Asif Saleh

Asif Saleh is one of the youngest contributors of Uttorshuri. He earned his Bachelor's in Computer Science and a Master's degree in Business Administration from schools in the USA. Asif is currently the vice president of one of the largest financial institutions of the USA. Outside a very successful career, Drishtipat is his passion. Drishtipat is a human rights organization of Bangladesh, mostly consisting of expatriate Bangladeshis in the USA, Europe, and Australia. Asif, one of the founding members of Drishtipat and a prolific writer, was also a Rabindrasangeet student of maestro Kalim Sharafi at Shangeet Bhaban.

Asif Saleh's Essays

When Youths of 2004 meet Women of 1971

Much Ado about Adda

The American Deshis

The Man Who Dreamt Too Much – The Story of A S Mahmud

My Father, The Hero

A Conversation with Shabana Azmi

An Evening With Taslima Nasrin

Diary of a Broken Spirit

Inside an Indian restaurant called "Curry in a Hurry" in Manhattan, New York, fifteen excited South Asians gathered for dinner and discuss their plans for an upcoming event they are organizing. Mona Rahman works for a public relations firm. She has been born and brought up in this country. Labiba Ali has moved from Bangladesh a few years ago and is studying undergraduate. Anita Rahman left Bangladesh when she was one and is now working as a Graphics designer at a local nonprofit. Cal Jahan left when he was 12 and is doing his post graduate studies in Columbia University. Arif, an IT professional, left Bangladesh after his Intermediate exam. Novita’s family got OP 1 visa and left the country when she was sixteen. A Software Engineer, she now works at the top investment bank Morgan Stanley. All of them were at early to late twenties. However, all of these young folks were not meeting for social networking on a Friday night; but believe it or not, they were there to plan for an event to honor the women victims of the liberation war of 1971.

A lot of people in Bangladesh do not know this, but this week (the week of March 25th) across major cities in America, the Bangladeshi community is set to formally recognize the role of women in the liberation war of Bangladesh. Along with the recognition, they will offer new hope to seven of these women by giving money to a trust fund set up by Liberation War Museum for a campaign by Bangladesh focused human rights organization called Drishtipat.

Those who have been online and are frequent visitors to Bangladesh based newsgroups are quite familiar with Drishtipat’s work. However, outside the internet world, Drishtipat’s presence has been rather limited. With the influx of internet edition of Bangladesh based newspapers and due to Bangalees’ insatiable hunger for Bangladesh based news on current affairs, a more pronounced link between Bangladesh and expatriates has been created. Although not known for their charities, Bangladeshis abroad have limited their donation previously to helping families in their village town and their relatives in need. Bangladeshi NGOs have almost all the time also depended on foreign donors for help. However, with a growing class of affluent professional Bangladeshis and a new generation of Bangladeshi Americans abroad, suddenly there was a space where they wanted to make a difference against social injustice and gross human rights abuse of Bangladeshis. That’s where Drishtipat came in and was formed to serve as a base to raise awareness on critical human rights issues and also to do something tangible and concrete, even if it is symbolic.

It was an initially a hard decision to break away from our norm and pick women of 71 as Drishtipat’s annual campaign theme. Drishtipat's focus mostly has tended towards present day problems. From fundamental rights issues like Arsenic crisis and warm clothes drive to charged subjects of communal repressions and journalist beatings, our issues have been of a wider scope that impacts a current crisis. However, after first being notified in the Daily Star Weekend Magazine about the state of the women victims of 1971 and having read some of the desperate stories about them, it became clear to us that by doing this campaign; we can serve multiple purposes in the present Bangladeshi context. Firstly, we can revive some part the glorious history which is being distorted for political purposes by successive governments. Secondly, we can recognize the role of women in the war which has often been much understated. However, we realized just that just giving a simple symbolic recognition was not enough. Some of these women, who are our heroes, were not getting two meals a day. Some of them were working as maids at other people's houses. So we brought out the third aspect -- raise funds for them so that they can live a life of dignity.

So who are these women? Some of them were freedom fighters. They fought hand in hand with the men. Some of them lost all of their family members being victims of indiscriminate shooting at the innocent civilians by the Pakistani Army. Some were captured and were victims of sexual torture for months. While doing our research with the help of Ain O shalish Kendro, we ran into many such women. Ideally we would want to help them all. But our resources are limited. The hope is starting with 7 women will make it possible to have a permanent trust fund for such women in the future. Liberation War Museum has lent Drishtipat help in creating the trust fund and will make sure that they have a permanent source of income so that they can live a life of dignity.

33 years after George Harrison raised funds for the refugees of Bangladesh in 1971 in New York, a young group from of Drishtipat is doing the same, albeit at a much smaller scale, in the same city for those whose lives have changed for the worse after the war. Unlike other Bangladeshi organizations, Drishtipat depends heavily on internet to operate and as a result, its membership base of 250 spans all across the globe. Naturally, the members tend to be young and comfortable with technology. It also is very horizontal in nature in its structure. The conscious decision to stay away from a vertical one was taken to avoid squabbles that often mar the typical Bangladeshi organizations abroad. Drishtipat’s focus remains social injustice and government ignored human rights abuses. Ignoring the rhetorics on issues, Drishtipat believes in objective documentation of facts, proper reporting on projects implementations and to take up a project of small scale to highlight a problem of a much larger scope. As a result, its first few projects have attracted a much wider appreciation from people of all political spectrums. Similarly, for the women of 1971 project (titled “Bangla Mayer Bir Meyera”), they spent about six months for creating a portal website for these women with papers and research works from noted historians. Whether it is for protest statement against an abuse or for helping a needy, the collective voice of Bangladeshi expatriates can now be heard to make a difference.

Like New York, similar minded young folks of local chapters of Drishtipat were planning their own events for the women of 1971 in their own cities that ranges from Washington DC, Chicago, Boston to San Jose in the West coast. Suddenly the world is a lot smaller place. Ishita in DC, Tahsin in Boston, Kanta in San Jose and Jewel in Chicago were working round the clock with their groups to help the Ameerjan Bewas from remote villages in Bangladesh. These young folks from the post 1971 generation of the distant American land were working to give some dignity back to the lives of the women of 1971 – lives that were robbed off them 30 years ago. After the dinner in Curry in a hurry that night, Labiba, Mona, Chitra, Cal, Arif, Shima, Arefeen, Mashrieb, Minhaz and others started to prepare for their next stop. They were going to the Shahid Minar that was built in the United Nations and pay their respect to the fallen at the stroke of midnight of Ekushey. Suddenly the spirit of Ekushey (Ekusher chetona) has a new meaning all over again.

