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| 1971 Madison Square Garden crowd, George Harrison, Bob Dylan |
While driving for a rideshare company, I picked up a young couple in their early twenties near H.E.B. Plus on Paredes Line Road, driving them to their apartment on University Road near the TSC/UTRGV campuses. The young woman was obviously "with child."
Learning they were from Bangladesh, I blurted out part of the chorus of the George Harrison song "Bangladesh" from 1971:
"Bangladesh, Bangladesh
Where so many people are dying fast
And it sure looks like a mess"
While neither of the young people I drove were alive 56 years ago when the Pakastani military killed up to 1,000,000 from their country, raped 400,000 of their women, just after the Bhola Cyclone had killed 300,000 to 500,000, they clearly knew about the Concert for Bangladesh staged at New York's Madison Square Garden August 1&2, 1971. (I later read that a thorough description of the concert organized by George Harrison in response to a plea for help from his friend, sitarist Ravi Shankar, was included in the 10th grade history textbook used in Bangladesh.
My own remembrance of that sad time includes a March 1972 showing of the Concert for Bangladesh movie in the only theater in Danville, Arkansas, the county seat of Yell County. My late wife Nena was well along in her own pregnancy, carrying the child that became our now 54 year old son, Jim or Diego, who gave his mom several firm "kicks" in response to the music during the movie's showing "all those years ago."
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| Conditions in Bangladesh in 1971 |
ADDENDUM: While gate receipts for the two Madison Square Garden concerts generated $253,000, DVD, CD and movie showings raised another $17,000,000. UNISEF estimates the total monies and aid distributed in Bangladesh to date total $46,000,000.
The Concert for Bangladesh was the first of its kind, a music event raising money for charity, a custom later followed by Live Aid, Farm Aid and other such events.
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