There was a time when like many of my peers I couldn't think of dying; death news would make me emotionally cripple. When I was a child and even when I was an adolescent I was foolhardily confident that every living being may die alright, but I am not going to die---in spite of the knowledge I had learned in my kindergarten that man is mortal. My father's death in 1978 first had jolted my old conviction about my selfish immortality. Since then I have gradually been mellowed enough to reconcile myself with many harsh realities of life and accept death -- the harshest reality -- as a gateway towards fulfillment of life.
As I prepare myself for retiring at night I take it for granted that I will not get up tomorrow in the morning -- a conviction my mother reinforced into my psyche. "Sleep", my mother would tell me "is synonymous with death. As you slide into your bed, close your eyelids, let your limbs rest in the same position for too long you gradually lose the sense of feeling in your whole body and at one blurry moment you are asleep, you are melted into a different world. That is death. In the morning when a sliver of sunshine, creeping through an opening of your bedroom, softly alights upon your face and you open your eyelids, you are awake. That is your new birth. So, beg His forgiveness as you proceed to sleep (to die) at night and express to Him your profound gratitude as you get up (to get a new lease of life) in the morning."
In spite of my having died every night and reborn every morning, a ritual I have been practicing for a couple of years, a sudden fear grips me whenever I read or hear about death of someone whom I personally know. I feel dull for the whole day thinking 'life is slipping away. second by second', I gaze pensively out the window, I dread at the thought of being left all alone inside a dark grave, I try to reconcile myself with the reality, and at last I console myself with the thought that the inescapable death is natural, as natural as going to sleep at night.
I comfort myself thinking we all, after all, are on the long march to our graves---one after another---one today, the other tomorrow, and me perhaps the day after tomorrow. I rejoice imagining that like a soft morning sunshine touching my face to wake me up from sleep, a divine hand would be alighting upon my soul to wake me up from death. Paraphrasing an ancient Tibetan saying I parrot to myself: "When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries".
The whole Bangladesh cried at two recent deaths: one of Major General Shakil Ahmed on the 25th of February and the other of Major General Rafiqul Islam on the 9th of March. To many, both were mysterious deaths. Why in a matter of 12 days two Major Generals along with a multitude of senior officers of Bangladesh Army had to meet their unnatural deaths? Was or still is there a grand conspiracy to cripple our Armed Forces? Will the mastermind behind the BDR mutiny be ever unearthed from his hideout? Is there a common thread that ignited the mutiny inside the BDR camp in Pilkhana killing scores of army officers including the Director General of B.D.R. and later snapped anything off that originated a serious mechanical disorder of the helicopter or a fatal mental disorientation of its pilot killing himself along with the G.O.C. of 55 Infantry Division? Are our investigators probing both the incidents (if the helicopter crash isn't an accident) academically proficient and technically well-equipped to delve deep into the conspiracy that has piled in quick succession one tragedy after another on the agony of our armed forces?
Immediately on hearing the helicopter crash near Tangail that killed Major General Rafiqul Islam many observers, like me, instinctively recalled the day, August 17 of 1988, when a mysterious air crash killed General Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, the then President of Pakistan, a tragedy that also claimed the life of a serving American ambassador and most of General Zia's top commanders.
The mystery behind the crash of Lockheed C-130 aircraft carrying Pakistani President and American ambassador is still an enigma mystified by a variety of conspiracy theories. Though some quarters, without showing concrete material evidence, had promoted the idea that a mechanical malfunction brought down the plane, most of Pakistanis didn't see it that way. As there was no midair explosion 'mechanical malfunction' theory was not believable to aviation experts or salable to general public. Analyzing the way the plane began to 'roller coaster' in the sky before dropping into the barren desert below with all its propellers still running at full speed and drilling into the earth many experts in Pakistan still believe that both the pilot and the copilot simply lost control -- or maybe lost consciousness? -- minutes into the flight. One conspiracy theory tells that some mangoes, gifts to VIP passengers of the aircraft, were perhaps laced with lethal VX gas that somehow passed stealthily into the cockpit to make the pilots lose their consciousness.
