From my childhood...

From my childhood I had been attending to 'Uthan boithok' (gossiping at the premises) under a banyan tree or under the shade of bamboo bushes at villages, where the oldies of the village used to tell stories of well and woes of their past or of their parents, thus I had easy access to folk academia called ‘Botatola’ and was privileged to be connected to the generations of my grandfather and great grandfather through oral history and discourses naively made with pure rusticity. Narratives from different areas of life and human society could I enjoy more than what I learnt from history books of which vivid ones are of second world war, partition and liberation war of 1971. The way stories were narrated was not like listening a lecture from a pundit like Salimullah Khan or Sirajul Islam Chowdhury of our days, rather those were like participatory class practiced in a modern training centre, where most of the participants do contribute imputing information or rectifying wrong ones, thus making colligation of facts more justified. 

Sultan fakir, the oldest among the olds in our village, had direct experience of Second World War, who was at a close distance when it was bombed at the Cox's Bazar airport in 1945. Another one was a companion of Moulana Bhasani who used to narrate about the role he had played having been in companionship with the great Moulana during pre-independence days. The Hindus in our locality who were provided with shelter and hideouts at the outskirt of Taujja khalifa’s house, the grandfather of my aunt in 1971 still remind me of communal harmony during humanitarian crisis. The cyclone in 1970 that destroyed all the belongings they had, incurred irreparable loss and grave miseries to the poor for which some of the narrators had to go starved most of the days in week. 

The zamindar, Ajit Kumar Roy Bahadur, an art connoisseur, had to beg to the door when zamindari system was abolished after 50s. The leaders in our locality had to, once, wait in queue to get chance to meet Ajit Kumar Roy whom they helped giving money when he was in despair. He ended up his life being a music teacher in Chittagong. We heard of his lavish generosity and pompous life maintained in the way more luxuriant than any other land lords at that time. Contrarily we heard of bravery of fishermen and of great struggle by widows who lost their husbands or sons at the tumultuous sea. In compared to what we learn from the books, it was great in terms of vividness and justification by the audiences who were part of the events. 

One of my grandmother, (sister of my grandma) who was conversant in four languages, for whom four graduates from Darul Ulum, Deoband took part in horse race to marry her, used to tell story of her mother Golapjan, who led so dignified a life than an ordinary leader in the village, and I got my birth at the very home where Golapjan lived. Now, that very Golapjan is in oblivion except her grave that is still known to all of the Maheshkhalian as ‘Golalir Kobor’ at the graveyard in front of Alamgir Farid Technical College. My grandmother used to read 'Punthi' of 'Noornama', 'Junganama', Sayful Mulluk Badiujjamal, Yousuf Joleikha, when many of villagers and close relatives of us used to visit our home and got engaged in. In later period, me too learned how to recite verses from punthi in old diction.

In my childhood I found handwritten letters, calligraphy and books in my family. Once in a year, books were set in the sun spreading a KULA and pathi, locally made cane mats, in the yard. Like a beetle in flowers, I would roam around the mat and read books, sometimes I just felt exhilarated to have fragrance of gorgeous books. I had radio and fountain pen called hero pen. I used listen DW, BBC and VOA news in the morning. All around my house, environment was clean, sky was clear and the air was rejuvenating. With these, our dreams had no bounds.

People from near and far used to visit our home. Friends of my uncles had come with information and stories; they discussed, I listened, thus got enlightened with current affairs of the society and the nation. I used to read the daily Ittefaq, the daily Banglar Bani and monthly Torjuman at my home. Those were subscribed by my uncle.  So, I felt overwhelmed with abundance of resources for knowledge in my childhood and that abundance surely made me a bit over smart in my early life. Compared to that, I read not enough in my high school days. Nazrul, Humayun and Sunil were the writers I read thoroughly. Nazrul inspired me to write poetry, Humayun's Misir Ali series attracted much. But in college days I felt very hard poverty with unlimited freedom. In Chittagong Muslim hall, I spent a considerable amount of time reading any book I felt interested to. But I hardly focused on my formal studied to perform well in board exam. Besides, I was immersed in watching movies, especially Hollywood movies.

I never studied for exam as I read for pleasure and knowledge. However, I did well in most of the exams in my academic career.