Dear Reader, Bangladesh celebrated 50 years of Independence this week. The country was born in 1971 after a long, drawn out struggle for Bengali nationalism against West Pakistan. The architect of Bangladesh’s War of Liberation was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. Although Mujib was born in Tungipara in East Bengal and reached the zenith of his political career in East Pakistan while fighting for an independent Bangladesh, the prime of his youth was spent in Calcutta. It was in a small, dingy room inside Calcutta’s Baker hostel that the seeds of political revolution were sown in a young Mujib. In his early 20s then, Mujib was studying in Islamia College, which is presently known as the Maulana Azad College. He lived in Calcutta between 1942 and 1947. Though a relatively short period of time, it was a crucial phase both in Mujib’s life and in the larger history of the Indian national movement and the Partition of India. Although Bengali nationalism was not part of his political ideology at that point, the five years of activism that Mujib was involved in during his stay in Calcutta went a long way in the way he drew out the movement for Bangladesh later. We travelled back in time to Mujib’s hostel room in Baker hostel. Turned into a well-kept museum, it is opened rarely and only to those with exclusive permission from the Bangladesh High Commission. In this piece, we wrote about the time that Mujib spent as a boarder inside this room. Mujib’s political acumen was evident from early age itself when he rallied around fellow students in a bid to convince them of the need for a separate state for India’s Muslims. Under the guidance of H S Suhrawardy, he would be found on most days campaigning for political causes. During the Bengal famine of 1943, when hundreds were dying on the streets of Calcutta, Mujib was at the forefront, arranging for relief. Similarly, during the 1946 Calcutta riots, he was not only active in organising relief work, but also accompanied central leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and MA Jinnah to different parts of Bengal as they made efforts to stop the riots. For Streetwise Kolkata this week, Neha Banka narrated the story of Zakaria Street. Best known for its delectable food spread and the largest mosque in Kolkata, the street is named after Hadji Nur Muhammad Zakaria, a Muslim trader and a deeply respected member of the Kutchi Memon community in Calcutta. In this story, Banka unravels how Zakaria Street was named after him as also the larger history of communal coexistence and conflict between Muslims and Marwaris who lived on this lane. As we head into the weekend, here’s wishing you all a happy Holi. On the occasion, do read this article from 2018 on how European traders and colonisers in India documented their experience about this unique Indian festival. Sincerely, Adrija Roychowdhury | 
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