Dhaka loses more than just Satyajit Ray’s house

THE wave of demolitions across Bangladesh reflects a troubling trend — a cavalier disregard for history, memory and the landmarks that anchor nations in their identity. The latest is the demolition of Satyajit Ray’s ancestral home in Dhaka. It amounts to not merely the razing of an old structure, but to obliterating a vital chapter of the subcontinent’s shared cultural heritage. The house, more than a hundred years old, belonged to Ray’s grandfather Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, a pioneering figure in Bengali literature and printing. It was a cradle of creativity that nurtured the Ray family and produced one of cinema’s greatest directors. The Bangladesh government’s justification — of structural risk — rings hollow when weighed against the heritage value. If safety was a concern, the building could have been preserved by restoration. Legacies once lost are impossible to resurrect. That such erasure occurs in a nation that takes pride in its cultural identity is troubling.