Biography of Md. Ashraful Alam
Me and my village
The village where I was born has an interesting name.....Krishnanagar Fakirpara. Let me split this up for you---Krishna-Nagar, or the Black City. Krishna means Black in Bangla language, and Nagar means city. Krishna is also the name of a God of the Hindu deity, so Krishnanagar can also mean City of the God Krishna. Fakirpara was part of the village where we lived. As the name Krishnanagar might suggest, the village was a Hindu dominated place prior to the division of India into 2 nations in 1947. There were still some remnants of those days to rekindle the memories of a few old villagers, and many marks of those days were wiped out by the subsequent Muslim settlers coming from the West Bengal; only a few including the name of the village remains. The name also lives in the name of the Government Primary High School of the village and a semi-government secondary High School, and in the name of a Dakhil (Secondary) Madrassah, and in the mindspace of many like me.
This is the place where I was born. Krishnanagar Fakirpara. Fakirpara literally means a place where the poorer people lives. The name of my village was something that always provided me enough food for thought.....the name would remind me of the Hindu villagers, who once breathed and wandered about in the places where I breath and stroll today, fled to the western part of Bengal during 1947 being victim of the huge socio-political tumult of that time leaving their beloved homes. They must have cursed either the new occupants of their homes and properties here that they were leaving behind, or their own fate on the eve of the exodus. Those are topics of the politicians & pundits though, but I sometimes ponder on the issue playfully, as if, I am trying to feel that period of history. The name Fakirpara was also another matter of curiosity for me—when and how was the name established, and how can a group of people call their living place Fakirpara when none of them were fakirs? I, as a wandering kid on the narrow aisles between paddyfileds and sugarcane fields, wondered how it all happened.
I was the last of the 11 children (yes, E-L-E-V-E-N. 6 of them died before reaching their 1st birthday) of my parents. My date of birth is not recorded anywhere…..perhaps except in the memories of my parents and relatives, which faded away as I grew up, and when it was time for my registration for the SSC (Secondary School Certificate) examination, my elder brother came to the rescue act with his pale memory of the event, and 1979-80 was the closest approximation he could make. Finally my teachers in the school picked up a date, 01-Mar-1980, as my date of birth to comply with the minimum age requirements of the school as well as to be within the time range provided by my brother. This date is recorded in all my official records like school records, passport, marriage certificate, national ID card and birth certificate.
My father, Late Abul Kashem Khondkar, was a teacher of Government Primary Schools, and he was educated and trained in the British India and the then East Pakistan. His job was transferable, and therefore he served in many primary schools of Joypurhat & Bogra district in his teaching career spanning over 30 years, and therefore many people of the area knew him by the name ‘Kashem Master’ or ‘Kashem-the teacher’. So, we were children of a well known father, to some extent. My mother Rawshan Ara Begum studied till class V, but she had good command of Bangla, and she used to read novels and Islamic books throughout her life. We came across books like Bishad Sindhu (a history-based novel by Mir Mosharraf Hossain), Anowara (a novel Md. Nozibor Rahman), Tazkeratul Aulia (biography of the great Muslim personalities), etc in our childhood. My father also had some novels and text books in his collection, stored in the mezzanine floor of our house built with hardened clay, and those books had a critical role in shaping our reading habits and our upbringing. I remember the book called Gulliver-er Sofornama (the voyages of Gulliver), Rifle-Roti-Awrat (a novel on the theme of liberation war of Bangladesh by Anwar Pasha), Varoter Itihash (History of India—a text book), Shahittyo Choyon (a collection of Bangla proses and poems, a text book of the matriculation level during the British era), a textbook of mathematics by the legendary Yadav Chandra, Collection of novels by Jajabor, etc there and devoured many of these books with or without understanding them….I spent many afternoons absconding in the almost dark mezzanine floor being glued to those books. Those are the books that fired my imagination in the childhood, and those wondrous images have stayed with me till today.
The destruction of the old clay-built house for a concrete built house a few years back has a special poignancy for me-this act seemed to me as the severing of my connections with my past, the fairy-tale days of my life that I still cherish. Memory is indeed a colored glass; whatever we see through it looks rosy and dreamy, although there were lot of complaints and shortcomings of those very days as we lived them. The older the memory gets, the sweeter it becomes, and therefore childhood memories are the sweetest ones for us all.
