Dhaka and Old Delhi - Memories before I start forgetting

I remember Dhaka formerly known before liberation of East Pakistan as Dacca. The liberation war left it scarred and in 1982, the Bangladesh capital was renamed as Dhaka. The seventeenth century old city was the capital of Mughal Bengal and along came with it the unique art and culture, Dhaka culinary, architecture, weaving silk and tehzeeb handed down from generations. I remember Noor E Alam Siddiqui alias Tiger Siddiqui, Abdur Qudus Makhan, Shahjahan Siraj and Mohammad Abdur Raub, at the helm of Mukti Bahini and a certain Sardar Colonel from the Indian Army who crossed over every evening to the other side wearing a lungi and without his turban. These are all unknown heroes of India and Bangladesh. The other hero, I remember clearly was an American Orthopaedic Surgeon, he continued operating in makeshift tents during the uprising. He operated without any hardware on fractures of the neck of femur, removing them and then closing the wound. Known as the Girdlestone technique, he offered a shortened limb but a painless hip joint. His popularity was overcome by jealousy of non-orthopaedic surgeons of Dhaka and was finally forced to leave. In my years as an Orthopaedic Surgeon at Niamey in Niger during the civil war of the Sahel, I followed his Girdlestone technique and gave satisfied patients high heeled shoes. The sheer beauty of Dhaka can only be compared to the Mughal Old Delhi. Mughal memories are pigeons and the silk saree that can pass through a women’s ring. The heady aroma and drooping of eyes at a certain rendezvous are only distant memories.