By quoting the 'mango story' I don't necessarily mean that Lieutenant Colonel Md. Shahidul Islam who was piloting the helicopter near Tangail had also inhaled some poisonous gas that was leaking from a hidden canister stashed somewhere inside the cockpit and the pilot was so disoriented after a while that unknowingly he was flying at too low an altitude to avoid a crash. There could be one of one hundred variant forms of devices a saboteur could choose to crash the helicopter. The mineral water or the tea the pilot had drunk, just before embarking on the helicopter, could also be laced with a mild poison that does not kill you instantly but disorients your mind after a specific period of time. Shouldn't our nation deserve a satisfactory answer from the investigators to dispel such a fear or suspicion?
Death of Major General Rafiqul Islam was a severe bolt of lightning that struck me on the 9th of March. I was dumbstruck for the whole day; I had to bear an inexplicable pain as I was trying to empathize with his undergoing the ordeal of death in fire. My pain was heavy because I knew this gentleman personally. From a close distance I, as General Manager of BKB of Khulna Division, saw him roving around the entire southern region in his frantic efforts to bring succor to victims of the cyclone 'SIDR' that wreaked havoc on Khulna and Barisal Divisions on 15 November, 2007. From the emphatic tone of his words, his attention focused to details and his body language it was palpably clear that he was there in the devastated areas as a savior with a missionary zeal only to serve the needy.
I will never forget an experience I shared with him while taking tea at his office in Jessore on an official meeting. He implored me to give an honest opinion on how to control price of food grains from a banker's point of view. Giving him a chuckle of delight I told an economist could perhaps be a wiser counselor than a banker. He then referred to an article titled "14 grains of rice for one paisa" I had written that he read in an English daily. I felt flattered.
Yes, I had given him a piece of advice on how a banker could control price of food grains by throttling up and down the flow of cash to the rice traders through a mechanism a banker calls "cycles of adjustments of cash credit". "If a banker", I opined, "gives a rice trader -- who is dependent on bank loan -- lesser breathing space by asking him to adjust his cash credit every 15 days, instead of normal 33 days, and if any third authority, other than the concerned banker, could oversee and check the relevant banking transactions whether the trader is actually complying with the banker's instruction or not, the rice trader will never find a scope to hoard rice beyond the cycling periods and the price of rice will have to fall drastically in no time as 80 per cent rice traders are dependent on cash credits from banks". The two-star General was so enamored that he took immediate notes on his diary and politely told me that he got a precious advice no banker earlier gave him.
Anybody who ever met General Rafiqul Islam would find it very difficult to forget him not only for his friendly demeanor but also for his handsome face, his tall stature, his muscled body, his marble-like brown eyes, and above all a charismatic aura he used to radiate before his guests. He looks more like a European than a Bangladeshi; he would have been one of few smart three-star Generals had he lived a few years more. But, the death clock in many cases doesn't sync with the career clock.
The nation cried at the deaths of the army officers a bit loudly because they were young and promising and they were killed while they were on duty. Such deaths are irreconcilable. Our hearts bleed at the plight of the family members of the deceased as they were least prepared for such doom and gloom. The bereaved families will find the first year following their loved ones' deaths very hard and poignant because it includes all the significant milestones that would normally be observed such as the deceased's birthday, wedding anniversary, festivities like Eid Day, and then the anniversary of the death itself. Feelings of pains and pangs will return at a greater intensity at these key times of the first year when the bereaved families will have to go through all the rough patches and, in the following year, these occasions hopefully won't be so emotionally profound.
We can console the matured members of the bereaved families with a plethora of sympathetic and empathic words. But our tongues know no word which can help a bereaved child understand the reason why like everyday his father no more calls her name in the morning before he leaves for his office or hugs her in the evening when he returns home from his duty. May God, we beg, whisper His words Himself to those hapless children!
The writer is a banker who may be reached at
[email protected]
