Introduction
Through this project, I attempted to recount stories of those days witnessed by my aunts, uncles, and grand-parents. Their story will start some where in March of 1971 when the West Pakistani army initiated the systematic killing of the East Bengali intelligentsia to quell the upheaval against the West Pakistani regime. Their story will lead us up to December 16th , 1971 when the war ended through the defeat of West Pakistan at the hands of the Indian Army. India, the neighboring country of Pakistan, sent military troupes to stop the West Pakistani atrocities and liberate East Pakistan from the clutches of West Pakistan.
But the story doesn’t end there. The events of 1971 have continued to shape our history even today. I have grown up in the United States, all the way across the world from Bangladesh and India, where the events of 1971 took place. It is hard to think that events so long ago and so far away could have any bearing on my life at all. But history is not divided into discrete time sections or places and our lives are very much like a patchwork quilt made of fabric from various different places and times.
But the story doesn’t end there. The events of 1971 have continued to shape our history even today. I have grown up in the United States, all the way across the world from Bangladesh and India, where the events of 1971 took place. It is hard to think that events so long ago and so far away could have any bearing on my life at all. But history is not divided into discrete time sections or places and our lives are very much like a patchwork quilt made of fabric from various different places and times.