Names of Allah Series: Part I -XV:Seeking the Guide0

Allah subhanahu wa ta`la (exalted is He) has given Himself Names and attributes (siffat) so that we can know Him. What is most amazing and beautiful about Allah’s Names is that through them, you can see how your Creator recognizes the needs of His creation.

We all need sustenance; and He is al-Razzaaq, The Provider. We all need love; and He is al-Wadud, The Most Loving. We all need protection; and Allah is al-Hafidh, The Guardian. What we need the most is the very thing of which Allah (swt) has an unlimited supply.

And so sometimes we are put through things to know Allah (swt). Sometimes it is to open your eyes to your own flaws so that you can change. But whatever it is, if you realize that the answer to any problem is through Him, and that He suffices all your needs, then your relief is already at hand.

Recently, I found myself to be very lost. And this was alarming because I used to be a person who had direction. I thought I knew where I was going and what I was doing. But things started to fall apart, internally. I wasn’t sure anymore. And then I realized I had three choices – to continue to do what I was doing without putting in any extra thought, to give up entirely, or to re-assess and re-orient.

And because this feeling persisted for a while, I realized something else. I came to know Allah’s attribute of Guidance.

Sometimes this feeling of being lost can bring us closer to Allah (swt).

What is the meaning of this problem? Why are we stuck? We need to feel as though we do not know where we are going, because that is when we start searching. And that is precisely when Allah (swt) shows you that He is The Guide (al-Haadi), and how life changes when the Light of God is in it.

Perhaps you started out something with a sense of purpose, but in your journey you were knocked off the path towards the greater goal. You need al-Haadi. Maybe you are having some sort of mid-life crisis. You need al-Haadi. And we cannot for one moment believe that there is no way out and no right path. Allah (swt) says in a hadith qudsi (record of the words of the Prophet ﷺ, peace be upon him),

“O My servants, all of you are astray except for those I have guided, so seek guidance of Me and I shall guide you,” (Muslim).

As Allah (swt) gave Himself the attributes of Guidance and Light, how can we ever believe that we will be in darkness for too long?

Say, for example, you are drowning in a pool. Who will you usually call out for? The lifeguard. The lifeguard is already there, watching out for people, and because that is his job, when you call out to him he’ll jump in there to save you. Now Allah (swt) is over and above any analogy, but as Allah (swt) gave Himself the attribute of guidance, telling you that He is THE Guide and He is THE Light of the heavens and the earth, then how can you be lost for too long? Especially if you seek Him. Are we saying that lifeguards do their job better than Allah (swt)?

So what does it mean to go to Allah al-Haadi? It means to take the first step of realizing that He has this attribute, and having the certainty that Allah (swt) will not turn a seeker away. Secondly, it means to ask Him. Make du`a’ (supplication), pray istikhara (the prayer for guidance) and talk to Him. Thirdly, it means to use the means around us. Re-assess your goals, seek people’s advice and take the steps needed to try to find an answer. When we feel an internal instability, these steps may be hard, but Allah (swt) tells us “And those who strive for Us – We will surely guide them to Our ways […]“ (Qur’an, 29:69).

And so we have to strive. We have to search. It will be hard. And there will be moments of confusion. But the Prophet ﷺ taught us: “Know that victory comes with patience, relief with affliction, and ease with hardship,” (Tirmidhi).

One final action is that we cannot let Shaytan (the devil) make us lose hope and make us keep questioning ourselves. There is a point when confusion becomes wiswaas (whispers) – a sort of paranoia from the Devil. Only when we realize that Allah (swt) is the ultimate Guide and we are seeking Him in the proper way, will we gain full trust in Him and know that He will not allow us to be led astray.

“So those who believe in Allah and hold fast to Him – He will admit them to mercy from Himself and bounty and guide them to Himself on a straight path.” (Qur’an, 4:175)

What a beautifully worded statement. I found this to be true when a beloved teacher of mine passed away. Allah (swt) call Himself al-Jabbar, the Repairer. Knowing that Allah (swt) was there to repair my broken heart was one of the only things that comforted me during that time. There’s even an article on SuhaibWebb about the name al-Jabbar.

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The brain keeps young if constantly it is constantly in use through academic exercises0

May 1, 2013. Million times Shukria to the Almighty Allah for being kind to me for keeping my brain still alert at the age of 88 plus. This morning,  my daughter Zeba sent me a piece of puzzle meant to test my mental agility. At first I was reluctant to put to test my capability to solve puzzles which are usually solved by young minds.

