Meena Day: More than just a cartoon

For many Bangladeshis who grew up in the 1990s and 2000s, "Meena" was more than something to watch on television.

She was a familiar face from childhood, a voice that spoke about things children did not always understand and, for many girls, a character who showed that being a girl did not mean being weak.

Sometimes she appeared on black-and-white television sets. Later, she appeared on colour televisions. But the screen did not matter as much as the character.

Meena was there.

And for many of us, we waited for her.

A cartoon that became an emotion

I have always been someone who enjoyed English cartoons. Yet Meena was different.

It was the Bangla cartoon I could watch again and again without getting tired of it.

Perhaps it was the humour. Perhaps it was the stories. Perhaps it was Meena herself.

There was something about the character that made her feel familiar. She was a child, but she was not afraid to question things. She could be curious, stubborn, funny, and brave at the same time.

For me, Meena is also connected to memories of sitting beside my grandmother and watching the programme. It is one of those shows I remember enjoying with my mother too.

A friend from my neighbourhood even had a parrot named Mithu, after Meena's famous pet parrot.

These may sound like small memories.

But childhood is often made of small memories.

From television to a generation

Meena was not created simply to entertain children.

Unicef developed the Meena series during the 1990s, the UN-declared Decade of the Girl Child, as part of an effort to communicate messages about girls' rights and children's wellbeing across South Asia. Unicef says Bangladesh was the first country to launch Meena, with the first film, Count Your Chickens, broadcast nationally in 1993.

The character is a nine-year-old girl who challenges discrimination and social barriers. Her stories involve her brother Raju, her pet parrot Mithu, and other members of her family and community.

The series eventually expanded beyond television into radio programmes, comics, books, and other forms of media. Stories have reached audiences across Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan, with material also adapted into other languages.

Meena was never only a television character. She was part of a much larger educational effort.

The girl who questioned the rules

What made Meena different was the kind of world she lived in.

Her stories dealt with issues that were not always easy to discuss with children: girls' education, child marriage, dowry, discrimination, hygiene, sanitation, child protection, and equal opportunities.

Unicef describes the character as a way of presenting important social issues through stories that children and families could understand.

This is where Meena became more than entertainment.

She showed girls that they could question unfair treatment.

She showed families that girls deserved education.

She showed children that traditions were not automatically right simply because they had existed for a long time.

And she did it through stories rather than lectures.

That may be one of the reasons the character remained memorable.

A song we still remember

There are parts of childhood that remain in our minds even after we stop watching the programmes themselves.

For many Meena viewers, the theme song is one of them.

The familiar line, "Ami ma-babar chhoto ador-er meye", still brings back memories for many people who grew up with the series.

The song, the characters and the stories created something that was easy for children to remember.

For me, the introduction remains one of my favourite parts of the show.

Perhaps that is what makes old television so powerful.

You may forget an episode.

You may forget the exact story.

But you remember the music.

You remember where you were sitting.

You remember who was beside you.

What Meena taught without sounding like a lesson

Meena's greatest strength was perhaps that she did not feel like a textbook.

She could make children think about serious issues without making them feel as though they were attending a lecture.

The stories showed how social expectations could affect girls and children. They questioned discrimination and encouraged education, equality, and participation.

Unicef says the Meena stories were specifically designed to promote messages around gender, child rights, education, protection, and development.

For girls especially, seeing a young girl challenge unfairness could provide something important: confidence.

She was not perfect.

She was simply willing to speak.

And sometimes, that is the first thing a child needs to learn.

Then and now

Today, children have access to an almost endless amount of entertainment.

Cartoons are available on phones, tablets, computers, and streaming platforms. A child no longer has to wait for a particular programme to appear on television.

Because of that, some older programmes may seem slow, outdated or even "cringe" to today's children.

That is understandable.

Entertainment changes with time.

But judging an old programme only by today's standards can make us forget what it meant when it first appeared.

Meena belonged to a different television culture.

There were fewer channels, fewer screens, and fewer choices. Watching a programme could be a shared family experience.

You did not simply watch a cartoon.

You watched it with someone.

A character that crossed generations

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Meena is that she did not remain limited to one generation.

Unicef says the character continues to be recognised widely in Bangladesh, with around 97% of urban children and adolescents and 81% of their rural counterparts recognising Meena, according to Unicef's cited figures.

The organisation has also described Meena as reaching a second generation of fans.

That is quite something for a character introduced more than three decades ago.

Many fictional characters become nostalgic.

Meena became educational as well as nostalgic.

Why Meena still matters

Meena Day is observed on 24 September and is associated with raising awareness about children's rights, girls' education, gender equality, and child protection. Unicef documentation and programme materials have recorded Meena Day activities on this date.

But perhaps the day is not only about celebrating a cartoon character.

It is also about remembering the issues she represented.

A girl should be able to go to school.

A child should be protected.

Girls should not be treated as less important because of their gender.

Children should be allowed to question unfairness.

And families should be willing to listen.

These ideas are not outdated simply because the cartoon is old.

More than a cartoon

I do not know how other people remember Meena.

For some, she may simply be a childhood cartoon.

For others, she may be a reminder of afternoons spent watching television with parents or grandparents.

For girls who grew up watching her, she may also represent something more personal — the idea that a girl can speak, question, lead, and make decisions.

For me, Meena is a mixture of all of these things.

She is my childhood.

She is the theme song I still remember.

She is the character I watched with my grandmother and mother.

She is also the reason a neighbourhood parrot named Mithu still makes me smile when I think about those days.

Perhaps that is why Meena Day feels less like an ordinary observance and more like an emotion.

Because some characters do not simply disappear when the television is switched off.

They stay somewhere in our memories.

And sometimes, years later, all it takes is one familiar song, one name or one little parrot called Mithu to take us back to the time when we were children, sitting in front of a television, watching Meena teach us that being a girl should never mean having to accept less.