For me as a man in the early thirties and father of 2 children, rekindling memories of my early days is like visiting a wonderland as a character of the fairy tales….it makes me recall those times in retrospection and see the very image of myself growing up gradually ….it’s like rewinding the tape of life and see the bygone days in slow motion…..I can pause at my will, fasten the pace of browsing, or even skip pages from the timeline.
I am out of Krishnanagar Fakirpara for many years now, in fact for over 12 years. My last visit to my village was a year ago, when my mother died. But I carry the memories of the village with me, and ruminate over them whenever I can take leisure from my hectic professional and family life.
My forefathers
My parents were distant cousins, and my dada (my grandfather), dadi (grandmother) and nana (grandfather – my mother’s father) were all dead before I was born. I can recall only a few blurred images of my nani (grandmother – my mother’s mother), and she died probably before I started going to the school. My dada Abdul Kader Khondker was a day labourer and my nana Shahadat Ali Khondker was a postman. Interestingly, he was the only service holder of the village, and after him my father was the distant second. My source of information about my forefathers were words of mouth from my elder brother, my maternal uncle (mama) and some elder villagers. Little do I know about them that can be called a biography, and it is a matter of regret that many people who could tell me about them in some depth are already deceased. I have to admit, honestly, that I wasn’t much aware and eager to learn about my forefathers when I was in the village, and the search for my past has started after inordinate delay on my part. We are setting bad examples for our future generations.
My early school days
My education started at home with my parents, and I attended the primary school located in our village for two years—class 1 and class 2. At that time there were no play group or nursery classes in the government primary schools, and I guess there are still no such things there. I remember very little of these 2 years---only the assembly and singing national anthem comes to my mind when I remember the primary school. In class 1, Bangla alphabet and counting were taught, mostly by reciting aloud with a teacher, and there were no text books. We had to carry slate and chalk to practice writing. In class 2 we got new books which was a huge excitement, and some of us were very disappointed to get old or used books due to shortage of new books to be distributed. The headmaster of the school knew my father personally, and used to call me ‘master-er beta’ or the son of the teacher. The examinations were oral, and it was a success not to cry in front of the teachers when being quizzed. Sadly enough, I remember none of my classmates except a boy and a girl from my own village.
After being promoted to class three, my father decided that me and my immediate elder brother shall attend a Madrassah. It was in the year 1987 when we were admitted into the Burail D. S. (Darus Sunnat) Bohumukhi Senior Madrassah, located a couple of miles away from our village. I was admitted in class three and my brother in class four. Quite a few pupils from our village were already attending the Madrassah, and we used to join them every morning to form a group to walk to our Alma Mater in procession. It was a nice experience; the journey comprised of a wide road where mechanized and non-mechanized vehicles plyed, as well as narrow aisles between crop fields where only two people could walk side by side.
I had to shun half pant and start wearing lungi as required by the Madrassah, before I finally got the coveted white Pajama-Punjabi-tupi. The Madrassah was a place full of activity – there were classes, there were religious bayans, there were kirat (reciting of the scriptures) instructions, competition of singing Islamic songs—hamd and naat, etc every now and then. The teachers were called Huzurs, and the whole environment was welcoming and cohesive. I studied there from class III to class VI, and stood first in all the annual examinations. I was also entitled for the scholarship at class V with a superior grade, a feat which was highly publicized among all the students and teachers of the Madrassah, and people started envisaging me as a future talented mufassir (pundit on scripture and its explanation). My father was especially happy to see me doing well in the Madrassah.
The mosque of the village was located next to our house, and my father was the proxy Muazzin (the persons who gives Azan, or calls other fellow muslims loudly for prayer by reciting some preset phrases in Arabic) in cases when the regular Muazzin was absent. The large mosque premises was almost always found to be dark and empty, dotted by a few people saying their prayers at different times including the Muazzin, which underscored the emptiness of the large mosque premises even more. The only exception was the Friday prayer, which is always in a large congregation that filled the mosque to the brim amidst a festive mood, because that was a great way for the villagers to meet the whole village every week. I used to go to the mosque in the Fridays from an early age with my father. I also had to learn English at home from my father, who had a good command of the language due to his educational background in the british India and the early days of Pakistan. Every morning I had to recite from the Quran aloud at home, and recitation in groups was mandatory in the Madrassah at noon. My Madrassah was the first big step towards the wide open world, and therefore occupies a large space in my kingdom of memory.
