Tribute
For a fallen star
Last year, as spring colours were just beginning to show in the northeast and we were pulling away from a frigid and dark winter, came a sad news flash, forwarded to me by one of our mutual friends. I learned that Moinul Hassan, the poet, activist, teacher and my ex-colleague, had passed away. Moinul was a batch younger than I am, and had been a star since the days I remember him from, and was in his prime when his life was cut short. How does a star, one that is so lustrous and at the height of its stellar cycle, fall so suddenly and inexplicably? I asked with a deep sense of loss and sadness. For myself, for his admirers, and for all the causes he so fervently and relentlessly championed. I first met Moinul when he was in class ten and was getting ready to take the Secondary School Certificate examination from St. Gregory's. His reputation had preceded him, however. I knew of his talents as a poet and debater from his classmates, and "Gregorian", the school yearbook. I had just started to appreciate the beauty and craftsmanship of English poetry, thanks to my marvelous English professors at Dhaka College, including Sharjil Sir (the late Syed Khwaja Sharjil Hassan, who I later learned was Moinul's cousin), and was therefore eager to meet this prodigy who was publishing his poems in the local English newspapers, including The Observer and the Morning News. I also knew that Moinul was a promising debater groomed by the brothers at St. Gregory's in the great tradition of its debating club, in the shadows of the stalwarts of those days, Mahfuz, Imtiaz, Jamalul, and Rauf. Thanks to my very close friends in the St. Gregory's class of 1968, Moinul's batch, I made his acquaintance at a literary event at the British Council. After that our paths crossed often, and for a longer time when he was an Honours student in the English Department where he excelled in many areas. We both joined our respective departments at Dhaka University as faculty, and then left a few years apart to pursue higher studies in the USA. But even while he was studying at Purdue, he took time to fight for his favourite causes, for peace and justice. In his later writings, his pen was a powerful weapon on his side, as he took up arms against oppression, hypocrisy and intolerance. In my moment of loss, I tried to remember my times with Moinul and took joy in the thought of the interests that we shared--poetry, debates, and love of Dhaka. (Syed Khwaja Moinul Hasan, academic, poet and political activist, died on April 3, 2009 in New York)
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