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A memorable story of my life as a journalist

Published : Friday, 25 November, 2022 at 12:00 AM  Count : 329

Syed Badiuzzaman

Syed Badiuzzaman

There are some stories of life that never fade away. Almost each one of us has them and obviously so do I. Time passes but those stories remain and eventually become our memories. Some of those stories are told and some are never told. In my today's column in the Daily Observer, I will share with readers some of those amazing stories of my own life that I will never forget.

Just as I was packing for heading to the United States from Bangladesh in the month of June 1988 to participate in a journalism fellowship which I received from the Washington-based Alfred Friendly Press Foundation, Syed Mozammel Huq, who was then a special correspondent of Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) handed me a sealed manila envelope at the National Press Club in Dhaka.

I was as usually having chats -- my favorite pastime - with a bunch of my journalist buddies at the club after finishing my lunch. Suddenly, Syed Mozammel Huq accompanied by one of his BSS colleagues came and handed me the envelope to my surprise. "I have heard from someone that you are going to the U.S. with a journalism fellowship. Please deliver this letter to my friend who is also a journalist there," Huq told me.

Although initially it looked a little odd as we were not so intimate or closely connected, it was alright as all I would be doing was just carrying a letter for an American journalist from a senior journalist colleague of mine from Bangladesh who was widely respected in the community for his seniority, journalistic skills and extremely pleasant personality. I never saw him talk to anybody without a smile on his face.
Even though the envelope was sealed, he revealed its contents to me. He said there was just a letter inside for his friend David Greenway who was then the associate editor at the Boston Globe, a prestigious American newspaper. They met at Harvard University while participating in the Nieman Fellowship in 1972. "In my letter to David, I have also written about you that you will be in America to participate in a journalism fellowship and you are just like my younger brother," he said.

The totally unexpected gesture of Mozammel Huq, who was senior to me by several years in the profession, deeply touched me. We never worked at the same newspaper. On the contrary, we worked at rival news organizations. He worked at Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) and I worked at Eastern News Agency (ENA) and then of course at the New Nation. So, when he voluntarily wrote about me in his letter to his well-placed American journalist friend, it really surprised me.   

Delivering that letter to David Greenway of the Boston Globe wouldn't be very difficult for me as Boston would be my temporary home anyway for the next several months. Under our Journalism Fellowship Program, we were required to spend about three weeks in Washington and New York for participating in several orientation seminars and then disperse to different American cities to work at different newspapers for gaining an on-the-job experience in journalism.

Out of 12 journalists from 12 different countries, I was sent to 185-year-old Patriot Ledger, the third largest Boston-area newspaper after the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald. Founded in 1837, the hometown newspaper of the sixth American President John Quincy Adams won numerous regional, national, international and public service awards over the years. The broadsheet daily published six days a week was also named the New England Newspaper of the Year many times.

After spending first few weeks at the Patriot Ledger, I remembered that I brought a letter from a Bangladesh journalist for an American journalist in Boston. Now that I was already in Boston area for some time, the letter must be delivered right away. So, I was about to set up an appointment to meet with David Greenway, the associate editor of the Boston Globe. But a miracle happened! One day while I was working in the Patriot Ledger newsroom, a young reporter of the paper came to my desk, introduced herself and then invited me to their residence.

"Hi Syed, I am Alice Greenway. I like to invite you for a dinner with us at our house. How does this Friday look to you? You don't have to worry about the ride. I will drive you both ways from the Patriot Ledger office to our house and back." It truly came as a pleasant surprise to me in a new environment in a foreign country. But before I could say anything, she said: "I told my dad who is also a journalist that a Bangladeshi journalist has come to work at our newspaper. Then my dad actually asked me to invite you for a dinner at our house. By the way, the name of my dad is David Greenway."

I then asked her wasn't her father the associate editor at the Boston Globe. "Yes, he is," she replied. "How nice! In fact, I was planning to meet your father because I have brought something for him all the way from Bangladesh," I told Alice. "Beautiful," she said, adding: "You can give that to him when you will meet him this Friday." So, as planned, at the end of our work on that Friday, we both came out of the Patriot Ledger office together and Alice drove through a suburban scenic route of Massachusetts and brought me to their beautiful house on the South Shore of Boston.

After parking her car on the driveway in front of their house, she led me straight through their living room and kitchen onto the backyard wooden deck where her father David Greenway was relaxing on a recliner wearing a short-sleeved shirt, shorts and sandals. Seeing me with his daughter Alice, he greeted me in a very cordial way which made me feel instantly comfortable. "I have something for you Mr. Greenway," I told him as I pulled out of my pocket the letter that I carried for him from Bangladesh.   

But before I could hand him the envelope, he almost snatched it from me saying "it must be from my friend Mozammel." Without waiting even for a split second, he opened the envelope and read the single-page letter sent to him by his Bangladeshi journalist friend. Then he sat back again on his recliner and told us about his association with Mozammel Huq and how they became friends at Harvard while participating in the prestigious Nieman Fellowship in 1972.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Greenway served us home-cooked food on their outside eating table right there on the backyard deck. As we all dined together, David Greenway narrated some of his memorable experiences of international news coverage. "In early December 1971, I was in Vietnam covering the war there for the Washington Post. Then one day I suddenly received a message straight from our newspaper headquarters asking me to immediately leave Vietnam and rush to Bangladesh."

Recounting the events of the final days of Bangladesh War, Greenway said: "Bangladesh freedom fighters and Indian ground troops had already entered Dacca while Indian fighter jets were flying over the city. I saw them patrolling the streets of the capital while Pakistani troops were retreating. One night, a bomb exploded at Hotel Intercontinental where we were staying along with many other foreign correspondents. It was a total chaos. Hotel guests were running helter-skelter. And in the middle of all these, my wife who was also with me passed out. She, however, regained her consciousness after receiving medical attention."   

Over that dinner with the Greenway family that evening on the South Shore of Boston, I had a rare opportunity to hear some of the never heard before stories of Bangladesh War from an American war correspondent who himself covered them. After we had our dessert and coffee, Alice Greenway drove me back to the Patriot Ledger office and I returned with a happy experience of American hospitality.
The writer is a Toronto-based journalist who also writes for the Toronto Sun as a guest columnist

















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