My vanity was hurt when Zeba pointed out over telephone that she sent me  the quiz as  a sort of mental exercise and relaxation. I got back on my feet and lo  and behold, I solved it much faster that I had thought to succeed. Maybe I spend   a lot of time composing letters and articles for the GNOBB website. That may have helped me  keep my brain still young – much younger than many of my contemporaries. Click here.

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Publications of Dr. Ahmad Shamsul Islam0

Dr. A. S. Islam has published over 90 papers in
national and international journals including four in the
prestigious British journal, Nature and one in the
topmost USA science journal “Science”. He wrote two
textbooks on genetics, “Fundamentals of Genetics” and
its Bengali version, “Bongshogati bidyar Moolkatha (বংশগতি
বিদ্যার মূলকথা)”. Both original and its revised Bengali version were published by “Bangla Academy” – the premier Government -sponsored institution aimed at introducing Bengali as the medium of instructions at the highest level of education. Assisted by three more: Mustak Ibne Ayub (at the Department of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, DU), Ms  Sumaiya Farah Khan at Jagannath University and Ms Sabrina Elias at Plant Biotech lab. DU the revised enlarged edition of this book entitled, “বংশগতি বিদ্যার মূলকথা ও জিন প্রকৌশল”  has been published in 2011 by  মাতৃভাষা প্রকাশ।

Below is given the list of his  Publications:.

1. Islam A.S. (1950) Contribution to the life history of

Ottelia alismoides Pers. J. Indian Bot. Society 28: 79-91. 

2. Islam A. S. and B. Saha (1951) Chromosome number of the genus Gymnopetalum. Curr. Sci. (Bangalore, India) 20: 

3. Islam A.S. and A. Baten (1952) Cytology of Cyanotis. Nature 169: 475-458. 

4. Islam A.S. (1952) A preliminary survey of ferns in Dhaka. Pakistan J. Forestry 4: 

5. Islam A. S. (1953) Preliminary report on the Colchichine-induced tetraploids of Annona squamosa. Curr. Sci. (Bangalore, India) 22:119-120. 

6. Islam A. S. and Khan Iqbal (1957) Studies on the germination of seeds of Corchorus species. Biologia 3: 165-167. 

7. Islam A.S. (1958) Seedless strawberry. Pakistan J. Biol. Agric. Res. (Pakistan)1: 166-167. 

8. Islam A. S. (1958) Crossing relationship in the genus Corchorus. Proc. International Botanic Congress held in Montreal, Canada. 

9. Islam A. S. and M. Imam (1959) The systematic position of Gossypium bakerii. Biologia 5: 1959. 

10. Islam A. S. (1960) Unproductivity in the Colchicine-induced Tetraploids of Annona squamosa L. Nature 187: 343-344. 

11. Islam A. S. (1960) Application of cytogenetical methods in the determination of a new species in the genus Corchorus. Biologia 6:169-177. 

12. Islam A. S. (1960) Possible role of unreduced gametes in the origin of polyploid Fragaria. Biologia 6: 189-192. 

13. Islam A. S. and A. Rashid (1960) First successful hybridization between the two jute yielding species. Nature 185 : 258-259. 

15. Islam A. S. (1960) Reinvestigation into the reported instances of paternal and maternal inheritance in Fragaria. Biologia 6: 241-251. 

16. Islam A. S.(1960) Induced polyploidy and its utility in plant breeding. Agric. Res. Pakistan 11: 607-612

17. Islam A. S. (1961) Some more chromosome numbers in the genus Corchorus. Curr. Sci. (Bangalore, India) 39: 433. 

18. Islam A. S. and A. Rashid (1961) A new jute hybrid. J. Heredity 52: 287-291. 

19. Islam A. S.(1961) The haploid strawberry Fragaria vesea L. and the significance of haploidy in phylogeny and plant breeding. The Scientist  (Karachi, Pakistan) 4: 1-17. 

20. Islam A. S. (1964) A rare hybrid combination through application of hormone and embryo culture. Nature 201 : 320. 

21. Yamaguchi and A.S. Islam  (1967) Translocation of some C14 labeled amino acids and three herbicides in two varieties of barley.Hilgardia. 38: 207-229. 

22. Islam A. S. and M. M. Haque. (1967) A natural hybrid not possible to produce artificially. Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J. 2: 191-199. 

23. Haque M.M. and A.S. Islam (1967) Reproduction of “Tossa-Daisee” jute hybrid. Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J. 3: 84-89. 

