'Baiye, kotha ko'on zaibo?'

Somewhere in a village somewhere in Narsingdi sleeps, for all time, an enlightened human being. And he has lain there, in that grave for the past one year. For one whole year he has been silent. For one whole year, I have not had my phone ring in the morning, to hear that voice dripping with positivism. 'Baiye' … that was how he began the day, his and mine.

That 'Baiye' was, in our local parlance, a reference to 'Bhai'. He came from Narsingdi. My roots are in Araihazar in the district of Narayanganj. Our rural antecedents are similar, our dialect is the same, our penchant for long conversations a part of life.I speak of Mohammad Badrul Ahsan. Journalist, author, raconteur, he passed suddenly a year ago from the world of the living to the vast spaces inhabited by the souls of those who free themselves of mortality. It was no time for him to die.

He was younger than me; he was my brother's classmate. And yet there was in him that certain confidence in dealing with people on equal terms, in all the politeness that was his hallmark. There were people who upset him, indeed hurt him deeply. He did not complain, except to let those people know, in the soft firm language he employed, that they were doing him wrong, had done him wrong.

Badrul was an exceptional writer, of the kind you hardly come across in Bangladesh. His use of the English language was flawless, and it showed in the books he wrote and the articles he penned for newspapers. It was his painstaking work which marked every issue of the weekly First News, the journal to which he devoted the final years of his brief life on earth. And it broke his heart knowing that circumstances were slipping out of his grasp as he tried to keep the journal going. Elements determined to push it to an untimely end let him down, as he had been let down by some others in the journalistic profession.

It takes an individual of courage to bid goodbye to a cushy job and carve out a new course in life. Badrul abhorred bureaucracy in every form, which is when he decided that his job at a multinational bank in Dubai needed to draw to a voluntary end. Any other individual would have stayed away from any thought of giving up such an enviable position.

But Badrul was different. He came back home, for it was the journalistic life, the life of writing which had always beckoned him. It was the world of creativity which he loved wandering in. Ideas were what he played with, looking for opportunities to put them down in black and white.For men like Mohammad Badrul Ahsan, reaching out to the world of the intellect is always a great temptation. He reached out to that world. He was a passionate reader who constantly expanded the landscape of his imagination with explorations in history, politics, economics and basic human behaviour.

Like so many intellectual men, his knowledge of the world, of the universe, was cosmopolitan. He saw the world go by and then made his own interpretations of it. His columns in the Daily Star were a rich instance of that intellect, for they were replete with examples of his bonding with books.

Few people around us have that huge ability to infect the world with their sense of humour. Badrul possessed such humour in plenty. It was humour that was at once raw and sophisticated, at once rural and urban. At every social gathering he was part of, he was the life of the party, for everyone around him was doubling over in raucous laughter. His deadpan narration of jokes produced that laughter. For those troubled overmuch by the travails of quotidian living, Badrul's wit was certainly a chance to look at life in different light.

In his conversations, in his demonstration of wit, in his repartee, Badrul was every inch an evocation of our innermost feelings about ourselves. He spoke of us; he laughed the way we loved to laugh or would love to laugh; he made us laugh in the way our ancestors once laughed. Conversations with Mohammad Badrul Ahsan were sessions redolent of the warmth which has defined the fall of day beyond those rice fields and those lakes --- beels we call them in local parlance --- in our little villages.

Badrul was destined for the stars before the soul in him turned him into a star in our ever expanding universe a year ago. There was the urbane in him, a promise of the future. His passing, so swift and so sudden, deprived this country of an individual who was well placed to epitomize its journalism, well positioned to be a leading public intellectual in our society.

In these twelve months that have gone by, the rains have fallen on his grave; kalbaishakhi storms have lashed it over and over again; the sun has burned bright over it; the crickets have made music on it at twilight; the stars have dipped low to shine a light on him.

In all this time, Mohammad Badrul Ahsan has said not a word. And yet I think I hear, at every break of day, my phone ring. 'Baiye, kotha ko'on zaibo?' --- Brother, can we talk? I look out the window, taking in the all-consuming silence of winter. Deserts of desolation pass by. That word 'Baiye' sounds through the rushing winds. In my imagination, I see him at rest, tranquil in that grave, in that village in Narsingdi. (Mohammad Badrul Ahsan --- journalist, novelist, banker, raconteur --- passed away on 6 February 2020)