connecting with a dot who has moved off the page

I recently wrote an article on a dot who has taken leave of the material plane to become another dot in the night skies...thanks to my time in Land and the rejuvenation of my relationship of the country of my birth, i have been blessed with a new appreciation of and a renewed relationship with my father, although he no longer walks the land he loved as "amar desh"...i wanted to share this article with my friends (it will be published in the New Age and Holiday newspapers on his anniversary--Nov. 10th)...

REMEMBERING ABBA


It has been almost two years since Abba, the late A.Z.M. Enayetullah Khan, took his last breath in a Toronto hospital room surrounded by we who loved him and many others who came to pay their respects to a man who dedicated his life to the people of Bangladesh. As I remember Abba, a man whom I can now unabashedly acknowledge as a giant in our public arena while still cherishing my image of him as the funny, sometimes self-mocking father to his youngest child, I feel intense gratitude. I am grateful for the life Abba has given me and my childhood which he ensured was happy notwithstanding the curve balls I asked life to throw at me. I am grateful for the family he has given me which serves as an unbreakable safety net for my occasional trapeze act. As I remember Abba, I am especially grateful to him for his legacy, a legacy not of bricks, mortar or coin, but a legacy much more valuable, a legacy of his values and public service shared with me daily by family, friends and random people of Bangladesh.

In almost every interaction I have had with acquaintances or strangers in Bangladesh (or with Bangladeshis in foreign airports, restaurants and parties), I am blessed with a reminder of the reach of Abba’s pen and the lives he has touched. Strangers have come up to me and quoted lines from something Abba wrote or said on television. Strangers have shared with me the early years they spent bunkered in the Holiday office battling the establishment with ink as their ammunition, youth and courage as their armor. Strangers have regaled me with his virtue in his stint at high public office, which virtue hopefully may again be seen in our present and future leaders. Most importantly, strangers have embraced me with their stories of Abba’s warmth and friendship. To the hundreds who were with Abba in Toronto and the thousands who remembered him publicly and privately in and out of Bangladesh, Abba was sometimes a mentor, sometimes a leader, but always a friend.

In the last few days, I have been gifted many opportunities to appreciate Abba’s legacy and the many ways he connected with and inspired people. A foreign embassy official, seeing Abba’s name on my application for a visa, shook my hand and quoted me a few lines from an article Abba wrote quite some time ago. My cousin, Titas Khan, shared with me that even when Abba’s life was taking its last bow, they developed an ardent bond bridging the years spent apart when Abba spoke to him of his love for his siblings and his family. Titas bhai’s wife and my bhabi, Minnat Khan, marveled at how Abba, barely out of his mid 20s at that time, walked away from a prosperous career to pursue his dream of opening an English language weekly, The Holiday, which dream he made into reality with the help of others including my mother, Masuda Khan. My cousin, Aneek Khan, spoke to me of some of Abba’s characteristics that Aneek aspires to, including never speaking ill of people and reflecting the respect and friendship a person has shown him, regardless of whether or not such person is in society’s or the establishment’s favour. I recall how Abba inspired Titas bhai and Minnat bhabi’s son and my nephew Fawaz Khan, who spent time with Abba by his hospital bed doing crossword puzzles with him. After Abba’s death, Fawaz wrote a piece about Abba that makes anything I have written pale in comparison.

Many others shared with me stories of Abba’s ideology tempered with his pragmatism, and his world view enhanced by his optimism. I believe that Abba’s pragmatism and his optimism are his greatest legacy for the people of Bangladesh, for he believed that Bangladesh would succeed in spite of the mistakes made by its helmsmen and women. He had great faith in its people. In his writings, he imparted to the readers his optimism about the country’s future beyond the immediate gloom. His belief in the country, and the belief and actions of others like him, are bringing many of us who left the country to come back. The present course of the country I believe would be viewed by him with qualified optimism.

As I remember Abba, I remember to be grateful for who I am and where I am in my life.