24. Islam A. S. and Feroza S. Ali (1968) Investigation into the causes of failure of the reciprocal cross. C. olitorius X C. trilocularis.   Sind Univ. Res. J.  2(2) 209-214

24. Islam A. S. and M.M. Haque (1969) Some promising breeding materials among F4 and backcross derivatives of the natural hybrid. C. olitorius x C. aestuans. Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J. 4: 82-99. 

25. Haque M.M. and A. S. Islam (1969) Some promising backcross derivatives of C. olitorius x C. aestuans, Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J. 4: 123-130. 

26. Islam A. S. and R. Mughal (1969) Corchorus pascorum : Transmission of chemically induced fruit formation with environmental change. Science  164: 315-316. 

27. Islam A.S. and Sharif A. (1970) Breeding of cotton Varieties for Jassid resistance. Canadian Journal Genetics and Cytology 12:454-460

28. Nasim Bhutto, S. Pathan and A.S. Islam (1969) Anatomical effects of indole-3- butyric acid on flower pedicel abscission ofGossypium. Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J. Vol. 4. 109-113.

29. Haque M.M.and A.S. Islam (1970) Some promising breeding materials in F2 and first backcross derivatives of Corchorus olitorius x C. capsularis. Sind Univ. Sc. Res. J. 5: 38-42.

30. Afsari Sharif, Iqbal Bhutto and A. S. Islam (1970) Meiotic study of two F1 progeny of the hexaploid Gossypium hirsutum X G. anomalum. Biologia  16(2): 119-126. 

31. Islam A. S. (1965) Some biochemical differences between the long-day atlas variety of barley and a recessive mutation for day neutral flowering.  Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J.  1(1): 59-67. 

32. Islam A. S. and Zeeshan Abbasi (1966) A tetraploid jute hybrid c-4 X Jute C. olitorius x new world wild Jute species, C. siliquosus. Sind Univ. Sci. Res. J. 2 (1):33-41

33. Rashida Mughal and A. S. Islam (1966) Occurrence of parthenogenetic polyhaploid in a cross. c-4x Corchorus olitorius x C. pascuorum. Sind Univ. Res. J. 2(2) 209-214.

34. Islam A. S., M. M. Haque and Aslam Rajput (1971) Determination of genomic relationship in the genus Corchorus through improved techniques. Pakistan J. Bot. 2 (1): 16-28. 

35. Islam A. S. and K. Maruyama (1971) Responses of various organs of Solanum melangena to different nutrients in callus formation.Pakistan J. Bot. 2(2): 47-52. 

36. Islam A. S. and Farhat Yasmin (1972) Studies of in vitro pollen germination of some Gossypium species. Bangladesh J. Bot. 1 (1 & 2): 93-104. 

37. Islam A.S. and Haque M.M. (1972) A natural hybrid of jute and its possible role in the evolution of desired plant types. SABRAO Newsletter 4(1): 7-16

38. Islam A. S. and M. M. Haque (1973) Improvement of jute through interspecific hybridization. SABRAO Jour 5: 75-82. 

39. Islam A. S., M. M. Haque and M. B. A. Dewan (1975) Attempt to produce photo-neutral strain of jute through interspecific hybridization. Japan. J. Breed. and Genet. 25 (6) : 349-354. 

40. Islam A. S., M. Haque and S.M.B.A. Dewan (1976) First report of a tetraploid species of Corchorus from Africa. Curr.  Sci. (Bangalore, India) 45: 308.

41. Islam A. S., K. Njoroge and A. Irudayanathan (1978) Random chromosome breakage by colchicine in Viscum fischeri (Loranthacene)Experientia 34, 328. 

42. Haque M. M., K. S. Haque and A. S. Islam (1979) Study of fibre bearing potentiality of two jute (Corchorus) hybrids. Indian J. Genet. and Plant Breeding 43(2): 541-543. 

43. Haque M. M., L. A. Khan, M. Rahman and A. S. Islam (1980) Attempt to overcome crossibility between the two jute species by use of a wild parent. Japan J. Breed. and Genet. 30: 231-235. 

44. Islam A. S., M. Haque and M.S. Haque (1980) Fibre-bearing Potentiality of two jute hybrids. Indian J. Genetics & Plant Breeding 40(3)578-580. 

45. Islam A. S.(1981) Production of desirable jute plant through tissue culture. COSTED: Tissue Culture Symp. on Economically Important plants, Singapore (Ed. A.N. Rao) 

46. Banik A. K. and A.S Islam (1984) Genetics of some strains of triticale and their hybrid population. Indian J. agric. Sci. 54(5) : 359-61. 

