On the morning her husband died of cancer, Sohani Hossain sent her elder daughter to sit for an SSC exam. “Life and time wait for no one,” she told the teenager, before welcoming her back home to a room with a coffin. That stark choice—grief or duty—has defined Sohani’s next decade: raising five daughters alone, surviving breast cancer herself, and expanding a cluster of hospitality and cultural ventures that are reshaping leisure in Pabna.
Widow of internationally acclaimed shooter Mobarak Hossain Ratna, Sohani assumed control of the household and family businesses after his death, while navigating property disputes and a thicket of operational challenges. In 2012 she was diagnosed with breast cancer, beginning a parallel fight that she says never paused the other: “Treatment continued, and so did life—and business.”
Today, her portfolio includes the 100-bigha Rupkotha Eco Resort in Banglabazar and the 28-bigha Ratnodweep Resort in Jalalpur (named for her late husband), both now fixtures for visitors to Pabna, including foreign guests tied to the Rooppur nuclear power project. She also owns the historic Rupkotha Cinema Hall and has added “Rupkotha Kabya,” a bookish coffee parlour next door, as well as “Indubala Bhater Hotel,” a hearty, nostalgia-infused eatery serving dishes from kumra-phool bora to chingri’r holud gala jhol. A separate Indubala Guest House Homestay operates from her family bungalow in Natore.
Sohani’s spaces are curated with an artist’s eye—she paints in her spare moments—and a cinephile’s sentiment. Rooms at Rupkotha carry names from Uttam-Suchitra classics like Saptapadi and Uttar Falguni. A longtime admirer of screen icon Suchitra Sen, she supported efforts to preserve Sen’s ancestral home in Pabna, now a public memorial.
Her daughters, she says with visible pride, “stood on their own feet.” The eldest, Faiqa Laz Bonti (Sementi), is a pharmacist with an MSc and PhD in oncology; Anindita Laz Bonti (Rupanti), an architect and former North South University lecturer, is pursuing a PhD at the University of Michigan; Mohitun Hossain Onnesha is an LLB graduate of the University of London and practices law while helping run the business; Khadija Hossain Arla studies law at UWE Bristol in the UK; the youngest, Mefta-ul-Jannat Anha, has just passed HSC and dreams of becoming a pilot. “I told them only this,” Sohani said. “Be human. Stand on your own.”
Beyond hospitality, Sohani has produced for the big screen. She was producer and story writer of Satta (starring Shakib Khan and Paoli Dam), penning the hit song “Tor Preme Te Andho Holam,” for which singer James won a National Film Award. She also produced Antaratma and wrote one of its songs. Her mantel includes district top-taxpayer recognition from the NBR and a clutch of regional and international honors: an Indian Restaurant Award, a Hall of Fame citation, a Mother Teresa International Award, a Dadasaheb Phalke Film Foundation Award, an international taekwondo honor, and recognition at the Khajuraho International Film Festival as a female film personality.
The path has not been without reversals. As managing director of Universal Group, she alleges harassment by certain VAT officials after being named a top taxpayer in 2017–18, culminating in a Tk 270 crore VAT-evasion case that she disputes. Financial strain, she says, forced her to shut Universal Food Limited in May 2022. “I am seeking justice from the current government,” she said. The case continues.
Sohani’s philosophy traces back to a jolting courtship memory: expecting a romantic outing, she says her future husband once took her instead to Pabna Mental Hospital. “I felt heartsick,” she recalled—then resolved to build places where people could feel lighter when they leave than when they arrived. That impulse—part therapy, part entrepreneurship—now animates every corner of her resorts and cafés, which she re-themes with the seasons.
Approaching 60, she is writing her life story, Ekjon Ami, for the Ekushey Book Fair, hoping other women will see their own reflection in its pages. “My struggles could fill volumes,” she said, “but the message is simple: don’t stop. Courage, composure, and not breaking—that’s how you keep walking.”