March, 2004

Iffat brings the definition of Adda perfectly -- "sense of lightness, of wholehearted laughs and clever jokes, of juicy gossips and inactiveness, sitting pretty with a moving mouth-Bengalis definition of a perfectly wonderful time, doing Adda." Too bad she contradicts herself later saying "Addas aren't meant for criticizing absent individuals". But an integral part of adda is gossiping -- and is gossiping about someone really possible with the person being present? Last time I checked, it caused fistfights.

Jokes aside, I have often thought about why we so rarely have quality addas here (in foreign land) like good old days in Bangladesh. Yes, as Iffat states, there are high-minded know-it-alls which kill the spirit of addas. But putting everyone in that same bracket and blaming individuals as the reason for the demise of adda in the foreign land would be a little to simplistic. Did the addabajes from Bangladesh suddenly lose their appetite for adda when they moved here? Not really. Its just that they haven't found each other.

When I think of adda of my good old college days in Dhaka, I think of the lazy Fridays sitting with my friends and talking and arguing about nothing -- frequent laughter, jokes, puns with topics ranging from gossips to politics to sports to the latest Chuck Norris movies. I even remember in one of the very exciting adda sessions had an item where we had a competition of swearing. In pure Bangla, its called 'khisti'. The objective of the game was to pick a winner who could khisti the longest and the most creative ones got the top award (which was a 'gono dholai' from the participants). This is not to give away wrong impression about my social background :) but rather to show silly nature of these addas. So whatever happened to these people? Those same people moved to the States. How come we can't have the same kind of exciting adda sessions? Because here we don't get to choose our Bengali friends. We are "friends" here because we happened to be Bangalies who happened to be residing in the same geographical location. In Bangladesh, the same high-minded know-it-alls whom we would never associate with is part of our "circle of friends" here because he happens to live 3 blocks away from my home. As a result, there is always this mistrust and insecurity among the members of this circle. Not having apprehension of being judged by your fellow adda mates -- the element, which is an essential part of careless Addas, is missing here. So, the joke can never be too raunchy. The backhanded pot shot at the other guy can never be too sharp. And the gossips? They are just not that juicy. Add to that, the other pressures of being an immigrant Bangali in a foreign land. Yes, I am talking about the pressure of "competition" between your peer group in the field of triathlon (House, Jobs and "success" of your talented children). With all that tension, is it possible to have a carefree Adda session about nothing.

However, it does not take much longer for a Bangali to find the perfect addamate. Before long, you get to become close to the people you are most comfortable with and form an inner circle inside that circle. Just then when there is one more reason to be friends with someone other than the geographical affinity, the seeds of potential future addas are sown. In New York, those who have been to Hasan Ferdous bhai and Ranu bhabi's place, know exactly what I mean. In fact, Abdullah Abu Sayeed wrote a whole book about one of such adda nights called ("New Yorker Adda"). Having said that, I am thinking of the other essential item of good addas -- the food. Ahhh, the famous "roshona bilash" of Bangalees. If it were not for the mouthwatering food that Ranu bhabi prepared, would these addas be as "jompesh"? May be not. Recently a group of us went for a retreat in the mountains. It was a weekend of being far away from the city at the remotest of places. Some of us painfully made sure that all the ingredients of a good adda are present. They included jhal muri, dal, mashla cha, begun bhorta, alu bhorta, khichuri, aam and dim bhuna (oh yes, and also a 'doraj gola' for singing). Whola.....Good food, remote house, good company with no fear of being judged, (and a little bit alcohol too) produced 15 sleep deprived adda addicts by the end of the weekend.

So there you go Iffat, I am sure your days of having adda by yourself will be over soon. It's not the people who are at fault. It's a little bit of lack of everything and our failure to recreate the surrounding that is to blame. Just like a horror story is scariest when all the elements are present (Andhokar rate loadshedding-er shomoy chader opore), an Adda needs all its ingredients to be a good one. You might ask why you would have to give so much effort to create something that happened so naturally back home. Ahhh --- well, that's the price we pay for not being in Bangladesh. There has to be a cost, isn't it? When you don't have the real thing, you might as well try to recreate the set as realistically as possible!

July, 2004

http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2004/01/03/musings.htm

So when are you coming to see us?", said my sister anxiously. Why not celebrate Anahita's (my daughter) first birthday over here in North Carolina?" I replied reluctantly in the negative, "I have made other plans". "What plans?", she asked. I said with more hesitation, "We are going to Florida for a vacation. We need a break." My sister replied with surprise, "Coming to our place is not a break?" Detecting the disappointment in her tone, I did not say that going to meet family has its own charm but it is not really a vacation. I calmed her down by saying that we would come soon. She hung up by saying "Khub Americander moto kotha bolo ajkal"(talking like a true American these days).

That made me wonder, when did we stop being Bangladeshi and start becoming Americans (hint: note the negative connotation of the last word)?

When we told Anahita's Bangladeshi babysitter that we were going on vacation to Florida, her first question was, "Who lives in Florida? Didn't you just visit your brother in Texas?" When we said we were just going to stay in a resort and not in any relative's house having paratha and biryiani, she was quite shocked. Her shock turned into disbelief when we said that this resort had a day care centre. "You are going to keep your daughter in day care even on vacation?" said the nanny with a dropped jaw. It didn't take a Sherlock Holmes to figure out what was going through her mind. I asked my wife later to make a few guesses on the adjectives she bestowed upon us while gossiping with her deshi neighbours -- "Cruel Parents", "Weird" and last but not the least "How American!".

That's when it hit me again. When did we stop being Bangladeshi and start becoming American? Is being a little "American" after living the major part of adult life in America that bad? Should we still resist the good things of this culture, where we spent most of our adult lives, with both hands?

Our next door Bangladeshi neighbour is a real angel who often without reason showers us with samples of her outstanding cooking. One day she stopped by to say hello. Funnily enough, that was the night when we decided to take out food from a local Mexican restaurant. She looked at my wife and almost scolded her, "Why did you order food, you could have asked me or at least cooked an egg curry." It didn't really occur to her that it was a conscious choice of ordering food from outside for a change. The concept of ordering out food was so negatively "American" to her, that she thought we did it out of sheer desperation. Conversation did not progress much from there on as we just looked at her with sad and desperate eyes hoping that maybe she would cook for us on a regular basis from here on seeing our horrible American state of affairs.