47. Das B., M. M. Haque, A.S. Islam, M. H. Rahman and M. I. Hoque (1986) In vitro plantlet development in jute. Proc. Nayaduma Mem. Symp. on Agricultural Application on Biotechnology. Madras, India. 15-17. December, pp. 106-114 (Eds. A. N. Rao and H. Y. Mohon Ram) 

48. Islam A. S. (1986) Production and utilization of haploids for crop improvement. In New Genetical Approaches to Crop improvement, Eds. K.A. Siddiqui and A.M. Faruqui. pp. 35-39. Proc. Symp. held in Karachi, Pakistan.

49.  Islam A. S., M. I. Haque and M. M. Haque (1987) Prospects of utilizing interspecific hybrids in jute for commercial purpose.Phytobreedon (India) 3(1): 26-38. (Invited article)

50. Islam A. S., Bithi Das, M. M. Haque, M. I. Hoque and M. H. Rahman (1987) Preliminary studies on the production of somaclonal variation in Jute. Proc. Mem. Symp. on Application of Biotechnology in Agriculture. Madras (Ed. A.N.N. Rao)

51. Chand Sultana, M. I. Hoque, M. M. Haque and A. S. Islam (1988) An attempt towards micropropagation of some fast growing fuel wood plants. Proc.  Regional Seminar on Tissue Cult. Kathmandu, Nepal. March 14-17, 1988.

52.  Haque M. M., M. I. Hoque, Asma Begum and A.S. Islam (1988) Regeneration of multiple shoots from shoot tip culture of Vigna mungo(L) Hopper. Proc.  Intl. Symp. on Genetic Manipulation in Crops,  Beijing, China,  22-26 October, 1984. pp. 222-226. 

53. Seraj Z.I, Sarker AB and Islam AS (1992) Plant regeneration in a jute species (C. capsularis) and its possible relationship with glyoxalase-1. Plant Cell Rep. 12:29-33. 

54. Islam A. S., M.M. Haque, M.I. Hoque, and Z.I. Seraj (1992) Tissue Culture and micropropagation of jute (Corchorus species), In:Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, Vol 19, High Tech and Micropropagation III. Bajaj YPS (Ed.), Springer Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg.  pp. 505-526. 

55. Sarker R.H. , M. A. Samad, Zeba I. Seraj, M.I. Hoque and A.S. Islam (1993) Pollen tube growth in crosses,  Porteresia coarctata XOryza sativa. Euphytica 69: 129-134. 

56.  Hoque M. I., M. Islam, R.H. Sarker and A.S. Islam (1994) In vitro microtuber formation in potato (Solanum tuberosum L) In : Plant Tissue Culture (Ed. A.S. Islam), Oxford IBH, New Delhi, India. pp. 222-228. 

Publications in Bangladesh Journals

57. Islam A S., Shah Nawaz and M. Haque (1973) Origin of spontaneous amphidiploid in the F3 progeny of the cross, Corchorus olitorius x C. depressus. Bangladesh J. Bot. 2(1): 41-50. 

58. Islam A.S. and M. M. Haque (1973) Origin of a spontaneous amphidiploid in the F3 progney of the cross, C. olitorius x C. depressus.Bangladesh J. Bot. 2 (2): 122-134. 

59. Islam A.S., M. M. Haque and Zaheeda Begum (1974) Production of autotetraploid in Trichosanthes dioica. Bangladesh J. Bot. 3: 59-65.

60. M. M. Haque, S.B.A. Dewan, D. Prodhan and A.S. Islam (1976) Report of chromosome number of Corchorus hochstettert from E. Africa. J. Asiatic Soc. Bangladesh. 11: 15-18.

61.  Gupta  V.K. and A.S. Islam (1977) Isozyme studies of some Viscum species as an AID to their identification. Dhaka Univ. Studies, Part B. 25 (2): 63-66, 1977.

62. Das Arjun  and A.S. Islam (1977) Embryological studies of three species of Cenchrus and their relationship. Bangladesh J. Bot.6(1&2): 123-131. 

63. Islam A.S., M.K.U. Chowdhury, M.G. Mostafa and M. M. Haque (1978) Isolation of protoplasts in two jute species. Bangladesh. J. Bot.7(2): 71-77.

64. Islam A.S. and M. Ngati (1978) Re-examination of meiosis of some East African Viscum species. Bangladesh J. Bot. 7(1): 65-75 

65. Haque M. M., M. G. Mostafa and A.S. Islam (1979) Studies on some advanced generations of some Intra- and interspecific hybrids ofCorchorus for resistance to stem-rot. Dhaka Univ. Studies, Part B. 27: 92-99. 