Demise of my father
My father died when I was in class-VI in the madrassah, and it seems to be only a distant and pale memory to me now. I remember a large gathering of relatives and villagers in our home. I can also recall some of the rituals, of which howling and lamenting in chorus were the most notable. After the death of my father, my elder brother told me that he wants me to attend a conventional High School from next year. I was preparing for the final exam of Class-VI then. When I shared this news with my classmates and teachers in Madrassah, it came as a shock to them. Some of my friends there told me that education of the schools are not for true muslims, they teach kufari (kafir = non believer, kufari = relating to kafirs, having elements of a kafir) subjects which can only bring sin to our grand tally book of performance records maintained by the angels. Some told me that in Schools, I would find tough times with English, science & Mathematics, as we had a very little coverage of these subjects in our syllabus. Some of them told me that I have a goos future as a mufassir, why should I ruin it by leaving a Madrassah and attempt to be only one more unemployed person with mainstream general education? This statement has some truth in it. Unlike the educated youth of the mainstream, no Madrassah student was found to be unemployed after leaving the Madrassah - they either worked as religious leaders in communities or as imams (leader of prayers when prayer in congregation is made) & muazzines in mosques, or they worked in Madrasahs and voluntary preaching groups like Tabligh Jamaat. Many of them also taught Arabic and basic religious stuff to children who attended the conventional schools, because many parents wanted to make sure that their children has some grasp of the religion while they attend the general education stream. Some of my teachers in the Madrassah knew my brother personally, and they requested my brother to review the decision in the name of Allah. Some even pointed out that Allah might be angry if he distracted a person from the path of Allah, and this might be harmful for me in the long run. Some even took the emotional route and pleaded that since everybody must die, why not let let your brother learn the islamic education and act as a saviour for himself, his family and the society. Why derail him from the path of the heavens? They all had some sense of logic in their pleadings, but my brothers seemed to be unmoved by these efforts. Finally I knew that I was going to attend a high school from next January.
I can’t exactly remember what I felt at that moment except the usual excitements and worries that accompany change of schools at that age. But now I realize how significant the move was for me. Instead of explaining Hadith and Quran to my audience in a mosque or preaching islam, I am analyzing corporate credit proposals in a commercial bank today which, without refering to any particular ideology or school of thought, is a wide deviation from what my father wanted me to be.
Kalai M. U. High School
January 1991. I was admitted into the century old Kalai Moyen Uddin High School, a school where my elder brother also studied in the 1973-1977 period. My brother had personal acquintances with quite a few teachers of the school, including the then Headmaster Abul Hossain sir and the current Headmaster Abdul Mannan sir. My brother assured me that it is a nice and friendly environment, and I will feel at home there. He couldn’t be more right….on the very first day when I was introduced to the class VII Section-B, Ashraf sir was taking Bangla class, and he asked me to sit-down and stand-up 3/4 times in presence of the class including my brother. The whole class laughed, and I was amused so much that all the anxieties of the transition from a Madrassah to a High School and the accompanying psychological torments due to the emotional & religious logics attempting to prevent me from this move were suddenly abolished in a moment!
I can’t remember the date; it was in the middle of January 1991, and I started a new journey towards the mainstream education leaving the alternative islamic principles based education imparted by the Madrassahs. It made me look weird and odd to a few of my classmates, who started to call me moulovi (a person educated in a Madrassah or a religious pundit), and some even ridiculed my almost illegible Bangla handwriting as Arabic Script! Many of them were waiting for the next class-English with Mannan sir-and see how I fare there, since they all knew that in Madrassah we had almost no coverage of English language, and Madrassah students were infamous for their fear of English. Thankfully, though, my case was in sharp contrast to the general trend. My father taught me English at home, who had a good command of the language due to his educational background in the british India and the early days of Pakistan. When the scary (literally) session of English arrived, I saw a middle-aged man approaching the class with a stick in hand, and the class was in pin-drop silence. I could not believe the abrupt change of the mood of the class. It was a new experience, and the joyous mood of the previous class of Ashraf sir made the contrast more evident to me. Mannan sir had a strong voice reinforcing the image of a tough teacher of a difficult subject, and I remember that image of him even today. I have grown up as time passed by, just as Mannan sir has also become an older man over time (and, I guess, a more relaxed and less frightening figure to the students), I could not remove his tough image from my mind when I met him a couple of years ago.
