The world is strife torn, volatility seems to affect quite a lot of nations, and while the common man keeps on hoping for the situation to become better, the reality sometimes seems to say otherwise.
Well, as they say, when there’s too much madness all around, just get under the blanket with a hot water bottle, pull down the wool cap over the eyes and then dive into sleep land.
And after you wake up, the world, perhaps will not have changed but an invigorating sleep will give us the spirit to move on with the famous line from Shakespeare’s Macbeth: “Come what come may, time and hour runs through the roughest day.”
With Dhaka covered under a blanket of fog and the temperature taking a dive near to 11-12C, even those who are coming from cold countries are saying: Wow, Dhaka is freezing!
If they were to borrow from the bard, the line would have been from King Lear: “This cold night will turn us all into fools and madmen.”
An hour of hubris, a season of amour
Winter, especially in Bangladesh, has always been associated with love, marriage, romance, and plenty of kachchi biriyani.
Winter means tying the knot although very little is known as to how many knots are torn in winter.
But let’s focus on the magic of marriage -- illuminated buildings, music, opulent décor, elaborate events, and the vows of eternal love.
That thrilling and heady atmosphere blessed by the lines from Romeo and Juliet: “My bounty is boundless as the sea, my love is deep, the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”
Now of course, there are those who pick winter excitement and the exuberant atmosphere of family marriage events to propose to someone.
Some are tongue tied, others hesitant because a refusal would mean a period of dejection.
Well, as the bard said in Measure for Measure: “Our doubts are our traitors and make us lose the good we oft might win by fearing to attempt.”
I recall an incident from the 90s when a friend took inspiration from the bard and went ahead to face the love interest with a proposal.
I am already in a relationship, came the reply with a smile.
The friend smiled back and used the famous line from Richard III: “Since I cannot prove a lover, I am determined to prove a villain!”
Now that answer led to a friendship and then, when the girl’s other relationship didn’t work out, a marriage!
As Shakespeare said in 12th Night: “Journey’s end in lovers meeting, every wise man’s son doth know.”
Winter is all about weddings and glitz as many areas of the city turn into magical realms with fairy lights. But the magical night always leads to the cold light of the day and the line from The Merchant of Venice: “All that glitters is not gold, often you have been told.”
And in this cold, there are those who venture out with blankets to help those living on the streets, echoing the line from Merchant of Venice: “How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in this naughty world.”
That brings us then to hubris, which is making the headlines in most media outlets across the world.
Acting like a bully and flaunting might also have the perfect Shakespearean line from Measure for Measure: “But man proud man, dressed in his little brief authority, his glassy essence like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as to make the angels weep.”
Well, there’s another more piercing quote from the bard about misuse of power: “It’s excellent to have a giant’s strength but it’s tyrannous to use it like one.”
Looking forward to 2026
For Bangladesh, this year is significant. Elections are on the way and, hopefully, there will be a new government in place.
Forgotten faces take centre stage while those who ranted and raved are on the run.
Once the late Humayun Azad, said: “The biggest actors are politicians, they act on the largest stage.”
He must have taken inspiration from the bard, whose famous quote will forever remain relevant: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and entrances and one man, in his time plays many parts.”
Those who faced persecution, rebuke and endured hardship seem to be having the last laugh.
Lest we forget, the lines from As You Like It: “Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the road, ugly and venomous, wears a precious jewel on its head.”
As cold winter evening discussions inevitably gravitate towards the future of the country, the feeling is a mixture of hope and caution.
But history has taught Bangladesh one stark lesson that resonates with the lines from King Lear: “Time shall unfold what plaited cunning hides, who covers faults, at last, shame them derides.”
Moving ahead, let’s tackle the setbacks of the year gone by to look ahead in the bard’s line: “True hope is swift and flies with swallow’s wings, kings it makes gods and meaner creature kings.”
Towheed Feroze is a former journalist.
