I had an epiphany last week. A revelation. The sort of pragmatic wisdom that I could not fetch reading thousands of texts. The truth, however, chilled my spine and left me dumbfounded.

During a gossip among friends, I asked one, why do people bribe two, three million takas to become a primary school teacher that pays just a few thousand takas as salary per month? Can’t they just invest that money, as even a meagre return will be much higher, and the original capital is not lost forever?

The answer was chilling. In one sentence, there is absolutely no environment to invest money for a small business in the country. The system has become as such that whatever business you try, unless you are not highly connected with the political power and high-ups of the regime, your capital will be swallowed.

Even worse, your millions in investment will not only evaporate, but the attempt to start a business will invite unforeseen risk as well. At the same time, depositing in banks has become a risky affair too. Due to high inflation in the economy and pervasive corruption in the banking sector, like every other sector in the country, the money may soon become as worthless as pebbles.

So, what is the way out of this? If you are young, either fly abroad and toil hard to earn a pittance but at least save your life or bribe to secure a job. And hope you will get a decent pension upon retirement.

Such an Orwellian darkness! The system has become as such that bribing is the most rational way of getting the maximum return while other honest and decent ways are being punished!

In this hellhole, as a result, some become delusional. Some become desperate. And the Ponzi schemes thrive. People start to weave false hope and become prey to these schemers. And that is exacerbated by the ubiquitous greed of the people in power. In recent times, whether it is Evaley, Orange, Alesha Mart or you name it—powerful  people were behind and in front of the screen to dupe people. They all get away and start a new venture.

We talk about the loss of democracy and politics, we discuss many indexes of economics, but how often do we look at the ground reality? What country have we presented to our young generations, our future?

Our democracy is gone, the education system is in peril and the innovative minds cannot even invest and generate livelihood through honest work!