v0.1 · early 2000s
Initial commit
Rajshahi. Mango trees, the Padma somewhere behind everything, and a pace of life that Dhaka would find suspicious.
I have no memory of any of this, so you will have to take the photographs as evidence.
exhibit A
Lore
This is me, and
this is how it started
Somewhere in Rajshahi, a small city up north known for mangoes, silk, and being pleasant in a way Dhaka has never once been accused of, a baby turned up in the early 2000s.
This is his portfolio. Spoiler: he's me.
the long way round ↓
Rajshahi
Where it all loads from.
v0.5 · kindergarten
Vertex
Kindergarten happened at a school called Vertex, which is a confident name for a building whose main activity was napping.
I remember none of it. I am assured this is standard.
v1.0 · skipped
we don't talk about v1
v2.0 · class two
The rumour that skipped a version
During class one, my mother heard from someone, somewhere, that this would be the last year government schools ever held the class-two admission test.
This was not true. It has never been true.
She entered me for it anyway. I sat the exam a year early and I got in. A rumour with no source made one of the better decisions of my life, and there is no arguing with a result.
unlocked · a year of head start, permanently
sounds likePoth Chola · Artcell
Seroil
Eight years, one building, mostly the same forty people.
v2.1 · 2010 — 2018
A year ahead, for eight years
So I arrived at Seroil Government High School a year ahead of my age group and stayed a year ahead for the next eight years. Younger than most of the room. Not the youngest in it, however much better the other version sounds.
Same benches, same corridor, same walk home. Friendships at that age are not chosen, they are assigned by seating plan. Several of mine held, which I credit entirely to good seating.
sounds likeSchool · Arbovirus
still the group chat
v2.9 · SSC, 2018
The result was fine
Fine in the specific way where everyone says “that's fine” in a tone that means something else.
sounds likeNumb · Linkin Park
The quiet years
Two of them. Very little happened, at considerable length.
v3.0 · 2018 — 2020
Two years, three days
Rajshahi Government City College. I attended three days.
Not three days a week. Three days.
If you held a gun to my head and asked me to name one of my college teachers, I would ask you to please just get on with it.
3
days attended, in two years, not counting exams
sounds likeBoulevard of Broken Dreams · Green Day
not a typo
v3.1 · 2020
The exam that never happened
My HSC preparation strategy was to fail with dignity.
Then, one week before the exam, the world shut.
Postponed.
Postponed again.
Then, in October: auto-pass.
lost · the only deadline I had left
sounds likeWaiting for the End · Linkin Park
v3.2 · the aftermath
A phrase I did not believe was allowed to exist
On paper it saved me. In practice it removed the last deadline I had, and I stopped studying entirely.
The university admission tests noticed, and responded accordingly.
sounds likeCastle of Glass · Linkin Park
BRAC
Four years. I am told this is where the personality came from.
v4.0 · Spring 2022
Both turned out to be wrong
After some hard conversations at home, I enrolled at BRAC University with a heavy heart and low expectations.
Both turned out to be wrong.
gained · four years I did not see coming
sounds likeFix You · Coldplay
v4.2 · the residential semester
TARC
One semester spent on a campus in the middle of nowhere, with everyone you have just met and nowhere else to be.
University software assigned me a roommate and got it right on the first attempt, which I have not seen it manage since. Most of the people I spent the next three years with, I met that semester.
sounds likeLong Live · Taylor Swift
the algorithm got one right
v4.5 · 2023 — 2024
Nobody booked the room
Somewhere in there I became Director of Human Resources at the BRAC University Debating Club, a title that mostly means being the person who finds out at eleven at night that nobody booked the room.
One national tournament, two intra-university ones, and a permanent suspicion of anyone who says a venue is sorted.
sounds likeGuti · Aurthohin
v4.9 · Fall 2025
Four years went past like a page turning
Then it was the last semester, and everyone was saying goodbye badly, the way people do when they have not decided whether it counts as an ending.
Ask me what I got out of those four years and the honest answer is not the degree. It is the people, which is what everybody says. I checked. They are annoyingly right.
the actual takeaway
sounds likeGood Riddance (Time of Your Life) · Green Day
Now
Still compiling.
v5.0 · January 2026
The month everything collided
- 1 Jan
- Final interview at Commure. I got the role.
- 13–14 Jan
- Final exams.
- 31 Jan
- Thesis defence.
So I started a full-time job before I finished my degree, which reads considerably better than that month felt.
Alhamdulillah, all of it got done. My thesis teammates carried more of that month than they will ever admit to, so I am admitting it here on their behalf.
shipped · while still in beta
sounds likeAwake and Alive · Skillet
HEAD · today
Still being written
Dhaka, a job that is officially operations and unofficially a great deal of SQL, and a website that I keep telling people is nearly finished.
Bigger things ahead, insha'Allah.
on repeatCarnival of Rust · Poets of the Fall
HEAD -> main
That is everything so far. If you read all of it, you have now spent longer on my childhood than most of my friends have, and I think that entitles you to something.
You have earned this
Off hours
Enough biography. The music, the films and the series I actually go back to, grouped by what I want them to do rather than ranked, because a ranked list is not an argument.