When we eventually went to the much coveted break after two years, in Florida, we were thanking each other profusely for deciding to take this time off. The interesting and "American" part of our vacation was that when we were planning our first vacation in two years, we were looking for a place where it would be a real vacation for all of us and where the super working mom would not have to worry about the one year old's next feeding and diaper change all the time. The concept of a vacation and staying at a hotel itself is foreign to a lot of deshi folks living here. It is not the money which is the issue as I see them spending thousands of dollars nonchalantly buying the latest Rani Mukherjee saree from Jackson Heights. It was the idea of a vacation which was unacceptable. Vacation itself was a rarity no matter how grumpy and whiny they become. If there is a vacation to be taken, it has to be at amuk Apa's new house in Virginia. Never mind that amuk Apa may be shrieking at the idea of entertaining a van full of biryiani-expecting guests. However, since we were the "American" step cousins, booking a resort wasn't too unnatural for us. We took the break from daily life and it made us both smile again like we havent done for a long time. It made us do things that we never thought we would try. We learned how to sail a boat and took a boat ride. I learned to roller blade -- a childhood fantasy of mine. But more amazingly my wife and I did something we never imagined we would do after having our first child. We spent time with each other. We sat by the pool and talked. I got swimming lessons from her while I gave her lessons on flying trapeze. We caught each other stealing a peek at our daughter at the toddler centre while she was having a blast with her new pals. We bonded. We bonded all over again. I am sure I will never be able to show these pictures to my babysitters who were just plain annoyed at us for being so non-Bangladeshi. I am sure I would not be able to explain to them that in the end it was all three of us who were happy.

However, the same bhabi, the neighbour, was elated with joy when we invited her to come along with us to attend the Bishsho Shahitto Kendro mela in New York where yours truly and the wife were two of the key organisers. With a new born it was not possible for both of us to go together and participate. But we both really wanted to do this. Our former baby sitter was kind enough to sit with her all day after some pleading. So there we were, working for Kendro, reciting Bangla poems and showing Bangla films, while our baby was left with a baby sitter. Sounds American? You bet. But bhabi did not really mind that as we were doing things that were typically Bangladeshi -- in however an American sort of way it may be. So, did we really ever stop being Bangladeshi?

Not quite. My wife still wants to listen to Hemanta when we get in the car. I religiously read the Bangladeshi newspaper everyday on the internet. We both co founded a Bangladesh focused human rights organisation called Drishtipat. Bangla still flows in every vein of our bodies. But then again we still like to take a vacation from everything for a break.

So what are we? We really don't know. Are we confused Deshis? Not really. We know our roots and we know who we are. Maybe, we are folks that you can't really label. We are the new migrants from Bangladesh. We work hard and play hard like a typical American likes to do. But at the end of the day, we still get antsy if we don't have dal bhat two days in a row. After living in the US all of our adult lives, certain American thoughts and things come naturally to us. But not everything does.

When New York had a power black out in August, after a foot breaking three hour walk in pitch black darkness, I reached the baby sitter's house from work. My little one year old daughter did not recognise my sweat clad self in the dark. I had to put her inside the stroller and walk back to our home. That was the longest 15 minute walk I ever took. In complete darkness my daughter was terrified and started crying. So I started singing the lullaby that I always sing to her when I put her to sleep.

"Hat tima tim tim, tara mathe pare dim, tader khara duto shing, tara hat tima tim tim…."

My daughter calmed down.
Can you get any more Bangladeshi than this?

January, 2004

Asif Saleh (Shujon)

http://thedailystar.net/2004/01/29/d401291502114.htm

"Shujon, always try to do good to people, no matter how small the effort is, how insignificant the person is, one day you will get your rewards without even knowing it", he said to me once. I have never forgotten that. Every time I visited him in Bangladesh, he would tell me to return to Bangladesh. "Bangladesh has so much potential, Shujon", he would say inspiringly. "It will be one of the four tigers of Asia", he said. Always an optimist, a visionary, AS Mahmud, known to me as Mejo Chacha, never once would say anything negative about Bangladesh no matter how bleak its future looked.

While I was just growing up as a teenager, I did not know my mejo chacha had achieved so much in his life. He was just the chacha who traveled to a lot of places and would get me different airlines tickets whenever he went abroad. My hobby of collecting different airlines tidbits was expressed to him once. He never forgot about it. My collection became huge in just a matter of months. He was the chacha who would come to our house and talk to us about all the different plans he had for Bangladesh. He would talk to me about the different places he visited. He was my window to the rest of the world.

Pretty soon, however, I started to understand the breadth of his business acumen. I heard about a negotiated last minute deal that made him the chairperson of Philips, Bangladesh. I heard about how he first thought of and created a major insurance company called Reliance Insurance in Bangladesh. I heard how he became the longest serving President for Dhaka chamber of commerce and industry. It was during that time when I first heard that he also wanted to start a daily newspaper. This was the time when only Bangladesh Observer ruled the English newspaper space. However, entering newspaper business, especially an English newspaper which traditionally has low subscription base, was not really the idea of profit in Bangladesh for a businessman. But mejo chacha really wanted to change the shape of journalism in Bangladesh. I heard from my father (AS Mahmud's younger brother) how he had been meeting with their cousin, Khasru chacha (The Daily Star's founder editor, late S.M. Ali) who had just returned to Bangladesh. Together they started the newspaper called The Daily Star with four other sponsor directors. The newspaper caught everybody's eyes at its arrival and eventually set the standard of journalism for others.

In spite of all his achievements, he never rested on his laurels. Knowing about my fascination with photography, he always told me how he always wanted to make a movie in his life. I always laughed on the side thinking it was just another of his many whims. Around that time, he divested from Transcom Limited. Everyone thought he would lead a quiet and peaceful life after that. Always full of ideas, I could not imagine him sitting down idly and leading a quiet retired life. That is when he started dreaming of Ekushey TV. Unlike most business men in Bangladesh, he believed in social entrepreneurship. He believed that it was possible to do greater good and to do good business at the same time. If he didn't believe in that, he could never build the way he built Ekushey TV. He wanted to change the shape of electronic media in Bangladesh and therefore not thinking about profit, he brought the best people from abroad. Ekushey was his dream. At the age of sixty five, by creating a home for others to make movies, he started materializing his dream of making movies.

One of my school teachers who had met him once asked me, "Being a decent man as he is, how can a man like your chacha do business in Bangladesh? Bangladesh has no place for decent people in business." His words later turned out to be prophetic. Never once to default on his loans, AS Mahmud was never the typical Bangladeshi business person as you know it. He was miles ahead of them in vision. Most importantly he was a man with big vision with the biggest heart. And that was reflected in everything he did in Ekushey TV. Ekushey talked about the little people, the people whom he cared about the most. He was very proud of all of its programs. However, he always told me about Mukto khobor, in particular, a program about the children and created with equal participation of children from under-privileged families. Not only for its people- focused progressive programs, Ekushey was also known to all for its professional culture. It was the first company to attract a major foreign investment from abroad. All of this did not happen out of thin air. There was this man's vision and work behind all this. He wanted to show the world that Bangladesh can have a company run by international standards. Ekushey TV's superior management showed that he was right. His dream was materialized.

