I recall much of my formative youth in the United States spent sharing a home with struggling guests and families. Sharmin Ahmad “Reepi,” my mother and Tajuddin’s eldest daughter, once hosted a family of six whose two-month stay turned into several years until the guests could get back on their feet.

I do not remember who gave me the book—it may have been a friend, colleague, or a student of mine.

The period between 1945 and 1979 was one of Cold War and decolonisation. The Cold War entered a different trajectory with the rapprochement between China and the US and the Iranian Revolution.

History has a cruel way of dimming the light of those who served with quiet dignity while amplifying the voices of those who demanded attention. In the pantheon of Bangladesh’s founding fathers, few figures have been as systematically overlooked—and arguably mistreated—as Tajuddin Ahmed, the nation’s first Prime Minister.

The Daily Star (TDS): How and when did you first come into contact with Tajuddin Ahmad?

I did not personally know Tajuddin Ahmad, but he was a contemporary of ours, and the politics he practised was within the Awami League—though there were different strands within the party.

I first met Tajuddin Ahmad—or Tajuddin Bhai, as I knew him—in the 1960s, during the pre-Liberation period. After I joined the Awami League, Bangabandhu told me to meet Tajuddin Ahmad, as he would answer all my questions on politics and the party, and that he possessed deep knowledge of both politics and people.

The Daily Star (TDS): How do you view Tajuddin Ahmad’s early political journey and his emergence as a key national figure?

Every moment of the night of 25 March 1971 and the following two months will always shine brightly in the depths of my memory. Even though I might not be able to express all those living memories in words, I will try to articulate a possible description of the events.

As a person, Tajuddin Ahmad was an idealist. In his personal life and professional conduct, he was disciplined and guided by a deep sense of restraint and propriety.

No leader emerges in a vacuum. The making of a political figure is deeply influenced by the social structures around them—family, religion, education, and the broader environment all leave lasting imprints.

The historic journey of the people of Eastern Bengal in the middle half of the last century, to be more precise from 1947 to 1971, was an amazing story with great impact on the post-colonial social and political development of the subcontinent.

In the fraught political environment of Bangladesh, where the image of politicians and the idea of politics have remained systematically devalued and perverted, Tajuddin Ahmad (TA) dared to be different and charted his journey according to his own intellectual and moral imperatives.

In the immediate aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War, as world attention fixated on the harrowing human toll of conflict and the fate of 93,000 Pakistani POWs in Indian  custody, a darker, largely buried chapter was quietly unfolding in Pakistan.

“If properly planned, even now, Dhaka can be transformed into a very decent, liveable city. We can take advantage of the river, the khals, the lowlands, and the richness of the soil for the growth of trees and plants.

“O my body, make of me always a man who questions!” — Frantz Fanon had thundered, as if pleading with flesh and sinew to refuse silence, to resist obedience.

The poet and playwright Michael Madhusudan Dutta (1824–73) made no effort to conceal his disapproval of traditional Brahmin pundits.

In the late afternoon, the sun seemed to drift hastily towards the Phuromon hill in the west. The krishnachura leaves whispered softly in the breeze while the birds’ chirping spread a melodic resonance.

Chittagong’s neighbour Sandwip is absent from Bay of Bengal history because its nature is hard to define.

The first experience of the great river Padma is nothing less than overwhelming, and slightly terrifying. I first came to face the mighty river as a young lad in my teens sometime in April of the momentous year of 1971. My first sighting came with two terrors. My father was fleeing Dhaka with the family with the hope of crossing the river to escape the brutal onslaught of the Pakistan army. Arriving at the banks, there was the Padda (Padma) before us with its glorious panorama. It seemed like an oceanic river, with no sight of the other side, and the frightening prospect of crossing it.