IN several countries of the world, the New Year is ushered in with fanfare, as well as with a list of people the nation feels ought to be honoured. At the onset of the Gregorian or Bengali New Year, Bangladesh should be doing the same. It appears to me that we have not adequately honoured, with the nation's highest civilian awards, individuals who have helped Bangladesh in the past and are helping it at present. Here are some suggestions.

For someone with stellar recent contributions to Bangladesh, we need to look no farther than the current United States Ambassador to Bangladesh, Her Excellency Mary Ann Peters. I do not recall any other Ambassador who has been a better friend of Bangladesh. She has chastised her nation's media for Bangla-desh-bashing. At times she has been at odds with her own nation's government over its policy towards Bangladesh. Although it was beyond her power to prevent Bangladesh from being included on the State Department's list of "terrorrisk nations," it is clear where her heart is. I do not know whether the government of my native land will honour her, but I, and many expatriate Bangladeshis I have spoken to, will remain eternally grateful to Her Excellency Mary Ann Peters for all that she has done for Bangladesh.

Now let us go back to the beginning of Bangladesh. For his contribution to the liberation war and for helping print Bangladesh's first postal stamp, the father of the nation, Sheikh Mujubur Rahman,

had bestowed on British Member of the Parliament, Mr. John Stonehouse, an honorary Bangladeshi citizenship in the early 1970s. Unfortunately for Bangladesh, Mr. Stonehouse fell on hard (criminal) times, faked his drowning in Miami, USA, and was arrested hale and hearty in Australia! Still, I believe that it was the correct deci-

sion to honour Mr. Stonehouse, a friend in need. For the same reason, Nelson Mandela still expresses his gratitude to Fidel Castro for Castro's support of the black South Africans during the apartheid era, and Mandela remains furious with Israel for Israel's wholehearted cooperation with racist South Africa to the detriment of black South Africans.

Perhaps because of their impending diplomatic overtures to China (Pakistan's friend), President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor/Secretary of State, Dr. Henry Kissinger had remained adamantly opposed to the creation of Bangladesh in 1971. The American public (Europeans too) first became aware of the name "Bangladesh" because of a concert held

in New York City's Madison Square Garden, appropriately named, "Concert for Bangladesh," in 1971. Although the late Beatle, George Harrison, got most of the credit for the concert, for he sang the theme song, "Bangladesh, Bangladesh," the main force behind the concert was maestro Pandit Ravi Shankar, the Beatles' Indian Guru. Sitar mae-

stro Ravi Shanker's glittering list of accomplishments also include Music Directorship of Satyajit Ray's earlier films, as well as that of Richard Attenborough's 1982 epic, "Gandhi." Now, Ravi Shanker did not organise the concert for Bangladesh because he felt that the creation of Bangladesh would weaken Pakistan and strengthen India; he did it purely for the love of his East Bengali brothers and sisters. Pandit Ravi Shanker also recorded a heart-searing Bengali song, "Hae Bhagaban, Khuda Taala" (O Hindu God, Muslim God), lamenting God's punishment of the Bangladeshis. We had failed to honour George Harrison during his lifetime, for he left us in 2001. We must honour him now, even after his death. Surely, we

must do something big to honour Pandit Ravi Shanker, another of our true friend in need.

It is great that we have adopted Rabindranath Tagore's "Shonar Bangla" as our national anthem. But we must do more. Bangladesh is the only nation on earth with Bangla as its national language. Our national language, Bangla,

owes more to Rabindranath Tagore, Bangla's Shakespeare, than anyone else. Let us name prominent institutions and monuments after Rabindranath Tagore.

What about the cultural field? Since the 1950s, Bangladeshis have been nourished by steady flow of some cultural diets from India. We lost Hemant Mukherjee in 1989. He was the epitome of Bengali singing in all its facets: Rabindra Sangeet, modern Bengali song and everything in between. We must honour him. Then there is the nightingale Lata Mangeshkar of worldwide renown, whose Bengali songs number second only to her Hindi songs. With due respect to Hemant Mukherjee, who was the person to persuade Lata to sing in Bengali, if

one were to select ten all time best Bengali songs, Lataji would have at lest seven. Can anyone in Bangladesh, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition included, deny humming a Lata Bengali or Hindi song even to this day? During the writer's recent visit to Bangladesh, he stocked up on Lata's Hindi and Bengali CDs. Lataji would top

my list of cultural honourees.

In many spheres, Bangladesh has been the trendsetter in the subcontinent. In 1982, we changed the name the British gave our capital city, "Dacca," (which some Englishmen annoyingly used to pronounce as the Senegalese capital, "Dakar") to a phonetically more accurate "Dhaka." Of course, Mumbai (Bombay), Chennai (Madras) and Kolkata (Calcutta) have followed suit lately. To make room for the new honourees, we have to prune some old names. Our number one resort city is Cox's Bazaar. I have no idea what Mr. Cox ever did to deserve such an honour. Could we look into that? I have no problem in a major thoroughfare in Dhaka's fashionable Gulshan being named

after the friendly people of Turkey.

The writer is not opposed to retaining British era names per se. After all, the writer is suggesting that we honour another Englishman, George Harrison, by naming something after him. How the British era gentlemen gained their prominence is what we have to investigate. If Mr. Cox was rewarded for suppressing freedom fighter Master Da Surja Sen in Chittagong, for example, (I am not suggesting he did) we have to reevaluate whether he deserves the honour. On the other hand, there are Britishers who have helped East Bengalees enormously, and we must keep on honouring them by retaining their names. Lord Curzon, after whom Curzon Hall, Dhaka University's sprawling Science Complex is named (of which the writer is a beneficiary), is one such person. It was Lord Curzon's determination to help the East Bengalees that resulted in the creation of Dhaka University in 1922.

National awards are meant to be given away to deserving persons. Hoarding and hogging them defeats the purpose for which they were created. We cannot repay our enormous debts to those who came through for us at a time when there was little hope for our nationhood. All we can do now is acknowledge our debts to them, and to others who have enriched us culturally, by awarding them some titles, and naming roads and institutions after them, as tokens of our national appreciation. After all, as a nation, when we honour others, we honour ourselves.