New Year 2026: We Begin Again -Md Masud Rana

At exactly midnight, when the last second of 2025 fell like a silent tear into the Bay of Bengal, the sky over Bangladesh did something it had never done before.

It cracked open.

Not with thunder, not with lightning, but with light. A soft, breathing light, as if the universe itself had exhaled after holding its breath for too long. From Teknaf to Tetulia, from the chars of the Meghna to the rooftops of Dhaka, people looked up at the same moment and felt the same strange certainty: something had begun again.

Sajib was standing on the roof of his half-built apartment in Mirpur, fireworks forgotten in his hand. He wasn’t celebrating. He was listening. Ever since childhood, Sajib had believed that moments spoke, if you were quiet enough. Tonight, the moment whispered a single sentence into his bones.

“Do not waste this year.”

Down below, the city was unusually calm. No horns screaming. No angry shouts. No sudden fear of footsteps behind you. Just laughter, distant azaan, and the hum of generators shutting down as electricity stayed on—miraculously steady.

Across the city, Simanto felt it too.

He was inside a small lab room at Dhaka University, surrounded by wires, circuit boards, and a prototype satellite no bigger than a backpack. While others counted down with friends, Simanto counted voltage readings. He had always been like this—more comfortable with numbers than noise, more at home with ideas than crowds. When the light cracked the sky, the satellite’s indicator blinked green on its own.

“That’s impossible,” Simanto whispered.

Or maybe, he thought, this year had decided to cooperate.

In a narrow street in Old Dhaka, Momo ran barefoot onto the balcony of her family’s home, her notebook clutched to her chest. She was a writer, or at least she wanted to be. Her pages were filled with sketches of rockets, children running freely, girls playing football without being stared at, streets without fear. When the sky changed, ink spilled from her pen onto the page, forming a sentence she swore she hadn’t written.

“We begin again.”

She didn’t know why she cried after reading it. She just knew she was crying for the right reason.

And in Khulna, near the quiet edge of the Rupsha River, Mushfiq dropped his phone into the grass and didn’t bother picking it up.

Mushfiq had once been addicted to screens that was full of games, reels, endless scrolling to escape a world that felt too broken to fix. But tonight, as the light reflected on the water, he felt something shift inside him. His little brother tugged his shirt.

“Bhaiya, will schools really change this year?” the boy asked.

Mushfiq looked at the river, then at the sky, then at his brother’s hopeful eyes.

“Yes,” he said, surprising himself with how sure he sounded. “They will.”

January arrived not like a date, but like a movement.

Classes reopened with something new in the air. Libraries filled again—not because phones were banned, but because books had become exciting. Sajib started a rooftop reading circle in Mirpur. At first, only three people came. Then ten. Then fifty. They read science, history, poetry, engineering manuals. They argued, laughed, dreamed.

One night, Simanto showed up with grease on his hands and stars in his eyes.

“I think I can get into NASA,” he said casually, as if he were talking about catching a bus.

Everyone laughed.

“I’m serious,” Simanto continued. “They replied. They want to see my work.”

Silence fell. Then cheers exploded like fireworks, louder than any New Year celebration.

Momo documented everything. She wrote about Sajib’s belief that knowledge was resistance. About Simanto’s hands shaking when he spoke to international scientists online. About Mushfiq starting a free sports club by the river, where phones were left in a basket and footballs replaced scrolling thumbs.

There was fear at first. People waited for the old violence to return. For streets to become unsafe again. For hope to be punished.

But something strange happened.

Nothing bad rushed in.

Police stood differently. Teachers taught differently. Parents listened differently. And when trouble tried to rise as it always does—students stood together, calmly, firmly, refusing to let chaos steal their year.

By March, Simanto’s satellite launched—small, quiet, brilliant. It carried the Bangladeshi flag stitched by Momo’s mother. When confirmation came that it had entered low Earth orbit successfully, the lab erupted. Simanto didn’t shout. He sat down and cried.

“This is not the end,” he said through tears. “This is proof.”

Sajib started traveling to Rajshahi, Barishal, Rangpur, talking to students about rebuilding without burning, dreaming without destroying. Everywhere he went, fields were fuller. Children played cricket until sunset without fear. Girls raced bicycles down village roads, laughing freely.

Mushfiq’s sports club became a movement. Sponsors came. But he refused flashy branding.

“Let them sweat before they swipe,” he said.

Momo’s writing went viral, not because it was perfect but because it was honest. She didn’t write about a flawless Bangladesh. She wrote about a trying one. A learning one. A brave one.

By July, Simanto received the email.

NASA. Internship accepted.

He read it three times before calling Sajib.

“We did this,” Simanto said.

“No,” Sajib replied softly. “We began this.”

On the night of December 31, 2026, they met again—this time on a field, not a rooftop. Children played football under lights powered by solar panels designed by local students. A screen showed Simanto waving from the U.S., a small Bangladeshi flag behind him. Momo read aloud from her latest piece. Mushfiq handed out medals to kids who had never owned shoes before this year.

The sky didn’t crack open this time.

It didn’t need to.

Because the miracle was no longer above them.

It was among them.

And as the final seconds counted down, Sajib whispered the sentence they all now lived by—

“We did not wait for the future. We built it.

And every year from now on, we begin again.”