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In Memoriam

A star like him never dims

Nizamuddin Ahmed
WE reached the Melaghar Muktijuddho training camp after a long arduous journey. 'We' means eight of us from Kalabagan, Kathalbagan and Azimpur areas, who decided to join the armed struggle without letting our parents know We were directed to the Baksha Nagar Youth Camp, where we went on a truck. One night we were told that Major Haider wanted us to return with him to Melaghar then and there.
At Melaghar we came face to face with a man -- cat-eyed, wiry, arrogant, stealthy in style, terse in speech, and feared by all trainees, or so we came to know. Only after liberation, when I met him through a school-friend, I discovered that the man could smile, that not only did he enjoy a joke but also knew how to handle one.
As Brigade Major, he took our political classes in the mud-laden arena formed by the bamboo barracks of
platoons 9,10 and 17. In the darkness of the night his face was lit by a lone hurricane lantern. He spoke to an audience of several hundred trainees about important matters and strategies. But the timing of his classes, the over-the-head topic that he dwelt on, the austere face pronounced by the flickering lamp, the tall shadows, and his thick throaty voice added to the fear factor.
In independent Bangladesh when I met him socially he was always all smiles, warm-hearted and had something to say, often pickled with foul words that were a cause for our joviality. He was an optimistic and endearing soul, a man of high emotions. It seemed he was truly relishing liberation from the manacles of occupation. He laughed generously and seemed content in having accomplished his mission. He was a professional soldier all the way. In retrospect, his wartime attitude made sense. From a struggle for freedom he had emerged a hero.
He joined the 4 East Bengal Regiment
after completing the 31 st Long Course at Pakistan Military Academy in April 1965. Besides being Brigade Major at Melaghar, he later served as Commander of Bravo Company of East Bengal Regiment at Belonia and Feni, in which capacity he organised the freedom fighters in the area.
He was appointed the first Adjutant-General of post-liberation Bangladesh army. He also held the office of Defence Attach^ at the Bangladesh Embassy in Myanmar. His final service posting (19B2-85) was as Director-General of Bangladesh Fire Service and Civil Defence, from which experience he derived a passion for fire safety design, including its equipment, in which pursuit he often engaged me in professional conversation knowing my Interest in that field of architecture.
I heard him in public for the last time when he gave a fiery speech at the annual Nagar Bhaban ensemble of freedom fighters on December 16, 2007. He was eloquent, and as committed to
the cause of muktijuddho and freedom fighters, and the nation that we gained, as he was in those blustery monsoon evenings at Melaghar.
He called me up a few months back and scolded me for not having included his name in the iron plaque of Sector 2 at the Osmany Udyan; a monument unveiled December 16, 2008, by sector commanders present, the Dhaka mayor and other freedom fighters, including him.
When I tried to explain to him that as architect I had put up the names as I had received them, upon which he gratingly queried: "Who gave you?" I sidetracked to something like having referred to a book, and he volleyed back: "Which book?" I remained silent, not realising that his silence a few months later would be more significant, and devastating.
He was a man that you could not avoid befriending. You may not have agreed with him. you may have argued with him for hours, but his disarming
smile and charm would make you feel a winner even if you lost the verbal spat. That is why even 3fl years after Ekattur, his companions from all walks of the society and all shades of opinion walked with him for the final time to his resting
place, where he awaits transit to his heavenly abode.
Brigadier-General (Retd) M. A Matin, Bir Pratik, psc passed away August 19, 2009 at 7.15PM at the Dhaka Combined Military Hospital, following a massive heart attack a few hours earlier.
Family and friends, comrades and colleagues, jogging mates as young as his children and homage-payers bade him a solemn Khoda Hafez, as harmonised gunfire, as part of the full military honours conferred on a gazi. ripped asunder the tranquil environs of the Banani military graveyard to proclaim the arrival of a war hero. The cry resonated one more time that a valiant star never falls. So where lay our fear? Or indeed our despair?
Reading today "a valiant star like him never falls" besides his portrait, he would perhaps have exclaimed: "Professor, you should have said this when 1 was alive." You are Matin Bhai!
Dr Nizamuddin Ahmed is a Professor. Department of Architecture. BUET