But what a brutal ending the dream faced!

The government of Bangladesh fought tooth and nail at the court to shut down the channel that became the darling of common mass. There were a lot of ironies in that case. Two of them struck me the most. The first one was the attorney who ran the case. The case for the government was led by a once leftist student leader and a family friend Deputy Attorney General Adilur Rahman Khan who was a frequent visitor to our house in the heady days of anti-Ershad movement. He talked about his dream of equality in the society. It was comical to see that Adil was materializing his "dream" of socialism in Bangladesh by fighting hard for a regime that was bent on killing the media that talked about little people. The second irony was the other person who was instrumental in this closure – Shafiq Rehman, editor of weekly Jai Jai din, who himself suffered under media censorship and was driven away from the country for his outspoken articles against Ershad. Now his weekly was writing to shut down the only media that was free. Perhaps there lied the difference between AS Mahmud and the people who controls Bangladesh. Bangladesh is full of people with myopic vision who could not see beyond their petty self interest. With their myopic vision they could not see the amount of effort and passion that was invested to create an organization like Ekushey and what a permanent damage they were causing to the country by shutting it down.

Even before this closure, Mahmud got disillusioned by his friends and business partners who betrayed him. His wife always used to say, "The problem with my husband is that anytime he would see dirty politics seeping in his business, he would shy away from it in stead of confronting it". Perhaps this was his biggest drawback. He always wanted to be above the fray and above the pettiness of people. He was, indeed, too "naïve" in the dark and complicated world of Bangladeshi business. In this process, his health suffered and he went to London for treatment with his wife and son Farhad and his daughter-in-law Liana.

However, Ekushey TV was killed swiftly in the meantime. Also killed with that was one man's dream and everything that he had worked for all his life. The ever optimistic AS Mahmud was killed that day along with Ekushey. Six months after that, I brought him over to visit my place in New York after a lot of persuasion. However, I could not bring my old mejo chacha back. He was a deeply dejected man. The smile was gone from his face. He never asked me to return to Bangladesh any more. Neither did he want to meet anyone when he was there. It would have taken a lot to take the smile out of a man who had a zest for life. The politics of Bangladesh somehow managed to do that unthinkable.

He was in the hospital in London for two months after he had the stroke in early November last year. I used to visit him often. I saw him struggle and fight. When he would be sleeping, I would be massaging his legs and feet and wonder why he was there. What did this man do to be in a hospital in London so far away from Bangladesh and suffer like the way he did? What was his crime? Loving his country too much? Perhaps so. Bangladesh, these days, has no place for the real patriots. A man who would fancy good food every where could not eat the last two months of his life, a man who was full of life and smile forgot how to smile. A man who always inspired others to return to Bangladesh lost the yearning to return to Bangladesh even after his death. The politics of Bangladesh somehow managed to do the unthinkable.

A man who always shied away from the ugly side of human beings was always attracted by simplicity of the average people. That led to his eventually making friendship with the kinder and gentler little people at the neighborhood he lived in London. The owner at the corner shop, the retired Greek neighbor next door, the stranger nurse from Lewisham Hospital – they all became his good friends. Those friendships came from the heart where no mutual interest but pure human bonding was involved. That human bonding was what he cared for the most. He didn't want much. He wanted everyone to feel the same way he felt for everybody. Perhaps he set a very high standard for others. The cruel Bangladesh disappointed him. It was perhaps fitting that he was buried according to his wishes in England where he got the respect from the little people. A citizen of the world, as he would like to call himself, was not bound by geographical boundary after his death.

While we were going to his Janaja yesterday towards Brick Lane mosque, Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam called his son, Farhad on the mobile phone to send his condolence. He also mentioned that he wanted to write a cover piece on him. After the conversation ended the usually strong Farhad burst out crying saying that it was too late. After writing this piece, I saw that Mr. Anam has written an elaborate piece on AS Mahmud. I thank him much for that. Alas, I wish he had written this piece while the man was alive. At least that would have given him some comfort that at least someone in Bangladesh did recognize the work he had done in the field of media for Bangladesh.

Once chacha was asked in an interview what his favorite pass time was. He replied that what he enjoyed doing the most was dreaming while he was awake. A dreamer and a visionary, Mr. A S Mahmud was laid to rest yesterday at London's Garden of peace cemetery after living his exciting and colorful dreams for 71 glorious years. We can only hope that his eventful life would inspire many future AS Mahmuds to dream and change Bangladesh for the better.

January, 2004

http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2003/12/03/remembrance.htm

Ever since the doctors told him, "Mr. Saleh, you have bad cells", his fate was sealed. A perfectly honest and seemingly healthy man has been given a death sentence. The doctors gave him three months time or less. The phone rang at three thirty AM in New York in mid October. My sister, Lopa, called from North Carolina crying. My mother had just called her from Bangkok telling her about this death sentence. My head started spinning. How can this be possible? I just saw him off in New York two weeks ago - saw off a perfectly healthy man, telling him that I would see him again in Dhaka in two months. How can this be possible? I picked up the phone and called Bangkok. My mother was calm as steal. "Your father is crying", she said. The doctor had just told him the news - "Mr. Saleh, you have bad cells." My mother gave the phone to him. I tried to be calm and composite and was getting ready to say "Bapi, don't be afraid, you have fought so many times before. You will fight again." But letting a voice out of my choked up throat became the hardest thing to do. I gave the phone to my wife Eeshita. All she could say was "Hello". I don't know if she heard the muffled voice of my father or whether she heard him cry but she could not speak anymore either. Thus we received the news that our father only has a few days left as cancer had spread all over his body.

Two days later, we found ourselves in the plane. I moved up my relocation to London by a couple of weeks. I took those two weeks off from work to spend time with my father in Bangladesh. My wife and daughter parted with me in London. I was going home after 5 years. My mother really wanted me to visit home. I could finally come. But the circumstances surrounding could have been so much better.

So I came. I came to an airport where there was no one to receive me other than our driver. I wasn't greeted by the usual smile of my father. I didn't see his anxious face looking out to find me among the arriving passengers. I tried to stop thinking about it. Driver Abdul bhai was crying. He cried all the way while driving me home. I was determined to keep a cheerful face. I called home from the mobile phone. My father picked up the phone --that ever familiar voice, the voice of love and affection, the voice of our dependence, that voice of our joy. I was so pleasantly surprised that he picked up the phone that I elated in joy, "Bapi , you sound so good! You'll be fine in no time." I came home and Bapi greeted me. He looked so normal! It was impossible to tell that things had changed so much from the last time I saw him only three weeks before. We talked about his life in Kaptai, his childhood. It was wonderful. I took some pictures of him. That in the end turned out to be the best day of my visit. From that day onwards, it was all downhill. Things changed at an unbelievable pace and his condition worsened little by little every single day. Eventually, we had to move him to a hospital.

