Joseph Conrad dug deep in trying to understand moral courage and in Lord Jim, his great novel, he seemed to suggest that the difference between heroism and cowardice was often paper-thin. In a different milieu, Ernest Hemingway described heroism as “grace under pressure.” For both writers, what made the difference was the display of character by the protagonist when confronted with death. Conrad and Hemingway dealt with fiction, but in Dhaka on Saturday, two human beings, Ishrat Akhond and Faraz Hossain, showed that reality is often far more powerful than fiction.

During the Dhaka attack, Ishrat Akhond and Faraz Hossain were given a chance to escape if they could prove they were Muslims, but they rebuffed the terrorists and lost their lives in the process