66. Haque M. M., S. K. Mistry and A.S. Islam (1979) Study of in vitro pollen tube growth in the cross. C. olitorius x C. aestuans.Bangladesh J. Bot. 9: 41-45. 

67. Islam A.S., M. Rahman and M. M. Haque (1980) Development and differentiation of rice plants through anther culture. Bangladesh. J. Bot. 9(2): 167-172. 

68. Haque M. M., A.S. Islam and A. Hye (1980) Study of rate of in vitro pollen tube growth of some Corchorus species and the effect of pollen grain density on the pollen tube growth. J. Asiatic Soc., Bangladesh. 15(2): 70-75. 

69. Haque M. M., S.K. Mistry and A.S. Islam (1980)  Study of in vivo pollen tube growth in the cross Corchorus olitorius var. Assam Red xC. aestuans. Bangladesh J. Bot. 9(1):41-45.

70. Ahmad K., Q.A. Ahmed, and A.S. Islam (1981) Inheritance of plant colour, pod shape and seed coat color in jute (Corchorus capsularis L.) Bangladesh J. Bot. 10(2):115-123.

71. Islam A. S. , M. M. Haque, Rifat Jahan and H. Rahman (1981) Attempt to produce polyhaploids from a spontaneous amphidiploid jute hybrid. Corchorus olitorius x C. depressus. Bangladesh J. Bot. 10(1): 63-68. 

72. Ahmad K., Q.A. Ahmed and A.S. Islam (1982) Complementation and linkage study in Corchorus capsularis Jute. Bangladesh J. Bot.11(2):148-153. 

73. Islam A. S., H. A. Begum and M.M. Haque (1982) Studies on regeneration of Saccharum officinarum for disease resistant varieties. Proc. 5th Intl. Cong. Plant Tissue and Cell Culture (IAPTC), held in Japan. pp. 709-710. 

74. Islam A. S., M. H. Rahman, C. Sultana, B. Das and A.B.M.S. Islam (1982) Successful plantlet differentiation from shoot tip derived callus of Corchorus. Bangladesh J. Bot. 11(2): 185-187. 

75. Shah Newaz K. M., Q.A. Ahmed and A.S. Islam (1983) Inheritance study of flood tolerance, indehiscent fruit and seed coat thickness in Corchorus olitorius L. for producing water-logging tolerant strains with indehiscent fruit. Bangladesh J. Bot. 12(1): 197-206. 

76. Banik A.K. and A.S. Islam (1983) Study of correlation between the different agronomic and cytological characters in triticales and in F1 and F2 hybrid populations. Bangladesh J. Bot. 12(1): 81-86. 

77. Banik A.K. and A.S. Islam  (1983a) Effect of hexaploid wheat germplasm in triticale breeding. Bangladesh J. Bot. 12(1): 116-122. 

78. Ahmad K., Q.A. Ahmed and A.S. Islam (1983) Inheritance study of corolla colour, seed coat colour, leaf taste and fibre colour inCorchorus capsularis. Bangladesh J. Bot. 12(2):190-196. 

79. Hoque M. I., M. M. Haque, Asma Begum and A. S. Islam (1984) In vitro regeneration of plantlets from different explants of Vigna mungo (L.) Hopper. Bangladesh. J. Bot. 13(1): 45-51. 

80. Rahman M. H., A.B.M. S. Islam, C.S. Parveen, M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1984) Production of sugarcane plants from some Bangladeshi varieties through tissue culture. Bangladesh J. Bot. 13(1): 79-87. 

81. Zahidur Rahman S. M., S. Hadiuzzaman, M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1985) Shoot formation in Corchorus capsularis var.  D154 from undifferentiated callus. Bangladesh J. Bot. 14(2): 141-146. 

82. Das Bithi, M. I. Hoque, M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1987) Somaclonal variation in Corchorus capsularis jute. Proc. Regional Workshop on Tissue Culture of Tropical Crop Plants. Dhaka. 12-17, Sept., ’87 (Eds. A.S. Islam and M. M. Haque) 

83. Islam A.S. (1988) Perspectives and prospects in jute breeding. Jute breeding, Department of Botany, D.U.

84. Hoque M. I., M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1988) Confirmation of Corchorus olitarius x C. capsularis hybrid through tissue culture and biochemical tests. Bangladesh J. Bot. 17(1): 71-79.

