Mahtab Uddin Ahmed

Three friends from different countries once discussed what made them happiest.

In every office, there’s that “corporate friend” who calls you brother but forwards your email to the boss with “just for visibility.” He borrows your charger, your ideas, and occasionally your lunch. At appraisal time, he suddenly develops selective amnesia about team efforts. Yet at office parties, he hugs you, saying, “We survived together!” “We are one team!” In corporate life, friendships are real, just performance-linked and ego-driven.

Once, leadership meant fixing problems. Today, it means fixing narratives. Roads can wait, facts are negotiable, and applause is a performance metric. The louder the speech, the stronger the leader. Listening is optional, empathy is overrated, and silence is sold as public support.

The CEO and board spent three meetings arguing over his bonus, quoting KPIs and “current market conditions.” The consultant calmly billed for conflict management and facilitation, earning more than the bonus, even though they did not attend the final meeting.

A famous mango seller named Mintu sold the cheapest and juiciest mangoes. One night, the inspector discovered mangoes were being stolen from the government orchard.

Every society has its unwelcome truth tellers. In Bangladesh, we treat them with refined politeness.

If Bangladesh suddenly bans social media for everyone under sixteen, the first shock will not shake the earth. It will shake the nation’s emotions.

There is an old joke in corporate circles: a burglar breaks into a house, finds nothing worth stealing, and leaves a thank-you note for wasting his time.

If digital banking were a cricket match, Bangladesh would still be warming up while Kenya and Ghana are already batting in the Super Over. The idea is simple: if a country wants to take banking to the unbanked, it must go where the unbanked actually live, outside traditional banking halls, far away from the marble floors and token queues. Most African nations figured this out early.

At a college reunion, everyone began boasting about promotions, new cars, and busy lives. Still, within minutes, the conversation shifted to stress, exhaustion, and the familiar Bangladeshi complaint that the country was draining them.

If you have ever seen a group photograph of professional accountants, you might notice something curious. Everyone looks serious, composed, almost expressionless. It is not that accountants dislike joy. They simply know that smiling in public can lead to someone asking for “just a quick look at my accounts”, which is never quick, never simple and rarely free of emotional pain.

Last Eid-ul-Azha, I watched my mama in Banani decide he would handle the entire qurbani himself: choosing the cow, doing the paperwork, collecting the cash, sending out the cuts, even cooking the curry while wearing a whistle for some reason.

If you ever find yourself stuck in traffic at Mohakhali Flyover, you will probably notice your hand reaching for your phone before the CNG ahead even coughs out a cloud of black smoke.

If you walk into a startup pitch competition in Dhaka, it often feels like going to a winter wedding. Everyone wears the same panjabi and waistcoat, and talks about disruption in the same polished accent they learned from a YouTube video.

Bangladesh’s Telecommunication Network and Licensing Policy 2025 represents the most ambitious reform since the 2010 ILDTS framework

A CEO in Dhaka once gathered his managers and declared with great seriousness, “Our company has only one purpose: to maximise profit.

One of my friends has been working with a government agency for the last three years on a project, bringing more than a decade of hard-earned experience to the table, as well as the rare distinction of having actually managed the kind of project they were struggling with.

A king once set out to tour his kingdom with an assistant. In the very first village they visited, they discovered that water and ghee were being sold at the same price.

The wealthiest man in the city once promised to donate gold equal to the weight of a cow at a charity event. The organisers, being business-minded, asked for some time, not to think but to fatten the cow, and immediately started feeding it biryani to make it heavier.

We have always been champions of hugging. From clutching relatives at weddings long enough to make the stage creak, to embracing one another at mosques after prayers, to greeting colleagues with theatrical warmth at the first meeting of the week. And of course, the masters of the art, our politicians, hugging voters before elections with dazzling smiles, then hugging power afterwards as if their lives depended on it.