My days with Mijarul Quayes

All under heaven will return to the Tao
As brooks and streams flow home to the sea.
Returning is the route of the Tao.
Yielding is the way of the Tao.
Ten thousand things are born of Being,
and Being is born of Non-being.
- Laozi, in Tao Te Ching (6th Century BC,
in China)

In the beginning he was my junior. He caught me up at the secondary level and after that overtook me in all aspects including our career in the civil service. That was how things evolved between me and late Ambassador Mijarul Quayes alias Panna who expired recently-one of my closest friends for almost half a century.
Panna was my school-friend starting from 1969 at Islamabad Model School for Boys and then my classmate from 1973 at Dhaka Residential Model School. I can still remember him darting forward like a dynamo during the afternoon sports sessions at our school. He was a genuine all-rounder and versatile genius, surpassing his peers in numerous curricular cum extra-curricular activities. He used to get hefty merit points for our common house at the daily school assemblies and proved himself to be outstanding in debates and recitation contests where we both competed. He was especially fond of reciting the poem 'Bidrohi' (The Rebel) by Kazi Nazrul Islam, and used to become so emotional while reciting it that he had to forego the top position a couple of times despite receiving thunderous applause from the audience.
After returning to Dhaka in 1973, both of us took admission to Dhaka Residential Model School in class nine and this was the period when we came really close to each other. His father was serving as a Sub-Divisional Officer and later Additional Deputy Commissioner outside Dhaka, so he used to stay at his uncle's house at Manipur which was near my father's Sher-e-Bangla Nagar official residence. Consequently, we walked to the school and returned home together most of the days. He was still a fiery orator and a highly dynamic individual, but it took some time before he was fully embraced by his new classmates in the local setting. Having an extraordinary command over the English language, Panna was regularly writing English poems and also prose at that time. He virtually took the Junior Times page of the daily Bangladesh Times by storm in early 1975 by writing pieces including 'The Gladiator Enters the Arena' just before the SSC examination. But unfortunately, his manuscript of English poems was lost while he was staying in Tangail, and I considered it to be a great loss for our literature.
After passing SSC in 1975, we parted ways in our studies as he took admission to Dhaka College and I continued at the Residential Model College. We again came close during 1978-79 when he joined the MBBS course at Dhaka Medical College (DMC) after a brief stint at the English Department of Dhaka University, while I got admitted to the Department of Applied Physics and Electronics in Dhaka University. However, his experience at the DMC was not very happy, which I reckon was mainly due to his multifarious involvements including the establishment of Bishwa Sahitya Kendra that was spearheaded by Professor Abdullah Abu Sayeed, his role as a teacher of Spoken English courses at the Notre Dame College, part-time jobs with advertising firms like Bitopi, the courses on music and tabla that he attended, and his engagements in teaching and writing mostly on the honorary basis. Panna was a leading Shakespearean even at that time, extensively writing on the subject and coaching even some of his fellow peers at the English Department of Dhaka University. He was also a lifelong admirer of Tagore, which quite tallied with his constant adherence to a secularist ideology. In fact his command over art, literature, music, theatre and film was quite awesome even during the later part of his life and he excelled as a part-time teacher at many institutions of higher learning.
I was a regular visitor to his father's official residence at Segunbagicha during the late 1970s and early 1980s, which almost became my second home then as I also enjoyed the company of his elder brother Rana Bhai (retired Major General Imrul Quayes) and younger brothers Manna (deceased) and Palash (now in the USA). Panna was also very fond of his sisters Nupur, Mohua and Seema. We covered some international football tournaments together at that time for the fortnightly Sports-World (Krirajagat) published by the National Sports Council, where he mostly did the talking with foreign players and managers staying at the Purbani or Dhaka Sheraton Hotel. I also found Panna and another friend Nayeem to be the most devoted and caring during my illnesses, and such care and concern are indeed rare in today's world. It was in 1980-81 that Panna finally decided to give up medical education and opted instead for a BA (Pass) examination, which he creditably passed with a second division. That opened up the avenue for him to appear in the BCS-1982 examination, where he did exceptionally well to clinch the third position in the overall merit list and was therefore appointed as a foreign-service cadre.
Panna joined the Foreign Service in 1984 and we maintained very close ties with each other even during the next ten years, until he left for Geneva in 1994 to join as Counsellor at the Bangladesh Permanent Mission to the UN there. In between, he was posted as Second/First Secretary at the Bangladesh Embassy in Tokyo during 1986-90, married his fiancée Naima in 1991, obtained an MPA degree from the Harvard University in 1992, and played a crucial role at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in organising the 1993 SAARC Summit in Dhaka as the desk officer. He was full of energy and vivacity during the period and people like me often found it difficult to keep pace with him while moving around. That dynamic, spruce and sprightly Panna seemed to be overweight and bulky when I next saw him in early 1998 while he was moving from Geneva to Singapore to take up another assignment as Counsellor. He had gained weight by then, but was not yet obese. But after his stint in Singapore during 1998-2000, things seemed to have worsened quite drastically as he clearly seemed to have become obese when he rejoined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2000, first as Director and then as Director-General.