Next few days became the worst days of our lives. My sister, Lopa, arrived from the US; so did my brother, Imon. We were together as a family again. Bapi greeted them both with warm hugs from the bed. Imon and I would swap days to stay at the hospital at night. It was so painful to see him suffer every night! One such night Bapi could not sleep. I asked him if he wanted me to sing. I remembered the days when I returned from my music school, Bapi would make me sing the new song I learned that day. I would get annoyed but he would say, "Please baba tinta line shonao". I would then sing the song half heartedly in a grudging voice. When once I was singing at the Shahid Minar with maestro Kalim Sharafi, he was there as proud as a father can be. Today I was singing for him again. All those memories came flushing by right in front of me. I could not sing in a choked voice. For the first time, I broke down in front of him. I hugged him and cried. So did he. It was perhaps the last time I was singing for him.

"ganer bhelay bela abelay, pranero asha, bhola moner srote bhasha paler haowa bhorsha tomar, korish ne bhoy, pother kori na jodi roy, shonge ache badhon nasha, bhola moner srote bhasha."

With the help of this wind of the sail, slowly my father's lifeboat started its journey towards the unknown. The first few days, he cried. You could tell that he was having trouble coming to grip with the finality of the whole matter. After a few days he stopped crying. He accepted his fate. We all said good bye one by one. Relatives came, his friends came by the scores, and workers from his factory came in buses - all left with weeping goodbye. At the end, he did not want to see anyone. He just wanted to have his children and his wife to be around him. He saw the old photographs of his wedding, the early pictures of his first child, Lopa. He listened to Rabindra Sangeet by her niece, Shama, who came every single day to sing for her dearest Kabu (Kakababu in short).

Then one day, I had to leave and say good bye for the final time. I left for London. I started my new life and new career. I was greeted by my one year old daughter Anahita who called me Bapi. As one Bapi was getting ready to leave, another Bapi had arrived. Two days after my arrival, I woke up unusually early in the morning seeing a dream. I called Dhaka right away. Lopa was on the phone with a shaking voice, "I think Bapi is leaving us as we speak". Although I was not there in person, by some strange coincidence, I was with my family at the exact time when my Bapi was saying his final good bye.

Thus the life of Mr. Abul Khair Saleh came to an end on the 11th November, 2003. He led a simple life - a life that was not grand in nature, but a life which was full of love and affection. A life that was bound by principle. Being a government officer for a long time, we were always very proud to say that he never took any bribe from anyone. In stead, he helped so many people to stand up on their feet! He always told me that it takes so little to make a difference, why should one not do it. Unassuming person as he was, amazingly, he never told anyone about his acts of charity. Only before his death, I learned that he single-handedly rehabilitated all the families who were affected by the liberation war of Bangladesh in Kaptai, where he served as a government officer. He miraculously survived the bullets of Pakistani army in 1971 and later, helped the family of those who were not as lucky as he was.

Two years before his death, he created a school near his factory seeing the need of his factory workers' kids' education. That school now boasts three hundred student with full recognition from the government. As a civil engineer from BUET (then Ahsanullah engineering college), he worked at Kaptai, Chittagong Hill Tracts as a government officer since the building of Kaptai dam. Later he joined private business firms. He did not earn a lot of wealth - just about enough to give his children good education and good life. He wasn't a towering success in business. He was not the biggest crowd puller in a party. Yet his unassuming, modest character left an impression and became an inspiration to many people's lives who he touched. And he didn't even know it.

Never one to boast about his family heritage, he was, however, really proud of all his three children where he invested all his energy, love, passion and affection. All of us, his children, can say without a blink, that he was the greatest father a child could ever have had. His affection and love for us was so abundant that we were always fulfilled in our lives. A man of a few words in front of outsiders, he would never have any problem expressing his love for us -- whether it was over the phone or whether it was in person.

And that is what that makes it so difficult to deal with this loss. I try to remember his voice everyday so that I do not ever forget that loving voice that greeted me all the time. I miss him so very much. A friend who lost his father a few years ago wrote, "This is a loss, I am afraid, one can never get over with." I hope he is true. I don't want to get over with the loss. There is one little corner in my heart that I want to keep tucked away for him where I will keep all my sorrows for losing him. Along with that, I will keep all the wonderful memories that we created together.
December 3rd, 2003

With her outspoken stand against fundamentalism and communalism, Shabana Azmi has now become the icon of the South Asian activists worldwide. I met with the activist Shabana recently on behalf of Drishtipat and talked with her candidly on her philosophy, life and the social issues she is working on. And her answers, just like her, were hardhitting and straight to the point. Asif: From slum dwellers rights to fights against fundamentalism, you have so far worked on a number of issues, what is the issue that is closest to your heart?

Shabana: All the issues are connected. From the slum dwellers rights to the issue of communalism -- they are connected in certain ways. When communal riots happen, it affects the slum dwellers the most. They become the victims because they are the weakest in the society. I got involved with an organization called Nivara Hakk Suraksha Samiti which sees itself as an agitational group that fights for the rights of the slum dwellers in Bombay. We are helping almost about 40 slums in Bombay to fight for their rights. Here we see that all the issues that we work for helps these people regardless. However, I strongly believe that ultimately it is women's empowerment that is the key to development of any nation. If we keep the women down and oppressed, we will never be able to move ahead in this world.

Asif: So is your focus is on urban areas in regards to women's issues?

Shabana: My work is connected to rural areas. All these people who live in the slums are people who got displaced from the rural areas for lack of employment. If they had employment in their areas, they would never come to the city and face such injustice. My father worked for a village all his life. He worked on creating a model village in his time where he focused on these issues.

Asif: In this regard, I would like to quote your father who once said "When you are working for change, you have to build into that expectation the possibility that change might not happen in your lifetime and yet to have to continue to work towards it" -- Do you believe it?

Shabana: Oh yes. I sincerely believe that. I thought it was wonderful coming from him, somebody who had spent all his life working for social change. My father (the renowned poet, Kaifi Azmi) settled down in a tiny village in Azamgarh, U.P. and he had been working towards making it a model village. In his 20 years of living and working there, he has transformed it from a place that didn't have water and electricity, to a place that has three schools, a health center, roads and even boasts of a computer-training center. He has done all this single-handedly - at snail's pace, all by himself, quietly, patiently, without raising a single slogan.

It wasn't easy but my father worked around the difficulties. For example, the villagers did not want a school because the place where he was going to set it up was the place that they put their cow dung. Instead of scoffing at them he found them an alternative space for the cow dung.