85. Hoque M. I, Shirin Mahbub, R. H. Sarker, M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1990) In vitro plant regeneration from different explants ofArachis hypogaea. Bangladesh J. Sci. Res. 9(1): 30-38. 

86. Hoque M. I., Shirin Mahbub, R. H. Sarker, M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1991) Callus induction and plant regeneration from different ex-plants of Arachis hypogaea L. Plant Tissue Cult. 1(1): 35-41. 

87. Hoque M. I., R. H. Sarker, M. M. Haque and A.S. Islam (1991) In vitro multiple shoot regeneration in Anthocephalus indica L.Bangladesh J. Bot. 20(2): 193-197. 

88. Ahmad S. Islam  and Khalid W. Islam. Nurturing a Culture of Science – paper presented at the Islamic Academy of Sciences’ Conference at Islamabad, 2002

89. Greg Clark and Ahmad S. Islam - Current Genomics Research: The Prospect of Unraveling Gene Function and Its utilization in Crop Improvement. Plant Tissue Cult. 12(1) : 79-91, 2002 (June)

90  Hemayet Ullah, Gregory Clark and A. S. Islam. Internet Resources for Molecular Biology : A Primer for Scientists from Least Developed Countries. Plant Tissue Cult. 11(2): 195-208, 2001 (December)

91 Ahmad S. Islam and Zeba I. Seraj – Use of Biotechnology and Molecular Tools for Crop Improvement and Sustainable Agriculture – paper presented at the Islamic Academy of Sciences’ at Rabat, 2001

92. Ahmad S. Islam - A full length invited article on Corchorus olitorius (jute) published  in Crop Protection compendium, 2001 & 2002 (revised) by CAB International, Oxford.

93. Ahmad S. Islam and Yousuf M. Islam – Information Technology: Aspects related to Internet Use. Proceedings IAS Conference held at Tunis, Tunisia, 2000; pp. 347- 352.

94. Ahmad S. Islam – Dire Necessity to Promote Science and Biotechnology in Islamic Countries – Proceedings IAS Conference held at Tehran, Iran, 1999; pp. 169-183.

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Interspecific hybridization in the genus Corchorus0

While Dr. A. S. Islam served Sindh University as a
Professor of Botany from 1955-1970, he collected a
number of wild species of Corchorus both locally and
all over the globe. These were: C. asplenifolius, C. 

tridens,  C. depressus, C. pseudo-olitorius,C. capsularis, C.elachocarpus, C. walcottii, C. siliquosus. The results of the crossing
relationships of Corchorus species can be divided into 4 categories.
Species which can exchange genes unilaterally belong to the 1st 
category.

The majority of species so far studied belong to this group.

They cross with

difficulty and only in one direction but if ever a
hybrid 

is produced, it is

 reasonably fertile and the fertility increases
in 

subsequent generations. As 

examples of this group may be cited
the 

following crosses. The first species of a 

cross combination is the
seed 

parent. C. olitorius x C. asplenifolius, C. olitorius x 

C. tridens,
C. olitorus 

x capsularis, C. elachocarpus, C. walcottii, C. siliquosus,
C. depressus, C. pseudo-olitorius X C. capsularis, C. trilocularis X
C. capsularis, 

olitorius X C. elachocarpus, C. capsularis X C.
depressus, C. aestuans, 

C. trilocularis 

X C. 

capsularis, C. aestuans X
C. trilocularis. The second category

includes those 

species in which crosses succeed in both directions
without the use of hormone 

but in only one direction the hybrids are
reasonably fertile and in the other they 

are usually sterile.
An example 

of such a cross is: C. olitorius ex-local X C.

pseudo-
olitorius.

  

 

Although the hybrids in this cross were obtained in both the directions but those in which C. pseudo-olitorius was used as female werepartially fertile. The reciprocal hybrids, on the other hand, although
vigorous in their vegetative growth were completely sterile.
All the flowers were shed before their opening.
The pollen mother cells showed highly irregular meiosis.
The third category includes those species in which with the use of

hormone the hybridization was possible in one or  both directions.
Examples are: (i) the use of hormone in one direction: C. olitorius X
C. fascicularis and  (ii) the use of  hormone in both directions
both directions C. olitorius X C. capsularis. In the last category are
thosethat hybridized without using IAA. Examples are: C. olitorius
X  C.
walcotti, C. olitorius X C. aestuans and C. tricularis X C. pseudo-
olitorius. Either no fruit set or abnormal reproduction occurred in
this category. 

