The passing of a friend

Masrur Choudhury, Founder and Chairman of the Nandan Group passed away recently. He succumbed to a short illness on August 5, 2013.
Masrur was a dear person among all his acquaintances. He possessed in him numerous qualities that will keep him alive for years, and perhaps ages. He was a visionary, an innovator in business, a sportsman, a cultural personality and a great singer. To us, his friends, he was the "ashor jomano" person. No gathering   will be as complete and as enjoyable without him.  He always occupied the centre stage with his sense of humour, knowledge and articulation. We cannot imagine he is no more. To be honest, I had expected that he would be the one to write an obituary for me, for he was physically much stronger than most of us. Alas! What man proposes God disposes! Today I am writing it for him. It is not easy.
Personally, it is an irreparable loss, a loss that can never be recovered. There are memories that go back all the past 51 years that we have known each other. It was 1962 when I got admitted in Class VI of Sylhet Government High School, where Masrur was already a student. However, perhaps our friendship started at birth. He was a cousin and we were born a few weeks apart. Although I was born before him, he still argued with me that he was older!  This is not mentioning the many fights we had over many things, but all were friendly. In school, we became very close and along with Zahin (Zahin Ahmed, Founder & Executive Director of FIVDB, a successful NGO of Sylhet) we started  being called 'The 3' by some of our teachers.  In the First Term exam of Class VIII, Masrur and I did poorly in both Urdu and Dinyat. Sensing a disaster in the coming annual exam, we persuaded our parents to get the help of a teacher, Mannan Sir. He tutored us every Friday for about two months. When the results for the Second Term came out, Masrur scored the highest in class in Urdu and I in Dinyat. We always shared this with our friends as a funny coincidence as we never found a clue whether it was real or if it was our  tutor's favouritism. A happy culmination of our competition occurred when we both got exactly the same marks in the SSC exam!
There were occasions when I could never beat him. In the School Chess competition, he was the champion and I was the runner-up. Likewise, in the Table Tennis Championship at M. C. College, the same thing happened. Masrur was a successful cricketer as well. In the Sylhet League, his club, the Ismail Sporting, clinched the  title several times. He was also a great and passionate singer. Not many of our friends could actually sing so he had an edge over most of us and he always used to entertain us with Tagore songs. Every year, our immediate family (numbering several dozen) goes outside Dhaka for a few days for a 'get-together'. Although Masrur was not a member of our 'immediate' family in that sense, we would hardly go without him and Lipu Bhabi, his wife. In this he was also a main 'ashor jomano' person.  After hearing his sad demise many of our friends living abroad called.  Raquib (a Chartered Accountant) called me from London. He said he and all our friends living in UK were devastated. He recalled Masrur's last visit to his home a few months ago. At that time Ripa, Raquib's wife, had just bought a harmonium. Masrur wanted to sing a song for them with their new instrument and he sang 'Ei kothati mone rekho…' He is now immortalized!
Masrur was a dear husband and a proud father. July 23rd is Masrur and Lipu Bhabi's marriage anniversary. This year this day, he was gravely ill at United Hospital, and was unable to speak most of the time. He was, however, fully alert and wrote in a piece of paper "Marriage Ann…''!  Before he could finish Lipu Bhabi stopped him saying they all knew and wished him 'Happy Anniversary' thinking that the writing might be too much exertion for him. He was so proud of his children and sent them to  top American schools. His eldest son, Arham, completed undergrad in Economics from Washington University in St Louis;  daughter, Tarzia, completed an MA from Columbia, and  youngest son, Ayan, is a senior at Penn State University. He was very proud of his friends as well. In December 2004 I was confirmed as a professor at Columbia University. Masrur threw a party to celebrate this by inviting a large group of friends and families. Manjur Bhai (Prof Syed Manjurul Islam of Dhaka University) made a brief speech and said that he thought I was the first Bangladeshi to be appointed a professor in an Ivy League university. After this, whenever Masrur introduced me to any he would never miss to mention this.
During our school and college days, we both had the ambition to become a CSP (member of the Civil Service of Pakistan). Things changed after the liberation war as the civil service lost its glamour. A new cadre started to emerge with the rise of the NGOs.  We both joined BRAC. He joined a few months before me and became a Logistics Officer. I joined as a statistician. Within a year both of us were sent for higher studies in England. Masrur went to Manchester Business School and I went to London School of Economics. After his return, Masrur was assigned the job to set up BRAC's first social enterprise, BRAC Printers, and became its first General Manager. Within a very short time BRAC Printers became one of the top five printing houses in the country. Our fields were different, but we used to meet at the staff canteen for lunch. Sometime we were joined by other senior colleagues including Salehuddin Bhai (Dr Salehuddin Ahmed, Managing Editor, DS). We talked about anything and everything, including politics, economy, NGOs, Magsaysay award, Rabindranath Tagore,  Stephen Hawking, and many other things.
In 1981, Masrur moved to Chittagong to manage a new chemical industry that his family had acquired. That was the start of his new life in business. He excelled in the new field, rose up  and quickly became well-known in the country as an honest, fair and innovative entrepreneur. His creations such as the Nandan shops and Nandan Park are just a few examples.
Masrur was a versatile genius. He was very well read and was extremely good at heart. Through Nandan he introduced a new concept in supermarket shopping which is gaining quick currency now in Bangladesh.  He will live forever in the hearts of many.
I already miss you so much, my dear friend!