So oneday I asked him doesn't this frustrate you and that's when he told me that and since then that has become the motto of my life. I have internalized it. You can't wait for a change to happen overnight. The process of change is slow and gradual. It is a work in progress all the time. It happens through legislation, it happens through social transformation, attitude change, and mindset change. So it is indeed a work in progress all the time. You have to keep working on it without worrying too much to see the outcome in your lifetime.

Asif: You have made a number of trips in Bangladesh recently (to make a film on Aids) . How would you say the state of human rights in Bangladesh?

Shabana: Well, I'll have to do more homework on it and I am no expert on it. But I have been concerned about the recent rise of minority oppression in Bangladesh.

Asif: Recent Election in Pakistan and the current governments in India and Bangladesh paint a picture of surge in nationalistic and religion based politics in the region. Is this a defeat for the secular side?

I will not call it a defeat but a setback. This is a very recent phenomenon and indeed causes of great concern. However, I don't think our reaction should that this is the end. But the situation is grave enough to be addressed. We all need to be vocal and take a stand against religion based politics.

Asif: While we see you in processions and issue driven activism, we see celebrities like sachin tendulkar and Hritik Roshan in Pepsi commercials only? Why the indifference towards social issues on the part of south Asian celebrities in general?

Shabana: Indifference is a strong word. Actually I don't think they are indifferent. Amitabh Bachchan, Tabu, Sunil Sethy to name a few-- they have all worked with me on a number of issues when I have approached them. I think it is also related to the fact that people don't approach them with these issues. They think such and such is working on these issues, so let's call him or her. So the end result is that one or two people get over burdened with every single issues. You can't work on every single issue; you do support issues of equality, equity and justice in principle. So I think the people organizing events need to branch out to them more. If the right people approach them, I am sure they will come. Also it takes a little time to feel passionately for any issue.

Asif: Increasing after 9/11, talking about Islamic fundamentalism in considered by some moderate Muslims as bad timing and thus alienate them and at the same time it is capitalized by the Hindu fundamentalists to create more anti Islamic hysteria. How can we balance this? You yourself got a fatwa from some fundamentalist group and at the same time has been called Islamic terrorist by the VHP group.

Shabana: The answer lies in your question itself. Muslim fundamentalists are the best friends of the Hindu fundamentalists. They always have and will capitalize on each other's actions. So, fundamentalism has no color or religion. If I am a moderate Muslim, this is the time for me to speak out even more, than to be quiet. If I am seeing my religion is getting stereotyped and hijacked by some terrorists, shouldn't I fight back and stop them from corrupting my religion further? If all Muslims are being portrayed as terrorists, then the most important thing for you to do is to distance yourself from the stereotypes and say "this is not what Islam practices, this is not what it preaches, I am a practicing Muslim and I do not agree with the fundamentalists who are distorting Islam." Surely that is going to clear the air and create a better perception; rather than you keeping silent and allowing the fundamentalist to dominate. That is exactly the same situation with Hindu fundamentalism. You can't suddenly say that that is going to be acceptable mode. We have to really keep understanding that there are wheels within the wheels and the only way we can keep our head above the water is when Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs speak up and unite.. In this changed world, we cannot think in terms of countries any more. We need to think in terms of regions. I feel like there is a vast majority of people in both religions now, more than ever, who need to speak up from the South Asian region. The voice of the silent majority MUST be heard.

Asif: What is the best way to engage these moderates which the reactionary force seems to have been able to do successfully through cultural events?

Shabana: The problem with us is that we rush in only after the riots take place where as the greatest amount of work needs to be done in the times of peace before the riots occur. The interventionist work that needs to be done is to be done in times of peace. We have seen cases where many religious functions are organized abroad and marketed as the way of "Indianization". That is the more insidious and dangerous part. Because people are going into those functions thinking they need to hold on to their identity in country like the US. Whereas in many cases they are donating money here and without their knowledge, the money is actually going to fund to organizations which promote communal tension. So you can see they are working very cleverly on this. I think one of the main problems we have is that most of the people who are working on issues of humanity have other full time commitments they have to attend. So they do not have the time to focus on it completely. We need funds to work during the peacetime. We need to better organize ourselves. What you saw in Gujarat and the recent alarming trend of the rise of Hindu nationalism did not happen overnight. It has been a gradual process that took eighty years to take this shape. To counter that I think we need to network among ourselves better and build more bridges with like minded people and organizations. We need to work in peace time to engage more and more people. We can't let the fundamentalists dictate the course of our work.

Asif: How are you using you status to do this?

Shabana: I am speaking in Universities. I have been talking to different organizations and trying to network between them. I have used my time to put people's focus on these issues.

Asif: These days do you consider yourself more a social activist than an actor?

Shabana: I don't think these two roles are different. Every actor has a social responsibility. I feel like, being an actress and doing the kind of roles that I have been doing, I have been working on the issues that I would like to focus. What I do tend to do is to not think of every single roles in terms of whether it is issue driven or not. Because when I start doing that, I stop being an actor and being an actor is of tremendous value to me. I have to lighten up a bit. Over the years, my political beliefs have become more and more straightened and I have become more and more choosy in picking the roles. In picking roles, some cases are just black and white and I know what to do. However, in certain cases there are gray areas, which create confusion in me. On one hand there is a professional responsibility and on the other hand there is the social responsibility. I can not ignore the fact that the tremendous respect that I have got from people over the years, a lot of that has come from the fact that they respect the kind of cinema that I have been doing. I always keep that in mind.

Asif: Thank you very much for your time and good luck in your future endeavors.

Shabana: Thank you and I also laud the work that Drishtipat is doing for the cause of the less-fortunates.

An Encounter with Shabana Azmi:

It was a bizarre evening in New York that night. After work, originally I was supposed to catch a Shabana Azmi film at the Indian Diaspora Film Festival. Lately, Shabana Azmi, in town for her film retro at the New York Film Festival, has been all over in New York promoting various organizations. The week before I met her for an interview. Of all the films that were playing in the film festival, the one that caught my eye was a film about a woman who gets caught in the middle of Diaspora and struggles for identity.

I met up with the friend who I went with. I got some real brownie points when we bumped into Shabana Azmi and Shabana referred to me by my first name. It just so happened that I interviewed her the week before for my website and we exchanged some emails on common interest.

However, to our disappointment, the movie took forever to start. Technical difficulty was the culprit. The embarrassed hostess Aroon promptly brought Shabana over for a Q&A session while we waited for the technical glitch to be sorted out. Feisty Shabana came in and awed the audience. She talked about secularism, her struggles with the current situation in the South Asia and she talked about her upbringing. We listened with awe. Her fiery but soft speaking, candor and overall stage appearance impressed every body. The Q and A finished but the movie did not start. Aroon gave up. She announced that instead of the original movie, they would play "Godmother" - one of Shabana's masala movies. Even though she got an award for it, this movie was not one of my favourite for the sheer violence it portrayed. My friend wanted to stay on. I decided to pack up and leave. By then, I remembered of the other thing that was going on in the city. The one and only Taslima Nasrin were in town to promote her book - "My Girlhood". The timing of the publishing of this book was interesting.

