Nearly everything in the sprawling Aarong outlets all over the city has to go past the scrutiny of its head of operations, Tamara. ‘It is the prospect of having a creative outlet while also bringing social improvement through the creation of employment that appeals to me the most about this job,’ she says. Her most prolific addition to the store’s repertoire has been the introduction of the ‘Taaga’ range of women’s Western wear. ‘I felt that Aarong did not appeal enough to the young,’ says Tamara, ‘but after Taaga, a lot of our competitors also started experimenting with a similar range of products.’

DR REYAN ANIS
Healer
An interventional cardiologist, Reyan’s line of cardiology is one that is relatively new and unknown in Bangladesh. Specialising in ‘invasive’ surgery, Reyan’s forte involves operating on heart patients without actual surgery, by means of a long wire inserted into the main arteries. With both her parents being successful doctors, Reyan says the profession was programmed into her from the beginning. ‘When I began, I didn’t really know the implications of becoming a doctor; I was used to seeing them on television jumping in and saving people’s lives,’ she says, ‘but I have been far more inspired after I actually became a doctor.’ Having completed her MBBS from the UK, she is now senior consultant cardiologist at LabAid.

KM TANJIB-UL ALAM
Man of edict
Tanijb’s law career is the result of a person taking a look at the problems in society and asking himself, ‘What can I do about it?’ Tanjib, as a lawyer at Dr Kamal Hossain & Associates, has worked on social issues ranging from the environment to government transparency. From his first success against encroachers on Gulshan Lake, Tanjib has progressed onto bigger fish, the latest being the government’s dealing of the Niko blowouts. ‘When a person loses the fear of the law, then no one can stop him,’ says Tanjib, ‘but we are sending a message to those who are corrupt and selling out the country: you can’t buy yourselves out of trouble forever.’

SYEDA RIZWANA HASAN
Green crusader
As the director of programmes at the Bangladesh Environmental Lawyers Association, Rizwana is committed to bringing ‘pro-environment justice’. ‘BELA aims to shape the environmental values of society,’ she says. BELA’s work deals with issues ranging from labour rights to the protection of bio diversity. Its biggest victory has been against the Madhumati Model Town, which had been built by filling land reserved for a water retention area. ‘This job allows me to be a lot closer to the general people than if I was a regular lawyer,’ says Rizwana. ‘We are about serving a cause without compromise.’

MAQSOOD SINHA & IFTEHKAR ENAYETULLAH
Garbiologists
They prefer the term ‘garbiologists’, but before Maqsood and Iftehkar revolutionised waste collection and recycling in the capital, friends often jokingly referred to them as ‘garbage men’. ‘A country like Bangladesh cannot afford to look at waste as a problem,’ says Maqsood, ‘it must be looked at as a resource’. The two formed their own company, Waste Concern, which employs garbage-pickers to go door-to-door collecting garbage, and provide compost facilities for slums. They have converted much of the city’s organic waste into soil-enriching fertilisers.

AUDITY FALGUNI
Word artist
With six books to her name, including two translations, Audity is best known for her two short story compilations ‘Emmanueller griha prabesh’ and ‘Banjaluka o’anyanya galpa’. A law graduate, Audity worked in several newspapers and NGOs, and is currently with CODEC, an NGO based in Chittagong. ‘An Aquarius always likes to try out different things, and then will stay for life with the one that fits,’ she says with a smile. A lot of her work is nearly documentary-like in nature, as she does research in the field and puts together a story from what she actually sees. She is also well known in Dhaka and Kolkata for her use of local dialect and colloquial in her prose.

ARNOB
Music maker
It is not hard to pinpoint the origins of Arnob’s passion for music: 17 years of studying at Shantiniketon speaks for itself. When he returned to Dhaka with an MFA in graphics in 2003, he continued playing the esraaj, an instrument used mostly as an accompaniment except by extreme pure classicalists; he would later receive the Best Instrumentalist award from the B&H Star Search playing it. In 2003, Arnob and childhood friend Anusheh released the critically acclaimed first album of their band ‘Bangla’. Now, with his first solo album released and the second on the cards, Arnob is shifting his attention to filmmaking and direction.

JAVED JALIL
Expressionist
Javed terms his paintings as efforts to find himself. A well-known name in the local art community, his work is best defined by its expressiveness and sensuality. ‘I mainly use the feminine form not simply due to anatomical purposes, but to portray the psyche,’ says Javed, ‘I feel that the form of the opposite sex is one that naturally attracts.’ Painting became more than just a hobby after Javed was involved in a traumatic accident; his art was a means of salvation during those times. He has held several solo exhibitions in the USA, as well as two at the Shilpangan and Alliance Francaise galleries in Dhaka.

MAHMUDUR RAHMAN
FDI-getter
Mahmud likes taking risks; and it has become definitive of his term as the executive chairman of the Board of Investment and advisor to the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. Several times, his actions nearly cost him his job - stopping fuel delivery to Biman’s domestic service and allowing a Taiwanese trade office in Dhaka. ‘I take calculated risks,’ says Mahmud, ‘but I never gamble. Politicians are supposed to take risks, and bureaucrats to avoid them; I’m something in between.’ Over the last few years, Mahmud has facilitated some of the biggest FDI inflows into Bangladesh. ‘I must be doing something right!’ he says.

RAZEEB HASAN CHOWDHURY
Visualiser
Razeeb was the main person behind the conceptualisation of one of the country’s most effective ad campaigns - GP’s ‘Whatever the distance…’ His best known work features a son taking a phone for his mother in the village. Now the creative head of his own company, Cogito Marketing Solutions, he found his calling working at Bitopi after being unsatisfied studying applied physics. ‘A good ad is not about jingles; it’s not about having the best looking or most famous models,’ he says, ‘it’s about allowing the public to understand your message.’

KHALID MAHMUD KHAN
Style merchant
The director of fashion house Kay Kraft, Khalid opened his store when fashion in Bangladesh was, as he likes to say it, ‘a rich woman’s business’. He and partner Shahnaz Khan held Kay Kraft’s first exhibition in his own living room (in the building that would eventually house their first branch). ‘I never dreamt that it would become this big,’ says Khalid. ‘We were only testing what the public response would be to our products; in the end, it was their expectations that helped us on.’

ZILLUR RAHMAN
Umpire
‘Tritiyo Matra means a third dimension; it represents a third, neutral view point from which we present matters,’ says host Zillur Rahman on what has become the most watched talk show on air. Since July 2003, the show has completed a mammoth nine hundred episodes, without fail, every night. Guests on the show have ranged from top politicians to garment workers, sporting personalities to the father of a drug addict; and all with Zillur at its heart, as director, researcher, scripter and host. ‘There is nothing posh about what we’re presenting here,’ he says, ‘I want to be able to communicate directly with the people, and give them something they can relate to.’