My heart is filled with sorrow as I bow in respect to you, my teacher, my mentor and my role model.

The passing of Anisuzzaman has taken from our midst one more close friend and comrade from the generation which participated in the struggle for national liberation and held steadfast to its values.

In 2007, Professor Muzibur Rahman Debdas returned to the spotlight when Liberation War Museum trustee and researcher Mofidul Hoque made a documentary on him titled "Kan Pete Roi” (The Sound of Silence). The documentary expertly presented the lone and long struggle of Prof Debdas, a Liberation War hero.

I arrived in Dhaka, some years ago, as an outsider twice removed. First, I had grown up in Kolkata; second, I was a graduate student in Chicago.

In my professional career, I have taught in five universities in North America, have been awarded many national teaching and research awards but I’m yet to learn how Anisuzzaman sir used to control the class with his proverbial thick but calm voice. He’s an example of how one can get students’ attention without raising his/her voice.

It was probably on a day in the second week of March that I last saw and heard professor Anisuzzaman—our Anisuzzaman sir—speak publicly.

It was a privilege for me to work with professor Anisuzzaman in the drafting of the Constitution. I had the extraordinary good fortune of knowing him for more than 50 years, since our school days in St Gregory’s School, Dhaka. Since then we have travelled side by side towards the independence of the country and in the struggles for democracy.

Great names are formed by great events. It’s a truism that applies as much to the leaders and revolutionaries as to the pundits and intellectuals.

JRC was a true champion for development and his legacy as a renowned scholar, foremost civil engineer and education advocate will live on.

JRC was one of the few citizens who formed the group called POROSH—an abbreviation of Poribesh Rokkha Shopoth—in late 1990s.

Professor Jamilur Reza Choudhury, fondly called JRC by his friends, was a soft spoken but a strongly passionate man.

Widely known as a polite and cool-headed person he was an ideal teacher, persuasive enough for innovative application of modern method and tools of education.

It was around 7 pm in Dallas, Texas on April 27 (6 am on April 28 in Dhaka), when I received a phone call from a colleague at BRAC University.

There was every reason for Jamilur Reza Choudhury not to return to the Dacca of 1968 after completing his PhD at the University of Southampton, UK.

Dr Saadat Husain, a career civil servant of Bangladesh, passed away on April 22 at United Hospital after suffering from meningitis and renal complications.

It often takes the life of one man for a nation to wake up or to gather the courage to call a spade a spade.

It was about ten or twelve years ago that Ruhul Amin Mazumder called me one day to say, “Ramendu, I am giving you a responsibility.

A Bangladeshi pioneer departed this world on Saturday, April 4, 2020. Architect Bashirul Haq was a poet who crafted his poems with the language of brick, green, light, air, and tactility.

Abul Mansur Ahmad is a revolutionary name in the history of our culture and literature. A star in our literary firmament, he emerged at a time when society was plagued by ignorance, bigotry and superstition, and his bold messages of social reform and intellectual freedom were largely a response to that time.

February 21 is an important day for our country and for the world. This is the day when we remember the sacrifice that brave martyrs made for the Bengali language and culture.