You might wonder after all these years why is suddenly Taslima getting prominence in the Western media again? It's all about 911. Taslima, the outspoken critic of Islam and a victim of Islamic fundamentalism fits the profile of the perfect poster girl of the topics that American public has taken a tremendous amount of interest on since 9/11.

Originally I wasn't too interested in going because the program schedule did not have any open Q&A session. The preplanned set events do not attract me. But since I was only a few blocks away, I decided to leave the Indian feminist and get a glimpse of the Bangladeshi one.

Sprint to the Taslima Nasrin Event:

It was a ticketed event. I had no problem paying $10 to see a Bangladeshi writer. I think it was the first time; a Bengali writer got such a high profile speaking engagement. The venue was Asia Society, which has a towering, and a very attractive presence in the middle of Manhattan. The event was quite well publicized. Ironically, the last time I went to see an Asia Society event; it was an event for writer Salman Rushdie. When I went in to the auditorium, I was a little shell-shocked. A fully packed auditorium with quite a sizable number of Western audiences was listening with undivided attention. The spotlight was on our girl from Mymensingh - Taslima Nasrin.

So what did Taslima say that night? The setting was big, however, the audience was sympathetic. Even more understanding and softer was the interviewer Meredith Tax. Meredith, herself, is one of the leading feminist writers of the feminist movement. Seeing Taslima's plight in 1994, she formed an organization to protect the feminist writers worldwide. Last month, she also wrote an extensive big book review of Taslima's recent book where she also highlighted her struggle. Meredith started her session asking Taslima about her personal struggle.

The interview and the Q and A session:

Here are a few highlights.

On social responsibility:

When asked whether she would like to bear any responsibility for the consequences of her writing, Taslima said that she was just a mere writer, not a social activist. She shrugged off any responsibility of her writing saying that she always likes to speak her mind.

On religious extremism in Bangladesh:

Taslima said Bangladesh was out and out a religious extremist country and blamed the rise of Madrashahs for this rise of Islamic extremism.

On our two women leaders:

Being asked why the state of women so poor in spite of having two women leaders in power, Taslima said that they did not become leader on their own right rather by virtue of having a family member as the past president of Bangladesh. As a result, they have very little qualification to be leaders of the country.

On her fight against religion:

She said amid applause that her fight against religious fundamentalism will continue and that is the fundamental reason for oppression against women in Bangladesh.

On her getting compared to Salman Rushdie:

Taslima brashly said she does not like to get compared to Salman Rushdie, because unlike her, Salman Rushdie apologized for his writing after getting death threats.

On her being sexually abused as a child:

On being asked whether she shared this sad event with anybody when she was a child, she said she did not tell anybody because it was considered a taboo in Bangladesh. She said no one likes to talk about it even though it is happening in every family in Bangladesh.

On women's movement in Bangladesh:

She said women's movement wasn't much of a success because the leaders of the women's movement in Bangladesh weren't very effective.

The Reaction:

After the session, there was a small reception for the writer and her book signing. I hoped to get glimpse, may be ask some quick questions.

Fans swarmed her. Although, she was not speaking much, she seemed relaxed. However, she seemed very aloof and unapproachable. Fresh off covering a "nerve wrecking" election of the Bangladesh Society in New York, four editors of the leading Bengali weeklies of North America were cracking jokes at each other disinterested in asking Taslima any question. Unable to get close to Taslima, I started covering the audience’s reaction. Of course, I picked the most attractive South Asian lady. However, fearing the pen of a "deadly reporter", she pleaded her ignorance and passed me to her friend who, according to her, was more knowledgeable on Bangladesh and Taslima.

Omar Alam spent most of his life outside Bangladesh and is on his mid twenties. Visibly upset, Omar said that Taslima should be a little more concerned about the repercussion of her writings. She can not just shrug her responsibilities off by saying that she has no control over her writing". Omar, however, hastened to add that he admired her courage.

"After all these struggle, she is where she is. So more power to her”, said Omar.

Sudeb Mitra, professor by profession, however, was very proud and impressed with Taslima. Mr. Mitra, who will teach a class on comparative religion in South Asia, next semester in his university, defended the allegation that Taslima is an Islam basher. He said Taslima is against all the religions. He said, "BJP's rejection of her citizenship proves that she is not a puppet of India". Mr. Mitra's highlight of the evening was her secular stand on the issues.

In the hunt for a western audience to get the western perspective, I ran into a very interesting group of people. Terressa William, her friend Farah Ameen, her husband John Mccabe and Farah’s brother Farhad Ameen spoke very animatedly about the show. They seem to be all in their mid twenties to mid thirties. I started with a hostile question. "What is she doing? Isn't how you are going to view another Bangladeshi from now on - as a child molesting, close minded bigot?" Teressa seemed outraged at the question. She said that what happened in Taslima's life could happen to someone over in her society too. "We should admire her courage and honesty", said Terressa. Teresa's friend Bangladeshi born Farah had full solidarity with Taslima. Although mostly brought up outside Bangladesh, Farah could see that Taslima represented the Bangladeshi women's plight. During her short stay, she felt that women had too many limitations in Bangladeshi society. She was happy to see that Taslima broke the taboo. Incidentally, one of the questions she asked Taslima was on the status of the women's movement in Bangladesh. When asked if she knew anyone in her familiar world in Bangladesh whose plight was as bad as Taslima's girlhood, she replied in the negative.

I also asked her about if she knew anything about the women's movement in Bangladesh minus Taslima. She replied in the negative. Her brother, Farhad seemed to agree that women of Bangladesh have progressed far since Taslima left the country.

Conclusion:

The evening left me in a mixed state of mind. On one hand, I was extremely disappointed about Taslima's shamelessly playing victim to the sympathetic western crowd. Eight years after her exile, Taslima's still panders on the same issue without producing any authentic writing on the women's issue of Bangladesh. The only write-ups she has produced are memoirs, which have no way to be challenged. Until now, she fails to give any credit to the existing women's movement in Bangladesh calling them "very weak" and neither she highlighted the women's empowerment in the rural areas partly caused by the work of the NGOs in Bangladesh. The conflict in Taslima is still very puzzling.