I was a bit upset to be in section-B, since my elder brother gave me the idea that all the good students are usually in section-A, and more academic care is given to this section. Honestly speaking, I got some sort of confirmation to this fact when I heard that the first boy of section-A (my friend Mehedi Hasan from Nischinta, a graduate from the Agricultural University of Mymensingh, now works for an NGO) was the overall first boy of the class in terms of marks, and the first boy of section-B (my friend Khairul from Hatior, a graduate from the National University, now teaches in a Madrassah. He reminds me of my old days as a Madrassah student) was only third, after the second boy (Kazi Ashfaq Ahmed Kochi, son of the famous Kazi family of Kalai/Begungram/Hatior, and an eloquent impressive personality from that age. He seemed to be a born leader to me) of the other section. Now I know how silly those worries were, but at that stage and age I was really anxious, and felt like being dumped as I am from a less-deserving background of Madrassah, and I shared this thought to one of my classmates (Shahin from Mulgram, an Accounting graduate from the National University, works for RAKUB as a Senior Officer now), who was the second boy of section-B and seemed to me amicable and friendly enough with whom such a thought can be shared. He assured me that there are no bases for such worries, since in the SSC examination no sections will be there. His logic impressed me, and immediately we became good friends, a friendship that continues till today. Shaheen occupies the place of a very good friend of mine from the school days, and he is the only one with whom I have close communications at personal and family level till today. I am really blessed to have a good friend like him. Khairul is another one, who could not fulfill our expectations in his academic achievements, but is a down-to-earth personality, hard worker and a good human being, and of course, a sincere friend.
Class-VII to Class-X, those 1500+ days represent a journey when I grew up and learnt about the world a lot…..in my academic pursuits, in my extra-curricular activities like representing Kalai M. U. High School in the inter-school general knowledge competition at Thana, District and Divisional level (1993, 1994) with the inspiration of English teacher Wahab sir, and in my mustering confidence and self esteem with inspirations from Bangla teacher Ataul sir of Harunja. Ataul sir liked me very much in his Bangla classes of class-IX-X, and inspired me to think creatively and write better, which helped me a lot in my academic achievements at that stage, and worked as a building block of my professional achievements in the later years. I shall always remain grateful to a few great teachers like Ataul sir, Wahab sir, Ashraf sir and Barik sir. They made me what I am today, and their debts can never be repaid.
Dhaka College
I did very well in the SSC examination from science group (in 1995), securing highest marks in the school which is a record till today. I got Letter marks (80% or above) in all papers except geography, and total marks was 858, 10 marks away from being listed in the Education Board’s list of top 20 students that year. It was beyond my expectation, and everybody else probably felt the same way. But my elder brother wasn’t surprised. He had big dreams in him. He
Institute of Business Administration (IBA), University of Dhaka
My endeavors in Language Learning
Getting ready for jobs
AIMS of Bangladesh Limited
Introduction to the world of critical thinking | Sophie’s World…….
Dhaka Bank Limited
Getting Married & Becoming father
City Bank Limited
Chess Chronicle
Finding home or leaving home?
CPAA & beyond
My friends & foes
Agoraphobia
The world without Gods
These Days
(to be updated soon)
Biography of Mousumi Akter
Me and my family
I was born on 6th of June, 1980 in the Haragram suburb of Rajshahi City. My father Md. Rafiqul Islam was a musician cum businessman, and my mother Anowara Begum was a teacher of Government primary school. My grandparents lived in a village just outside the outer skirts of the greater Rajshahi City, and my father settled at Palpara, Horogram Bazar area where he bought a small plot of land and made a small 2-room single storey home. The area wasn’t much developed when we came to the area, and
My school and College days
I studied in the Christian Mission Girl’s High School & Rajshahi Court College up to Class XII.
My career with music
Higher Education @ National University
Journey to Dhaka—Undergraduate @ Private University
Getting Married
Parenting – The Thankless Job
The time ahead