 

Some important publications of Professor Ahmad S. Islam

  1. Islam A. S. and A. Rashid (1960) First successful hybridization between the two jute yielding species. Nature 185 : 258-259.
  2. Islam A. S. (1960) Unproductivity in the Colchicine-induced Tetraploids of Annona squamosa L. Nature 187: 343-344.
  3. Islam A. S. (1964) A rare hybrid combination through application of hormone and embryo culture. Nature 201 : 320.
  4. Islam A. S. and R. Mughal (1969) Corchorus pascorum : Transmission of chemically induced fruit formation with environmental change. Science 164: 315-316.
  5. Islam A. S., M.M. Haque, M.I. Hoque, and Z.I. Seraj (1992) Tissue Culture and micropropagation of jute (Corchorus species), In: Biotechnology in Agriculture and Forestry, Vol 19, High Tech and Micropropagation III. Bajaj YPS (Ed.), Springer Verlag, Berlin. pp. 505-526.
  6. Corchorus pseudo-olitorius Islam & Zaid: Wrong interpretation of the original paper and misquotation of the authors CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 89, NO. 12, 25 DECEMBER 2005.
  7.  . Islam, A. S. and Zaid, B. A. K. Application of cytogenetical methods in determining a new species of Corchorus., Biologia. (Lahore), 1960, 6, 168–177Islam,
  8. Seraj Z1, Sarker AF3 and Islam AS (1992) Plant regeneration in jute species (C. capsularis)and its possible relationship with glyoxalase-l Plant Cell Rep. 12:29-33.
  9. Hoque Ml, Haque MM and Islam AS (1988) Confirmation of Corchorus olitorius X’ C. capsularis hybrids through  tissue culture and biochemical tests. Bangladesh J. Hot. 17:71-79.
  10. Islam AS, Shah Newaz and M Hauqe (1973) Origin of spontaneous amphidiploid in the F3 progeny of the cross, Corchorus olitorius X C. depressus. Bangladesh J. Bot. 2(1)41-50.
  11. Islam AS and M. Haque (1972) A natural species hybrid of jute and its possible use in the evolution of the desired plant  types. SABRAO Newsletter 4(1):7-16.
  12. Afsari Sharif and A. S. Islam (1970) Some promising breeding material in the second backcross progeny of Gossypium hirsutum x G. anomalum. Canadian J.  Genetics and Cytology* 12(3): 454-460,  The Journal  is now published under a different name, “Genome”.
  13. Islam AS, Njoroge K, Irudayanathan A (1978) Random chromosome breakage by colchicines  in Viscum fischeri. Experientia (Basel) 34, 328-329.
  14. Islam AS, Ngaii M (1978) Reexamination of meiosis of some East African Viscum species. Bangladesh Journal of Botany 7, 65-76.
  15. Samad M, Kabir G and Islam A(1992) Interphase nuclear structure and heterochromatin in two species of Corchorus and their F1 hybrid. Cytologia 57(1): 21-25.
  16.  Islam AS,Imdadul Hoque M, Haque MM (1987) Prospects of utilizing interspecific hybrids in jute for commer-cial purpose. Phytobreedon 3(I)- 26-38.
  17.  Rahman ZSM, Hadiuzzaman S, Haque MM & Islam AS (1985) Shoot formation in Corchorus capsularis var. D-154 from unororganized cells. Bangladesh. J.Bot. 14:141-145 .  
  18. Islam AS, Abbasi Z (1966) A tetraploid jute hybrid c-4x jute. C. olitorius X new world wild jute species. C.siliquosus. Sind Univ Res J [Sci Ser] 2, 21-8.

 

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Some interesting anecdotes from Dr. Ahmad S. Islam’s life0

