Tale of two women

If one enters the room, the other leaves. They have not spoken to each other in years. If this wasn't farce, it would be tragedy. The legendary rivalry of Khaleda Zia, 62, and Shaikh Hasina Wajed, 59, not just for political space, colours every aspect of their individual identities. The two women who are holding Bangladesh to ransom - former prime ministers, both, and inheritors of their family's political mantle - hail from opposite sides of the political spectrum.

But while the differences may be of degree, more personal than ideological, clearly, the enmity runs deep. While Khaleda's cantonment chic, elegant chiffon and pearls are her signature, Hasina's style, or lack of it, is a more down-to-earth rustic appeal.

While one reads from prepared speeches, rarely moving away from carefully scripted appearance, the other is a raucous demagogue who takes on the baton - charging police head-on - and unhesitatingly speaks her mind.

Hasina, a student activist, stepped up to the plate when her father's political legacy was in danger of disintegrating. Khaleda Zia was an army wife who similarly was brought in, to husband President Ziaur Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party when it was rocked by another coup d'etat by Hussain Mohammad Ershad.

Zia's husband seized power in a military coup soon after Hasina's father, Shaikh Mujib-ur-Rahman, and members of her family were assassinated by a group of disgruntled army officers, plunging the country into a cycle of chaos.

Old wounds that still bleed...