<i>Bring back hartal!</i>

I don't know about you people, but I am really bored. There is nothing exciting going on in Bangladesh these days. Our cricketers have been winning disappointments rather than trophies; our politicians have all been absent from the TV screen (due to no fault of their own, as we all know!); and all our extortionist brothers are playing hide-n-seek in Kolkata. (Why is it that as soon as our people become experts in a particular field, they move abroad? No wonder we have a huge brain-drain in our country.) Adding insult to injury, we have even turned our backs on our favourite pastime: hartal. Shock! Horror! What dark future are we leaving for our children? They are growing up without knowing anything about hartal. Remember the old proverb "vath, mas ar hartalay Bangali"?
So, on behalf of all our readers, I demand hartal to be reinstated immediately. We also want a national gallery, just for hartal (how about "The National Hartal Gallery"?). All those glorious things we achieved by harnessing the magical powers of hartal will be displayed in that gallery. Anish Kapoor would be thrilled to create a huge, frozen explosion of a bomb (with the help of modern lighting technology and fibre optics) to capture the more exciting side of hartal, artistically speaking!
Both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina are back in business, the general election is coming, all the convicts are getting their nominations, cases against former MPs and ministers are being shelved all the ingredients for a true Bengali lifestyle are in place. The only thing that is missing is hartal. So, dear politicians, we know you are dying to reform your parties, to develop this poor country, to eradicate poverty, to exterminate corruption, etc. But please, please, before you do anything else, bring back our hartal! Yeah baby!!