LIVING IN HARMONY

PHOTOGRAPHY

1ST PLACE: PANKAJ SIKDER

I have been taking pictures since I was very little, but you can't really take those seriously. They were amateur. However I professionally started in 1989.
I have many national and international awards. The most recent one I can think of is 2nd prize at the BPS National. In 1997 I won photograph of the year at CPPI.
Any award is something to feel proud about! Awards provide people a drive to do better, which makes them try even harder.

2ND PLACE: NOOR AHMED GELAL

I have been indulging my passion for photography since 2003.
 Before this, I was the 2nd runner-up of Celebrating Life 2011 and an honourable mention from last year's Celebrating Life for two of my photographs.
I am very excited and honored for achieving this award on this platform. The Daily Star has created this platform here people can show their skills and prove how are they eligible in the respective segments.

3RD PLACE: SHAIKH MOHIR UDDIN

I've been doing professional level photography since 1994.
Before this, I won the BPS award; I came in 1st, 3rd and received an honorable mention. I also received an honorable mention from Celebrating Life before as well.
I feel really good because it was difficult to find photos that went with the theme. But fortunately since I've been taking pictures for almost two decades. I found three in my collection and submitted them; of which two got selected.

LYRICS

1ST PLACE: SIPRA GOSWAMI

I have been doing this for the past two years. But have been writing stories, poems since  childhood. Songs are my obsession. I would also love to work with children.
No, I never received any awards for lyrics, but I did participate in cultural competitions before.
I am very excited and I still can't believe it!  When I first read about the competition in The Daily Star. I was interested to participate, but I never imagined that I would win. I wrote a song regarding the Rana Plaza tragedy, which was sung by Fakir Alamgir, but I didn't get much response from it. The theme for Celebrating Life 2014 was Living in Harmony which comes from ones heart, the word of belief which gave me the success for my work. I hope I will be able to win the hearts of people with my work.

2ND PLACE: TAPAN BAGCHI

Honestly I started writing poems and songs when I was back in school. But I seriously started writing lyrics around a year or two ago.
I won an award for poems from India. I won 2nd runner-up in last year's Celebrating Life. I have also won many other numerous prestigious national awards.
As I said before, when I won the 2nd runner-up in last year's Celebrating Life, it helped boost my confidence level quite nicely. And the fact that the judges are such established and well-known names in the music industry just fills me with pride and a sense of trust in their judgment, or how else would they be able to filter us out from all the countless other applicants.

3RD PLACE: QUAZI AFZAL HOSSAIN

I've been writing since I was a student in Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University. Since then I started writing songs, before which I used to write poems, but they didn't get much recognition.
This is the third time I have achieved something in Celebrating Life. Previously I received awards for my entries in 2008 and 2012's Celebrating Life Lyrics contests.  
I feel really special, I never thought that the lyrics I write in seclusion would be certified and published by the Daily Star. What I'm feeling right now isn't exactly something that words can express. Awards like this increase personal responsibility to do write more and write better. I also think that the things I wrote about needs to become a reality.