In memoriam
Golam Mohiuddin
Portrait of a patriot
Mozammel H. Khan
Very recently, we lost a very dear friend; the students of BUET, an engrossing teacher; the Professors of BUET, a trusted colleague; Ranik and Arup, a loving father; Rasheda Bhabi, a devoted husband and most others, deprived forever of the service of a patriotic son. Dr. Golam Mohiuddin, Professor and Chairman of the Industrial and Production Engineering Department passed away on 18th April and was laid to rest at his family graveyard at Sreepur, Comilla. Mohiuddin fought a long and hard struggle against cancer. Even in his pain and suffering, he was able to give hope and love to people and would very often enquire about our other friends.I knew Mohiuddin since 1967, from the beginning of our first year class at BUET. Both of us were the students of Mechanical Engineering Department. We were the active supporters of the opposing students groups, which in those golden days of student political activism created no dent in our friendship. Both Mohiuddin and I were interviewed for jobs in Bangladesh Silo. The authorities in Silo wanted a long-term commitment from us, which I refused. However, Mohiuddin provided the commitment and dedicatedly served Silo for a number of years until he moved to a faculty position in BUET. No other extremely attractive opportunities in Bangladesh did entice Mohiuddin. In the mean time I left for the United States and lost direct contacts with him. In my visit to Bangladesh in October of 1990, Mohiuddin invited me for a lunch to his house. I stayed with him for a few hours and all he talked about was our nation's shattered dream; the dream that once united all of us for the creation of a secular, democratic and prosperous Bangladesh. He was terribly disturbed by the emergence of influence and power of the anti-liberation and fundamentalist forces. I felt morally inferior to him since he never talked about his own future or frustration, if any, and did never talk about the possibility of exploring any opportunity outside our border. I bowed down to his patriotism that never ever took the back seat in favour of opting for more cozy life styles that many of our friends have adopted elsewhere. Over the next few visits to Bangladesh I either met him or talked to him over the phone. He always encouraged me to use my pen to uphold the values and virtues of our great war of liberation. During my last visit to Bangladesh in August 2003, we talked to each other a number of times over the phone but could not meet since he was bound for a study trip to USA. In my last conversation with him he solicited my support as the President of more than a thousand strong Bangladeshi Engineers' community in Ontario, Canada if we could help the 'National Committee to Protect Oil-Gas-Power-Port', the national body of which he was the member-secretary. Last February while he was undergoing treatment in Singapore, we sent an e-mail to our engineers in Canada informing that Mohiuddin was ill. We were simply swamped by the magnitude of responses with prayers and sympathy for him, from whoever knew him even a bit. I speak for all who knew Mohiuddin, that he will be remembered and cherished by friends. He will be truly missed by all who had the good fortune to have known him. There are words and faces and places that never lose their hold upon the heart. They may be words that we seldom hear amid the whirl and competition of life, faces that we may never see on earth again, places that we are seldom permitted to revisit; but they were once the scenes, the associates, the joy of our life; they had a controlling influence in training our aspirations and in shaping our future, and they can never be wholly forgotten. Dr. Mozammel H. Khan is the President of the Association of Bangladeshi Engineers of Ontario, Canada.
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