The reason I found Taslima to be very unconvincing that night was because she completely lacked the conviction and passion for the issues that she claims she has been fighting for. She seemed completely out of touch with the progress women had made since her departure in Bangladesh. She, intentionally or unintentionally, downplayed the existing women's movement and its leaders. Instead of the issues, she made it all too personal and made the entire night to be her endlessly talking about how she has been a victim all her life. Where is the fight back? What's her role in it? Where is the power of women? In stead it was all about the big bad world versus Taslima. Sometimes it was even painfully embarrassing to see her struggle with a question and asking her questioner the question to be repeated repeatedly. Her answers to most of the in depth questions were shallow and showed her lack of deeper understanding of complex issues. On the question of people using her write up to create an anti-Muslim hysteria and writer's social responsibility, she simply had a one-line response "I have no control over who uses my writing". This symbolizes the evening. She seemed most comfortable when she talked about her personal life and her own victimization. She was totally out of depth in any question beyond that. Taslima lectures people on social change, yet when she is challenged on her role, she claims that she is not a social activist but a mere writer.

Taslima could have used her international status to a great length to improve the status of women in Bangladesh. In stead, she seems to have preferred to talk about her personal plight and get sympathy and clapping by portraying herself as a victim all the time.

It was clear that instead of inspiring other women, Taslima was more interested in making people weep telling them about the nitty gritty details of the tragedies of her life which continues to churn up more and more saucy stories every year. As far as her audience goes, there seems to be a complete disconnect. She seems to have very little

sympathetic ear among the Bangladeshi community who has followed her trail over the past few years. However, she still makes an impression on the western mind and people not so familiar with her work when they hear about her sheer courage on fighting the religious extremists.

In spite of all that, you can't help but feel bad for Taslima. She looks like the shadow of her old attractive self. Her hair has grayed. Her get up was shockingly unimpressive. She seemed like a loner. The only appreciative Bangladeshi audience in the program was members of HRCBM, an organization, whose allegiance with the RSS-VHP nexus is now well known.

September, 2001

Staying inside the apartment has become too claustrophobic. Normally my favourite little cosy retreat, it is now suffocating because of the television coverage and the non-stop phone calls. No matter how much I try to lift my spirits, the ghost of the World Trade Centre won't leave me.

It's been three days I have been stuck at home. My workplace, a financial bank located just three blocks from the World Trade Centre, is, I hear, surrounded by the National Guard. It is, apparently, being treated like a crime scene. Every three hours I get an update from work, regarding how the Securities and Exchange Commission is desperately trying to get the exchange up and running in a brave attempt to show that everything is normal. But can we go back to work and pretend everything is normal in Death Valley?

I attempt to log on to my workplace server to check my e-mail and, for the first time in three days, I can actually do so. Maybe things are actually coming back to normal. "Are you okay?" seems to be the theme of everybody's e-mail. So many people worried about me? Friends from college, friends from grade three, relatives from Bangladesh -- all wrote after failing to reach me by phone. Even the ex-girlfriend, the one who did not speak to me for four years, wrote a line.

Uh! Why am I choking? I don't know. I can't breathe any more.

Fifteen minutes ago, I heard of a friend who is still missing. He took classes with me. He was doing his MBA and, just like me, was into his second year while working full time for a Wall Street firm. His name was Rohit Verma. The name could have been easily replaced by Asif Saleh. Everything else remains the same.

There was Sallahuddin. His wife gave birth to a baby boy recently. He was working at the Windows of the World restaurant, saving a extra few dollars for the new arrival in the family. Where is he now?

Then there were Tumpa and Nurul Huq, my bhabhi's (sister-in-law's) sister and brother-in-law, who are both missing at work from the 97th floor. They were newly married, just like I was three years ago. All these names, all those faces on television, all those pictures are suffocating me. Any of these faces could have been mine. I can't take it any more.

I walk out of my apartment and get into a coffee lounge. A large television set is playing there constantly. Sitting with a cappuccino, I cannot help but pick up the paper. 'The Day After,' the headline blares, with a massive picture of a bulldozer lifting the remains of the WTC.

It's the same thing no matter where I look. All the faces around me are sad. Everybody around me is talking about the same thing. There's no respite. Some artist is sitting at the pavement outside with cards that you can paint free and wish for any friend who is missing. I see a little kid painting with her parents. Images of the kid who lost her mother pop up. Ah! Why can't I get this trauma off my head?

I look around. I see another poster... "Missing... 25 years old... worked at 107th floor."

"TAKE IT AWAY!" I scream in my head!

I leave the coffee lounge. Where can I go to get some peace? I see a note on the wall. "Vigil service at the church for all faiths," it says. I stroll along there. An old lady introduces herself as the pastor and greets me. "Can I sit here for a few moments?" I ask, with some reservation about the shorts I am wearing. She has such a reassuring face! "Sit as long as you want," she says.

I sit there for a few moments and pray for all those missing faces. Wherever you are, I hope there isn't another Windows of the World there. I don't want you to take a peek at this dirty world through those windows.

My concentration is broken by a "breaking news" announcement. There is a television set in the church?! I walk away.

It's such a different city today. I pass some women talking about how less motivated they feel since the incident. That makes me feel better. I am not the only one then. An ambulance starts screaming. It symbolises the state of the city today. We all look at it and sigh. Did another building collapse?

I notice a blood donation poster. No luck there either. They have collected more than enough for the day. I stroll along to Barnes and Noble. I am not interested in a book; I'm just looking for some quiet space. Shivers go down my spine on seeing the cops there. Each floor of Barnes and Noble's largest bookstore, where people once roamed freely, now has fully armed policemen positioned for possible suspects. People are walking up to them and shaking hands with the heroes. That's a new thing in New York. A few months ago, the NYPD used to be one of the most hated departments in the city.

It's a very different city tonight. As I am walking along the street, there are many different conversations I overhear; yet, all revolve around the same overwhelming topic. A young white woman animatedly protests against the singling out of an Arab American colleague just because of her name, even though she was born and raised here; a teacher points out how the media is making the job of the terrorists easy by constantly playing the events in detail 24 hours a day. An old lady says how she wants to hug New York for all its sorrows today.

This is a New York I have never seen. The sad faces of people desperately trying to act normal... But the surroundings don't help. Police cars are constantly plying the streets. The traffic is wafer thin. At 8 o'clock, the streets of the city that once never slept are almost empty. Most of the cars are displaying the American flag. Radio stations have abandoned the top 40 songs and are instead playing patriotic songs like God bless America. Nationalism is in full display.

Suddenly, for the first time in New York, I feel scared and lonely. I feel like a minority. Diversity and the open mind of its residents were my crown-jewel reasons for living in New York. But tonight, I am walking a safe distance away from the next pedestrian. Tonight, I feel like the unwelcome guest with whom the host does not how to act. I go inside my cage again, sparing the "host" of its embarrassment.

Last updated: October 2004