WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:10.030 --> 00:00:17.740 My husband Avijit Roy and I, we were both bloggers, writers, you know, that was 00:00:17.740 --> 00:00:26.710 our, you can say 'evening job'. You know, he founded the first online platform 00:00:26.710 --> 00:00:33.640 - this was the pre-blog era in 2001 - for the humanists, atheists, free 00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:38.590 thinkers, which was quite unusual for that time. We were in Bangladesh for a 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:45.760 book signing trip during the 2015 annual Book Fair. It's a month long annual 00:00:45.760 --> 00:00:50.920 Book Fair to celebrate the International Mother Language Day. 00:00:50.920 --> 00:00:56.140 And Avijit had two of his books published during that fair. So Avijit has written 00:00:56.140 --> 00:01:04.180 eight books, edited a couple; I have written a book on evolution and Avijit wrote on various 00:01:04.180 --> 00:01:12.159 topics ranging from, you know, from physics to how the universe was 00:01:12.159 --> 00:01:20.230 formed, to the scientific and social basis of homosexuality. We were coming 00:01:20.230 --> 00:01:27.400 out of the book fair, going to our car, which was like a quarter-mile away, even not 00:01:27.400 --> 00:01:37.450 that, and we were targeted by three militants, three young guys, in the middle 00:01:37.450 --> 00:01:46.330 of the street, in front of hundreds and hundreds of people. And I do not have any 00:01:46.330 --> 00:01:54.580 memory of the attack. I remember 30 seconds before what happened - we were 00:01:54.580 --> 00:02:02.530 holding hands and walking towards the car, but I don't remember anything about the 00:02:02.530 --> 00:02:09.260 attack. So what I have pieced together from all the pictures, online 00:02:09.260 --> 00:02:16.070 pictures, or talking to other people later on, is that Avijit was stabbed 00:02:16.070 --> 00:02:23.360 and bleeding and laying on the street. And I lost consciousness because he was 00:02:23.360 --> 00:02:31.640 stabbed multiple times, bleeding to death and my hand, my thumb was sliced off 00:02:31.640 --> 00:02:38.840 and I had like four six to seven inches machete stabs on my head, one on 00:02:38.840 --> 00:02:46.860 the back. And I lost consciousness and fell on a motorbike. 00:02:46.860 --> 00:02:53.840 The second thing I remember is that I'm sitting on a stretcher. I had white band-aids 00:02:53.840 --> 00:03:06.820 of my on my thumbs, on my hands, all over my head and my shoulder and I sat up, saw Avijit on 00:03:06.830 --> 00:03:12.560 a stretcher, like a few feet away from me, and he was making a sound, some kind of a sound. 00:03:12.560 --> 00:03:17.840 I realised that, you know, most probably I will live, I'm doing better than 00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:28.160 him and I was repeating, I was just pleading for help for him. And he was taken 00:03:28.180 --> 00:03:38.340 inside the operation theatre and I guess that's where he died. 00:03:47.120 --> 00:03:55.180 So right after the attack on us, the militants, Islamic militants, vowed to 00:03:55.180 --> 00:04:04.670 kill one atheist blogger a month. And, you know, I have talked about this in the 00:04:04.670 --> 00:04:12.769 past, you know, these were all of our dear friends. And that went on 00:04:12.769 --> 00:04:20.359 for four months, four-five months and four of the bloggers were killed and the 00:04:20.359 --> 00:04:27.620 government - it just looked like the Bangladeshi government didn't want to 00:04:27.620 --> 00:04:33.950 address this issue. They were scared that if they talked or supported, you know, the 00:04:33.950 --> 00:04:41.090 atheists or give them any support - just the basic support to live as a citizen, 00:04:41.090 --> 00:04:48.139 they would compromise their vote bank. So they stayed completely 00:04:48.139 --> 00:04:54.110 quiet and finally when the government spoke out - they were actually forced to 00:04:54.110 --> 00:04:59.139 speak out - they said, yeah, they blame these killings, but at the same time, 00:04:59.139 --> 00:05:08.040 these bloggers actually brought it onto themselves by speaking against religion. 00:05:08.040 --> 00:05:12.229 And if they didn't do that, this wouldn't have happened to them. So, you know, we 00:05:12.229 --> 00:05:15.560 were pretty much blamed for our own deaths. 00:05:20.980 --> 00:05:27.320 Humanism was actually the basis of my recovery. I know there is a 00:05:27.330 --> 00:05:35.730 common belief that there is no atheist in the foxhole, that if you 00:05:35.730 --> 00:05:41.310 are not even that big of a believer, you kind of take shelter in 00:05:41.310 --> 00:05:46.890 religion during the time of trauma or loss, you know, but it was exactly the 00:05:46.890 --> 00:05:54.540 opposite for me. I have two choices at this point: either I can just fall into 00:05:54.540 --> 00:06:04.350 depression, hide in a dark closet, or I can live again, because we create our own 00:06:04.350 --> 00:06:11.120 meaning in this world. There is nothing - this is it, you know. We have got one life 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:18.800 and I have been lucky to choose how I want to live this life. 00:06:18.800 --> 00:06:25.050 So, you know, these were kind of the things that I thought, I think, because of 00:06:25.050 --> 00:06:35.840 my humanistic worldview, which helped me greatly to recover from this trauma. 00:06:40.960 --> 00:06:47.620 I have no excuse not to live again, not only living, you know, creating a 00:06:47.629 --> 00:06:53.689 meaningful life for myself, for whatever the time I have left here. It almost felt 00:06:53.689 --> 00:07:00.979 like I've got a bonus time. I almost died and, you know, if 00:07:00.979 --> 00:07:07.400 Avijit were alive, he would have said the same thing. He would have. 00:07:07.400 --> 00:07:13.340 He gave his life for his passion. So I left my corporate job at that time and 00:07:13.340 --> 00:07:17.719 decided that, you know, just getting a paycheck for a 00:07:17.719 --> 00:07:23.960 living didn't make sense anymore. I quit my job four or five months after the attack, 00:07:23.960 --> 00:07:30.949 and decided to do what I'm passionate about. I started working with 00:07:30.949 --> 00:07:39.020 all the displaced bloggers and writers in Bangladesh. I started working, helping, 00:07:39.020 --> 00:07:42.680 for them, because I thought, you know, I have a voice. I have this international 00:07:42.680 --> 00:07:49.969 platform, where I can actually go to these humanist organisations and request them 00:07:49.969 --> 00:07:58.159 to help. And also I thought, you know, I will feel better if I start, if I keep 00:07:58.159 --> 00:08:03.339 writing about the things I am passionate about, you know, about science, about the 00:08:03.339 --> 00:08:13.250 political and religious - the relationship between religion and politics in our 00:08:13.250 --> 00:08:21.220 present time. So that's what I started doing 00:08:21.220 --> 00:08:29.380 right after, you know, that attack, and this is what I have been working on since.