Mostafa Abdullah I vaguely remember either reading a book or seeing a movie called “An Officer and a Gentleman”. I do not remember anything of the storyline. However, whenever this particular phrase comes to my mind I have always pictured a ‘complete man’. I am dedicating the following episode of my life to one such person who made a difference in my life. In my sleep, I heard a loud bang – a very loud one. I found myself on the floor, out of my bed. Few more ground shaking blasts thundered over our house. And then it was quiet. After some time, there was the rumbling of passing vehicles on the Mirpur Road, about 100 yards away from where we lived. We were temporarily living at Kalabagan across Dhanmondi’s road no. 32 at that time. As we found out shortly afterwards, the early dawn blasts were the attacks on Sheikh Mujib’s residence by a handful of renegade military officers, which killed him and most of his family members except the two daughters. The nation was stunned and shocked. There were also jubilations as well as fears and apprehensions; overall an air of uncertainty and numbness prevailed everywhere. I was about to leave for USA in a week’s time on an UNDP funded training program though the Census Commission. At that time, I had worked for about two years in the Census Commission located at Shantinagar, across the Shantinagar Bazar. I was the youngest of the officers at the Commission, compared to the three other Assistant Commissioners who were of my equivalent rank and position. My selection for the training program wasn’t viewed very favorably across the office and efforts underwent to make the situation otherwise. The Head of the Commission – the Chief Census Commissioner Mr. Kazi Bahauddin Ahmed thought I was the right person. And here I was, getting ready to leave. At that moment, no one knew what was going to happen in the country next, and I worried if I could ever make that trip. After about two days the situation calmed a little bit and I went to the office, mainly to find out if I could still go. There were not very many people in the office and I sought to see the Chief Census Commissioner Mr. Ahmed. I wanted to know if I could still go. The answer was a clear “no”. He explained that as there was no government in the country then and everything was supposed to be in a status quo. Until the situation stabilized and an appropriate government authority was in place, he could not give a sanction to my departure. In fact, he thought he should be barring me from leaving the country. I sat there stunned, dumbfounded seeing my hopes of training in USA and consequently, of a brighter future vanish – being taken away from me. I thought of pleading to him to reconsider, but nothing came out of me. He looked straight into my eyes for some time and then spoke: “Nobody will gain much if you do not go out for this training. However, if you are able to return home with the training, both the country and you are expected to be winners”. He then softly said that officially he was unable to sanction my going away under the circumstances. However, if I hadn’t seen him, he wouldn’t have known whether or not I had left the country in the meanwhile. He suggested that I leave the office quietly and not to mention to any one that I had seen him. He left it on me to decide my next move and with a smile said that he believed whatever decision I took, it was unlikely to cause any major upset for the government or the country. I left for USA on the first available flight out of Dhaka the following week. Mr. Ahmed supposedly did not know anything about my departure, and I committed no illegality as I had the Government order in my hand to leave for the training. When I returned from USA after about a year or so, Mr. Ahmed was probably retired from his position and I was to join another department, this time the Bureau of Statistics. I often thought of trying to meet him and tell him about the break in life he gave me. Somehow it did not happen until one day when per chance I came across him at the Gulshan 1 Shopping centre. I approached him and introduced myself. I told him how grateful I have been for the break he gave me and how I have fared so far because of that. I also told him how happy I was being able to see him and tell him about the impact of his act of generosity towards me. I told him that I had feared that I would never get the opportunity to meet him to express my gratitude for what he had done. He gave a hearty laugh and said: “You must have thought that the old man may have gone to the heavens by now”. He most graciously said that I got what I deserved. I often wonder if there would ever be such an Officer and a fine Gentleman in the Bangladeshi bureaucracy. Most others, with the exceptional few, would have barred me from leaving for the training. He did not. He, I suppose, stepped out of the narrow realm of Government rules and regulations and decided to opt for the broader good of an individual and consequently of society as a whole. I believe he was the one who believed in pushing others up as opposed to many who would drag others down for the satisfaction of seeing themselves ahead. I wish him the best here and hereafter. Throughout my life I have had breaks such as this one from numerous places and people. I often wondered; are these mere coincidences that I am in the right place or with the right person at the right time? Or, are these all engineered from somewhere or by someone. I have sought for an answer but been afraid to tread too far. I fear that I may be lost in a terrain of which I am not a worthy traveler. So I have opted to take a simpler path; the path that lets me believe that these are all Divine Interventions. As for the Devine Interventions, I wish to talk more about it soon. NB: Fortunately I was able see Mr. Bahauddin Ahmed during my recent trip to Bangladesh. He is very sick and frail, completely bedridden. I gathered from his silent motions that he was pleased to see me. May Allah grant him what He considers best. |
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Home Page Published on: 15-Jan-2014 