Panna was looking forward to the return of the Awami League to power in 2001, because apart from being an avid fan and admirer of Bangabandhu, he was working as the coordinator for holding the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Dhaka in 2002. When that did not happen, he was visibly upset after the BNP-led government assumed office. Things became more complicated for him when he was made an OSD in 2002 after differences with the authorities regarding the hanging of a painting of Bangabandhu in his office room. He then took admission to the International Relations Department of Dhaka University as a PhD scholar, but returned to the foreign ministry in 2004 without completing the course under various compulsions. He was then assigned for the UNCLOS desk at the ministry. He worked on the law of the seas and maritime boundary of Bangladesh before being posted to the Maldives towards the end of 2005 as the Bangladesh High Commissioner.
Meanwhile, he did not like my posting at the press wing of the Prime Minister's Office in May 2005, although it was completely against my wish. This was made clear by the fact that although he visited my previous residences at Azimpur, Sobhanbag, Eskaton Garden, Sheikh Saheb Bazaar and Siddheshwari quite frequently on numerous occasions, he never came to my present quarters at Mogbazar where I have been living since October 2005. This cooling of relationship continued through 2006 and 2007. In mid-2007 he rang me up from Male one day at the Chief Adviser's Office to inform me about the passing away of his mother. The news was also shocking for me, as Panna's mother held me in great affection ever since the loss of my own mother at Islamabad in March 1971. We talked over telephone for a long time and our relationship seemed to be healing. But soon afterwards (probably early 2008) Panna was posted as the ambassador of Bangladesh to Russia and I again lost contact with him until he rejoined the foreign ministry as its secretary in mid-2009.
On hearing the news, I went to congratulate him at his office, and the warmth and affection that he showed towards me gave me hope once again that our olden days of friendship were returning. But once on the hot seat, Panna did not have much time for his old friends, which was quite natural for a dedicated and hardworking diplomat like him. That was how I again lost contact with him gradually. We probably did meet once a year in 2010 and 2011, and I was always quite prompt in pointing out to him the risks of obesity and the steps he could take to reverse it. But he just shrugged it off by saying that his health was in a perfect shape. When I spoke about the risk of diabetes etc., he sarcastically asked me to pray for that. Sadly, it was towards the end of 2011 that he had to be airlifted to Singapore after passing into a comma and suffering multiple organ failure. He recovered quite miraculously there and was back in charge at the foreign ministry within a few months. And on completion of his three-year tenure as foreign secretary, he was given posting in London towards the end of 2012.
Before departing for London, he called me one day after many months to invite me to join his farewell party at his Dhanmondi residence. I was quite touched by this invitation and went to see him despite some pressing preoccupations. Panna once again seemed to be very friendly and talked with me on many themes, while pushing down one dish after another into his mouth, as if it was a favorite pastime. I once again raised the issue of his obesity risks, but he again brushed it off saying that there was no problem with his health. It now seems to me that he was committing a silent and self-inflicted hara-kiri by allowing his vitals to be eaten away through excessive consumption.
Panna could stay in London as the Bangladesh High Commissioner to the UK for around one year and was subsequently sent to Brazil in 2013 on another assignment. It was only in January 2015 that I saw him in Dhaka next. He was sitting in a car at the entrance to Eskaton Garden Road and he called me through the window when he saw me passing. I was quite thrilled to see him after so many years and wanted to share many things with him. But he seemed to be in a hurry and rushed off with the car without getting down or shaking hands with me.
That was the last I saw my dearest friend Panna. It was while in Beijing recently that I learned about his sad demise in Brasilia on March 11 due to multiple organ failure after remaining in the ICU for around a month. Throughout his life, I found him nurturing an agnostic outlook towards religion and philosophy, although he did offer prayers (Namaz) on a regular basis up to the 1980s. During his prime time  he was so assertive that he often claimed that everything in his life was in accordance with his plan. And now, I wonder where he is!! Adieu my friend, stay well wherever you are. May the Almighty grant Panna eternal peace and salvation.

Dr. Helal Uddin Ahmed is a retired civil servant, currently in Beijing doing a Confucius Institute Fellowship.
Email: hahmed1960@gmail.com