Down the memory lane
Saturday, 21 March 2009
Raihan M Chowdhury
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away. I don't know who first coined this precious 'quote', but the measurement of life and breaths remains a very painful reality in my life, when I lost Colonel BM Zahid Hossain Chapal, who braced martyrdom along with 74 persons during the February 25-26 massacre in the BDR headquarters in Dhaka.
Col Zahid was the husband of my niece, but I got acquainted with him very recently just before his tragic death.
On February 3, 2009 I retrieved a letter of 1960s written by my grandfather, Abdur Rahman Chowdhury, from the mother-in-law of Mr Zahid.
Late Abdur Rahman Chowdhury, an Arabic and Persian language teacher of the erstwhile George High School of Brahmanbaria (now Neaz Mohammad High School) from 1920s to 1940s, wrote this letter to his youngest daughter (mother of Col Zahid's mother-in-law).
On my frequent requests, Nasima Apa (Zahid's mother-in-law) retrieved the letter and invited me to her residence to receive it.
So I went to her Uttara residence on February 3 and received the 'treasure trove'.
In the meantime, Col Zahid and his wife came there and I got acquinted with him.
I was naturally elated when the letter was handed over to me and I read out every line of the letter to Col Zahid. He listened and shared the joy with me.
I found him very unassuming and simple and at one stage he burst into tears as he lost his elder brother a few days back.
He gave me his mobile number and said he had been posted in Mymensingh as the area commander of BDR. In reply I gestured and saved the number on my mobile set.
Who knew that very number would be the all-important for me on the fateful day of February 25?
When the news of BDR mutiny broke, I tried to reach a few numbers of Army officers saved on my mobile phone, but all of them kept mum much to my disappointment.
But all on a sudden, in the noon of the following day (February 26), I received the sad news of Zahid's death.
I still wish if Col Zahid could follow Major Monir who pretended to be dead by smearing blood of a slain colleague on his face to dodge the killers.
Giving a chilling account of the bloody BDR mutiny, Bangladesh Army officers have revealed that about 20-25 soldiers instigated others to massacre their superiors, one of whom pretended to be dead by smearing blood of a slain colleague.
Minutes after the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) jawans went on a killing spree in the February 25 morning, an officer escaped the death by covering his face with the blood oozing out of an unfortunate colleague's body.
"Mutineers spotted me and Major Maksud inside the washroom of the hall (in the BDR headquarters) where we were hiding," Major Monir was quoted as saying by the media.
He said the BDR soldiers started firing at them from outside the washroom and Maksud was hit several times. "As blood gushing out of Maksud Sir's body flooded the floor, I stained my face with it and pretended to be dead," Monir said.
He said he had cut his forehead with a piece of shattered glass in his desperate bid to make them believe that he was dead. But the blood coming out of his forehead was not enough, that forced him to take the blood of Major Maksud.
His wife Chhanda regretted that Zahid survived the terrific Benin tragedy in 2003 during his posting in the UN peacekeeping mission but this time he failed back in his own country.
Mr Zahid has got the honour as of freedom fighters who braced martyrdom in 1971 in our great Liberation War.
Writing about the death of a near and dear one is never easy, as it can stir up one's emotion concerning the handling of the loss and accepting it.
However, this is part of the human life. This loss is irreparable. No message of condolence or write-up is enough to heal the souls saddened by the irreparable loss. Still the life goes on, the people get busy with their every day chores. But the memories remain and make us sad at a leisure moment.
The writer can be reached at:
raim912@yahoo.com
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take but by the number of moments that take our breath away. I don't know who first coined this precious 'quote', but the measurement of life and breaths remains a very painful reality in my life, when I lost Colonel BM Zahid Hossain Chapal, who braced martyrdom along with 74 persons during the February 25-26 massacre in the BDR headquarters in Dhaka.
Col Zahid was the husband of my niece, but I got acquainted with him very recently just before his tragic death.
On February 3, 2009 I retrieved a letter of 1960s written by my grandfather, Abdur Rahman Chowdhury, from the mother-in-law of Mr Zahid.
Late Abdur Rahman Chowdhury, an Arabic and Persian language teacher of the erstwhile George High School of Brahmanbaria (now Neaz Mohammad High School) from 1920s to 1940s, wrote this letter to his youngest daughter (mother of Col Zahid's mother-in-law).
On my frequent requests, Nasima Apa (Zahid's mother-in-law) retrieved the letter and invited me to her residence to receive it.
So I went to her Uttara residence on February 3 and received the 'treasure trove'.
In the meantime, Col Zahid and his wife came there and I got acquinted with him.
I was naturally elated when the letter was handed over to me and I read out every line of the letter to Col Zahid. He listened and shared the joy with me.
I found him very unassuming and simple and at one stage he burst into tears as he lost his elder brother a few days back.
He gave me his mobile number and said he had been posted in Mymensingh as the area commander of BDR. In reply I gestured and saved the number on my mobile set.
Who knew that very number would be the all-important for me on the fateful day of February 25?
When the news of BDR mutiny broke, I tried to reach a few numbers of Army officers saved on my mobile phone, but all of them kept mum much to my disappointment.
But all on a sudden, in the noon of the following day (February 26), I received the sad news of Zahid's death.
I still wish if Col Zahid could follow Major Monir who pretended to be dead by smearing blood of a slain colleague on his face to dodge the killers.
Giving a chilling account of the bloody BDR mutiny, Bangladesh Army officers have revealed that about 20-25 soldiers instigated others to massacre their superiors, one of whom pretended to be dead by smearing blood of a slain colleague.
Minutes after the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) jawans went on a killing spree in the February 25 morning, an officer escaped the death by covering his face with the blood oozing out of an unfortunate colleague's body.
"Mutineers spotted me and Major Maksud inside the washroom of the hall (in the BDR headquarters) where we were hiding," Major Monir was quoted as saying by the media.
He said the BDR soldiers started firing at them from outside the washroom and Maksud was hit several times. "As blood gushing out of Maksud Sir's body flooded the floor, I stained my face with it and pretended to be dead," Monir said.
He said he had cut his forehead with a piece of shattered glass in his desperate bid to make them believe that he was dead. But the blood coming out of his forehead was not enough, that forced him to take the blood of Major Maksud.
His wife Chhanda regretted that Zahid survived the terrific Benin tragedy in 2003 during his posting in the UN peacekeeping mission but this time he failed back in his own country.
Mr Zahid has got the honour as of freedom fighters who braced martyrdom in 1971 in our great Liberation War.
Writing about the death of a near and dear one is never easy, as it can stir up one's emotion concerning the handling of the loss and accepting it.
However, this is part of the human life. This loss is irreparable. No message of condolence or write-up is enough to heal the souls saddened by the irreparable loss. Still the life goes on, the people get busy with their every day chores. But the memories remain and make us sad at a leisure moment.
The writer can be reached at:
raim912@yahoo.com