Remembering Zaglul —the undying journalist

Zaglul, M Ziauddin, Bangladesh Ambassador to the US, Iqbal Mahmud, a common friend and I spent a long evening at the house of his daughter Ontora in Virginia over a dinner little over a month ago. We reminisced about friends and events that tied us over the last four and a half decades. The evening passed too quickly and left us all sad as we left Ontora's house
reluctantly.
A couple of days later, I met him again at the death anniversary of the wife of former VOA Bangla Service chief Iqbal Bahar Chowdhury. Zaglul's wife Tanzin is the youngest sister
of Iqbal Bahar. His speech at the
event touched every heart with its
eloquence.
Zaglul left the US two weeks ago for his tryst with death after staying there for over a month.  During his stay in Virginia, we spoke almost every day. He had come to the US so that his seriously sick wife could spend some time with their only daughter Ontora.
He was one of the country's most successful journalists and therefore, had little time to look after his sick wife. That evening in Ontora's house among so many things we talked about, one over which Zaglul became emotional was about the death of a common friend who had passed away a couple of months earlier.
Zaglul told us that after many years, he wrote another piece in The Daily Star for his friend Shabbir Yusuf Chowdhury who died while under treatment for a brain tumour. Perhaps, the Angel of Death, who was also listening, was smiling wryly.
My association with Zaglul dates back from the time he entered the Dhaka University. I was two-year senior to him in the Department of Political Science. I still remember vividly Zaglul coming to the tennis court at the Salimullah Muslim Hall with a copy of Plato's Republic under his arm to watch us play.
He had a trade-mark smile and always seemed to be in a hurry as if he was getting late for an appointment. I came to know him closely because some of his best friends in the Department Shabbir, his brother Akmal and Enamul Islam Babul were close to me. Later when I became a Lecturer in the Dhaka University, the closeness increased and it continued to grow over the years.
In fact, Babul was in Washington while Zaglul was here. Zaglul spent days trying to set up a meeting among us three over dinner but his sincere efforts did not come through although we met during the death anniversary. We resolved to meet over dinner at the Dhaka Club during my coming visit to Bangladesh.
Zaglul was the New Delhi correspondent of BSS while I was posted in the Bangladesh High Commission in the Indian capital between 1983 and 1986. He had already spent a number of years in his post before I arrived.
He was extremely helpful for us at the High Commission because of his popularity among journalists in New Delhi, both the Indians as well as the foreign ones.
The standard of journalism in New Delhi is comparable with the best in the world. Foreign journalists, who are posted to New Delhi, are some of the best. Zaglul was able to work with such high quality journalists at par.
In fact, in recognition of his abilities, Zaglul was elected to the executive committee of the Foreign Journalists Association in New Delhi. That was no doubt an achievement that enhanced the impression in New Delhi about journalism in Bangladesh.
Late Shahidul Huq, one of Bangladesh's best-ever journalists, was posted as the Minister (Press) at the Bangladesh High Commission in those days. Shahid Bhai used to love Zaglul like his younger brother.
He rated him very high as a journalist because he had benefitted a great deal through Zaglul's contacts with the press community in New Delhi. Working those days for the Bangladesh government was difficult to say the least as the Indians had no love lost for Bangladesh President Hussein Mohammed Ershad.
Zaglul helped not just Shahid Bhai but the High Commission for better acceptance of the Bangladesh government and its military in New Delhi. In fact, till his famous faux pas in 1988 when he had sent back the Indian helicopters that New Delhi had provided for that year's floods, HM Ershad was able to earn for himself a good name in the media that greatly influenced Indian politics owing to a great extent to the helping hand of Zaglul.
Zaglul's great ability as a journalist was underlined when he was one of the very few newsmen who were able to get to the Safdarjang Airport in New Delhi where the body of Sanjay Gandhi was kept briefly after his fatal air crash in 1980.
He was present when Indira Gandhi came to see the body. He described in his report later how he was taken aback to see a mother so calm over the death of her son as Mrs. Gandhi was on that morning when her main concern seemed to be over a particular set of keys in the dead body of Sanjay Gandhi.
There were a few in the galaxy of journalists, both Indian and foreign, who were able to excel as  Zaglul did over covering the death of Sanjay Gandhi.  When Mrs. Gandhi herself died, it was a close friend of Zaglul, Dilip (I cannot remember his last name) who as a correspondent of AP was the first to break the news that the Indian Prime Minister was dead hours before the official announcement as soon as the AIIMS (All-India Institute of Medical Science and Research) where Mrs. Gandhi was being treated stopped bringing blood from outside.
Dilip and a few other leading journalists were introduced to the Bangladesh High Commission by Zaglul. They were immensely helpful to the High Commission's efforts to warm up the Bangladesh-India
relations.
Zaglul was a prolific writer. His qualities as a columnist are well-known and widely admired. He was also a regular in the TV Talk Shows where he excelled with his balanced views and was never influenced by partisan considerations, a rare quality these days in Bangladesh.
Both in his participation in the Talk Shows as well as his columns in both Bangla and English dailies, he was logical and rational. In his student days, he was left-leaning but like many left-leaning individuals, he later developed close contacts with the Awami League. He was indeed very close to the ruling party's top leadership.
He was one of the rare breed--gradually becoming extinct in Bangladesh--that did not use such contacts for personal benefits. His close friends know how easily he could have used his well-earned fame as a journalist and close contacts to get for himself high-level government positions at home or abroad. His upbringing did not even let him think of such options.
Zaglul was above all a gentleman to the core. He seldom gossiped and never spoke ill of others. He had childlike qualities that endeared him to all who came into contact with him. During my New Delhi posting, my father forgot to take his very ordinary walking stick home.
Zaglul, who went to Dhaka on a trip shortly afterwards, insisted and carried the stick by hand because of its odd size. He handed the stick to my father personally showing him the same respect he would show to his own father!
Postscript: Within 24 hours, artist Qayyum Chowdhury also left us. My daughter's father-in-law Ziaur Rahman, formerly of VOA, is married to the younger sister of the great artist's wife. On Sunday night, the artist had called Ziaur Rahman and the two spent a good part of their time on phone remembering Zaglul.
The Angel of Death must have beamed his wry smile once more. Zaglul's death and that of Qayyum Chowdhury were simply too sudden and have left the nation numb. Nevertheless, it underlined cruelty but unequivocally Greek dramatist Euripides had said many millenniums ago that no one can confidently say he will be living tomorrow.
The writer is a retired career Ambassador.
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