A snapshot of nature and history in the heart of Badda

Afreen Tayeba Alif, a first-year BBA student of North South University, opened the restaurant and resort, Thikana, in Badda in 2019. One of the main attractions of the venue is a Shaheed Minar built with flowers.

Afreen was inspired by her mother Afroza Begum's start-up Khan's Kitchen.

"Helping my mother with her work got me interested in the food business," she shares. "I wanted to build a space as close to nature as possible, like a picnic spot or a restaurant where people could relax."

With plans for a resort in mind and a seven-month course in interior designing, the young entrepreneur set off to build Thikana. "In the beginning, I decorated the place with local flowers such as Marigold and Chandra Mallika, amongst others. It took a bit of time but when the flowers bloomed, I was stunned by how well the public responded to the place," says Afreen. "But the flowers did not last long. I did a bit of research and found out about the Japanese flower, Petunia. It grows well in winter, and comes in different colours as well."

Currently, there are over 700,000 Petunias decorated all over Thikana.

Whenever people visit Thikana, they like to learn about the flowers. "They often ask about the flowers and even buy some to plant at home from our small shop at Thikana," mentions Afreen. "This is how I came up with the idea of building a Shaheed Minar with flowers."

Afreen shares that if seeing flowers at Thikana can inspire guests to learn more about nature, then seeing a Shaheed Minar, which is related to our national history, will encourage them to learn more about Bangladesh.

With that noble thought in mind, Afreen started working on the Shaheed Minar at Thikana in 2021. The flower monument is structured on a four-storied building about 34 feet in height and 220 feet in width.

"I found out on the internet that no one has created a flower monument this large before," shares Afreen. "So, I contacted the Guinness World Records authorities and applied for my flower monument."

Inspectors from the Guinness World Records will be visiting Thikana for verification soon.

The author is a freelance journalist. Email: akhlakurrahmancharles@gmail.com.