I took the news of the recent death of Quamrul Islam Siddiqui with certain sadness and with a sense of loss. Engineer Siddiqui was a fine gentleman, a solid expert in his field of engineering, a good communicator, and an effective result-seeker and maker in pertinent areas of his life long activities. He had, during his life time, held a number of responsible governmental and non-governmental positions - for example a secretary to government of Bangladesh and a president of the institution of engineers, Bangladesh. In addition, he was associated with certain international organisations. His contribution to development of Bangladesh, particularly in areas of rural advancement, are commendable and lesson bearing. He was a recipient of national and international awards for his good work.
I came to know about him when he was visiting Sri Lanka in early 2002. Ambassador Dowla, the then Bangladesh's envoy to Sri Lanka - one of the effective and efficient Bangladeshi ambassadors (in areas like economic diplomacy) I have come across so far - introduced Engineer Siddiqui to me. Then, one evening - I mean during his stay in Colombo - Engineer Siddiqui called me over telephone at our Colombo Hilton residence to find out whether I would be interested in presenting a paper in the 46th annual convention of institution of engineers, Bangladesh (IEB), scheduled to be held in Dhaka between 10 March and 13 March 2002, both days inclusive.
I thanked him for the inquiry but expressed my inability to present the paper in the convention. I told him my paper might not be able to withstand scholarly thrusts of papers meant for a convention of above nature. He rejected, in a polite manner, my apprehension and encouraged me to participate and present the paper in the convention. I finally accepted his invitation.
Since the convention date was fast approaching, I managed to finish my paper and sent it to Engineer Siddiqui with a copy, as per his advice, to late Dr. Md. Golam Mohiuddin (then alive) who was a professor of the department of industrial and production engineering, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) and member-secretary, accreditation committee of IEB - within a week of my acceptance of the invitation. The paper was, among other things, inter-disciplinary in nature and scope. The core focus of it - was: futures of quantum engineering, quantum technology and environmental costs in the era of globalisation.
On receipt of the paper, Mr. Siddiqui wrote back to me to let me know inter alia - - how much surprised he was when he found I had been able to produce - within a very short period of time - a substantive paper on matters he termed difficult. Although I could not present my paper in person in the convention at Dhaka but I came to know (later on) from both late Prof. Mohiuddin and him: my paper was the hardest, most up-to-date and ingenuity-laden among all the papers - both in-country and ex-country - presented in that convention. I then shared with them inter alia reasons for making the paper hard.
I thanked them, Engineer Quamrul Islam Siddiqui, in particular, for affording me opportunities for sharing with the convention participants - via a virtual mode, my (the then) thoughts and ideas associated with unfolding matters of quantum and environment in the era of globalisation. I also thanked my mother - Late Mrs. Syeda Sultana Haq - who was alive at that time and whom I consider, up to and including today (06 September 2008), as one of the most important mentors in my life - for her comments on the comments, mentioned above, on my paper.
My short but meaningful interactions with Engineer Siddiqui and vice versa were instrumental in making me investigative and analytical - subsequently - about his other qualities of life. I found him to be an effective motivator, a bold challenge taker and a good practitioner of diversity at relevant levels of knowledge, understanding and application, to mention a few.
In fine, I pray to Almighty God for the salvation of his soul.