Rokaiya Zaman Sithi is an honorable mentor of the content writing department in YSSE. On this Women’s day, let us dive deep into the story of this remarkable person.
First, please tell us about yourself, your birthplace, childhood and education.
Rokaiya Zaman Sithi: Assalamu Alaikum, my name is Sithi, full name is Rokaiya Zaman Sithi. I have recently graduated from Sociology and am currently pursuing my master’s degree. I was born in Faridpur district. My school was Uddipon Biddyaniketon school in Faridpur. After staying in Faridpur for 6 years, my family moved to Gopalganj. I was admitted to Binapani government girl’s school in class 6 through an admission test. My college and university was also in Gopalganj district. Now, I am working as a mentor of YSSE content Writing Department, Director of Media and Publications of BSMRSTU-Global Affair Council and recently I was selected to join Bangladesh Betar as an announcer which is a big opportunity for me.
How did your journey in YSSE start?
Rokaiya Zaman Sithi: My journey with YSSE started in a different way. My batch was February in 2022 and it was almost at the end of the COVID-19 period. At that time I was really depressed about the fact that I was not doing anything in that long time in the midst of an academic break due to corona, worried whether we would have to face session jam or not. I was passing a boring time and I was looking for something to do, to use my time efficiently. That time I had come to know about YSSE through my friend. As I would be able to do all the works of YSSE at home, it was not time bound, and could do extra work, which is writing alongside my study, I thought to avail this internship opportunity by YSSE. Well I did not think of writing initially, when I saw the departments that I could apply for, then I gave a thought about it, thought what to choose to actually help me to lead my life, it was like a trump card for me. That time I had to give a thought about what I would want to do in my life. Then out of all the departments, I thought content writing was best suited for me. The friend who had told me about YSSE had heard about it from a senior sister who was actually from the content writing department. So I had learned how the department is, what to do in this department from her. So after considering everything I had applied for the content writing department. This is how I joined YSSE.
Is writing your inner skill or you had to learn it from the beginning?
Rokaiya Zaman Sithi: In my personal life, I like to think about words rather than saying anything. I love to listen carefully and think about the words spoken by the person in front of me before responding to that person. Same for any kind of work, I prefer to think a lot before doing anything and then choose to do the work. Content writing was not really my inner skill. The thing is I think I was worthy of all the departments in YSSE, but I chose content writing for myself. I love to think or imagine rather than saying anything and I love to express them through writing. Every child loves to play in their childhood but in my case, I loved to live in my imagination in my childhood. That imagination had helped and inspired me to write and as I did not like to say anything I expressed the words in my writing. When others used to say anything I did not like to respond to them, rather I kept those things in my mind, thought about them and then wrote them down. When something has to be said, it has to be said immediately, but when I am expressing it through writing, it can be expressed from inside my mind, for which writing is actually one of the means of expressing my thoughts or a favorite thing for me.So the writing thing was actually from within me. suppose when I was angry with my mother about something and I couldn’t argue with her about something, I used to express my feelings by writing in a notebook. I used to write that dear mother, why did you do this, I feel very bad and things like this.
I wrote down the things I didn’t say to the friends whom I was angry at, the things I wish I could have said to them.
I would say that writing is not something to be learned, it is something to be gotten into. I think the more you think in your mind, the more you read, the more you will be able to write better. We call a piece of writing good only when that writing seems simple to us. Writing feels good to us when we can make a connection with the author and the author’s emotions. Nowadays with globalization there are different types of writing, whether it’s social media content or whatever, but I think you can learn how to make writing easier for readers which is the first step to become a good writer.
But what matters here is being appreciated by the readers, how much you can reach and create connection with the readers. So to say how my writing journey has started, then I will say that it started by writing, in a diary or a notebook, the words coming out of me from the huff I had towards my mother and from the pain that I got from my friends.
“We call a piece of writing good only when that writing seems simple to us. Writing feels good to us when we can make a connection with the author and the author’s emotions.”
The Rest of the interview will be covered in Part 2.
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Writer
K M Jahin
Content Writing Intern
YSSE