was to make Alex a better human than the day before. Even when Alex started going to school, his mother's stories protected him from getting corrupted by the worldly views.

At the age of 14, when Alex discovered that he has feelings for other boys, he confided this to his mother. She showed complete support to Alex, and told him that there is only one thing that matters in this world, and that is love.

'It doesn't matter who you love, as long as you keep loving without judging the other person and are willing to open the window of your soul to that person without inhibition. Pure connections happen when two souls connect, the physical form outside is not important as it is just a haven for the soul." said Alex's mother, reassuring him.

Today, Alex felt that among all the heroes that his mother had told him about, she forgot to tell him the story of one hero - herself.

Pic details: Clicked on the streets of Basel, Switzerland in Aug 2019