My faith in the Almighty has never wavered. My faith is my own and within the parameters of that faith I have found solace in the great miracle of Creation. There is little that is orthodox or conventionally religious about me, but every morning and every evening I pray in the depths of my soul. Through my prayers I let God know of the gratitude I owe Him for everything He has done and is doing for me and for my family.
When I walk down the narrow paths leading to and away from our little village, I think of God and of his munificence. He is there in the ripples of the pond, in the breeze passing through the palm fronds that dot our home. On cold winter evenings, on my walks in Leytonstone in London, the broad twilight skies, rose-tinted in their glory, cause to rise in me stirrings associated with the beginnings of the universe. It is a vast heaven I watch as the wind pelts me with its energy. How many more planets and solar systems are out there? Surely there must be intelligent life on some distant planet? How many light years away is that life from the life we live here on Earth?
God has been kind to me. When I recall the past, those days steeped in despair, I know of the long stretch of road I have travelled in all the years since. At university, on an evening that seemed to be stretching into night, I waited to see the chairman of a department in the expectation that he would give me a chance to be the typist the department needed at that point. I did not know typing, but I was willing to learn. The money it would bring would be a paltry hundred taka a month, but it would be a huge sum for me. I did not get the job, which was disappointing and yet understandable.
I did not lose faith in God. Somewhere, I reasoned with myself, something good would turn up.
At Bangladesh Betar, I appeared at auditions thrice for the position of English language newsreader. Every time the kind men who heard me on the microphone told me they looked forward to my reading the news on the national hook-up soon. And every time there was silence. No one came forth to let me know that I could indeed become part of Bangladesh Betar and begin reading the news. After three attempts, it was heart-breaking to persuade myself into letting go.
The Almighty, I whispered to my soul, would take care of things in His own good time.
My parents, always waiting for the day when their children would rise in life and make them happy, wondered if my uncle would be able to help me get a job in order to assist with the family finances. My uncle advised me, in indifferent fashion, to become a salesman peddling medicines at the many chemists' shops in the city. It was a job, but it was not for me. I was sad.
In the approaching twilight of life, these memories come back and when they do, I recall too the generosity the Almighty has showered on me, on my siblings, so that we could lead lives of happiness and contentment. To this day I remember -- how can I forget? - the kindness of a colleague of my father's who made sure that I did not miss getting admitted to Dhaka University. It was a simple matter of a hundred and thirty taka and we did not have it. Then God came in, through this gentleman who had known me since I was a baby. Years later, at a seminar I ran into him, my Abdullah Uncle, and in the presence of others spoke to him of my lasting gratitude for what he had done for me. He had tears in his eyes.
At Dhaka University, it was a well-nurtured dream on my part to become part of the faculty at the English department someday. On a December evening long ago, with the results of the honours examination imminent, two of my young teachers with whom I taught English language courses at the YMCA, rushed in to congratulate me. I was the only one in my class, they said cheerfully, to have obtained a first class. They had seen the results, they said. Twenty four hours later, when the results appeared, my first class was not there. To this day, I do not know what mishap or man-made stratagem took over in the time between my teachers' expression of enthusiasm in letting me know of my results and the actual announcement of the grades.
My dreams of a teaching career at Dhaka University went up in smoke. I waited for the Creator of the Universe to send me a sign, a flicker of light, to make me believe in myself, in the idea that the world yet had a place for me.
Life then began to change around the bend in the river - when the Lawrynowicz and John families asked me to tutor their children, when Sister Teresa gave me a teaching job at Greenherald School, when Yasmeen Murshed appointed me a teacher of English at Scholastica, when Father Peixotto told me I could be a lecturer at Notre Dame College, when Afsan Chowdhury had my very first article published in a weekly magazine called Sunday Star, when Shihab Sarkar took me to Waheedul Haque, Motahar Hossain Siddiqui and Saeed Ahmed, all of whom took me to Barrister Mainul Husein, who put me in the position of assistant editor at the New Nation.
In the expansive light of God, a thousand stars emitted luminescence in the sky of the soul.r
Syed Badrul Ahsan is Associate Editor,
The Daily Observer