It was in the 1960’s. Next to Sind University Campus was situated Liaquat Medical College. There were a number of small grocery shops where I used to go to buy sundry. One day I went there to buy small bottle of Nescafe. The shopkeeper by mistake quoted the old price that was substantially lower than the current value. When I counted the change, I found it higher than what I expected. I returned to him the excess money the vendor had paid me. He refused to take back the money saying, “Sir, I am a Pathan. Even it is a slip of tongue I mean every word I say. I must honor what I quoted. But if ask for a second tin of coffee, you will have to pay at the present enhanced rate.” The integrity of that small vendor filled my heart with respect for him. Compared to this petty tradesman, the big businessmen do not have any moral scruple who does not hesitate to manipulate the market to earn a few more bucks through unfair means. In this connection, I vividly remember a cycle rickshaw driver with a big heart. His magnanimity overwhelmed me shattering my self-pride. It was 1990. I was passing bySalimullah Muslim Hall in a cycle rickshaw suddenly I found the rickshaw driver unmindful. I got scared lest he causes an accident by falling on a big drain running by the side of the road. Suddenly I found him stop the rickshaw and jump to save an old beggar in rags from slipping into the ditch. Probably the beggar was suffering from epilepsy and just at that moment he had seizure which meant sure death if he fell into the big drain. Not only that, whatever amount of money he earned on that day, he gave it all to the destitute and said, “Go and get some food to be alive.” I had some air of pride. I used to think I was kind and helpful to the poor and destitute. My pride was shattered to pieces by seeing the bigheartedness of that poor man who could barely meet two ends meet.

It was August 1945. My mother along with my brothers and sisters moved to Calcutta from Rajshahi town. I was already in Calcutta studying in Presidency College. I stayed in Carmichael Hostel, not far from my College. We were looking for a rented flat so that the whole family could move there. After a long search whole day long we found a suitable 3-roomed apartment in the Park Circus area- 3 miles from the city centre. The 3-storeyed building containing about 9 flats was owned by an illiterate mason – BaratiMistri. Probably he used all his life’s savings to build that house. When I asked him about the rent of the flat, he said Rs. 50/-. Both accommodation and the amount of rent suited us fine. I immediately agreed and paid him Rs. 10/- as an advance money. Just at that time, a gentleman appeared on the scene. The gentleman didn’t give up hope when he learned that the flat had just been rented out. He offered Rs 10 more to rent the same flat. Look at the honesty of that uneducated Mistri! He immediately rejected the offer saying, “I have already given my words to this young man. I cannot break my promise just for Rs 10.” Compare the model behavior of this illiterate person with that of a veteran DU Professor who later became a Pro-VC. The latter wanted to rent his recently built house and requested me whether I could help him to find a suitable tenant. I knew the joint secretary, Ministry of S&T. They were looking for a house where the office of the Ministry could be relocated. I approached my friend to consider renting that house to the Ministry. He sounded his senior staff members whether the new location would create any transport problem for them. They all opposed it. In spite of the objections by some of his senior staff members, the Joint Secretary obliged me. The contract was to be signed the next day at the latter’s office. All were waiting anxiously for the Pro-VC but he neither showed up the whole morning nor did he send any message that he got stuck in some other urgent piece of work. Later the Joint Secretary learned that said house had already been rented to some other tenant without his knowledge. I felt very embarrassed because I mediated in the negotiation for the rental of the house. Again and again the same question kept on bothering my mind as to who  a better person was – the illiterate mason who did not rent the flat on a better term in order to honor his commitment or the Pro-VC who did not even show up to sign the contract although the deal was verbally completed between the two parties! That day I realized in my heart of hearts that moral values and acquisition of higher education are not interrelated. Many well-educated scholars do not have integrity of character in spite of their impressive degrees.

In my school days, our Geography teacher taught us about many famous historical places. I listened to these graphic accounts with a good deal of interest. At the same time, I developed a strong desire to visit these places. The lifelike pictures of these places given in the books further intensified my desire and I imagined how nice it would have been if had in my possession Aladdin’s flying carpet. That magic carpet would have transported me right away to those fantastic places realizing my cherished dreams. I did not envision that my dream would be realized at all. My appointment as a visiting professor to Dar-ès-Salaam University offered a unique opportunity to me to visit those famous places. Being a university botany teacher, I frequently got a chance to delve into nature and derive intense pleasure from the study of natural objects. East Africa: Tanzania, where I went on a visiting Professorship, is composed of three sovereign states, Tanganyika and the other two adjoining states – Kenya and Uganda. The three countries are together called East Africa. According to geologists, East Africa was one million years ago an integral part of Asia. Gradually East Africa drifted away from Asia. This deluge is termed continental Rift. A clear piece of evidence of this phenomenon is seen in the East African territory where Asia and Africa were split from one land mass in prehistoric times. Riding by jeep down the road passing through this valley reveals that at one time the land mass was joined at this terrain. The fissure at this place is assumed to have created the vast expanse of plain with thick vegetation below. Tanzania – the Federation of two states: The former name of Tanzania was Tanganyika. Later the two states, namely, Tanganyika and a small adjoining island called Zanzibar were politically united to constitute what is now known as Tanzania. The name Tanzania derives from the names of the two states ‘Tan’ from Tanganyika and ‘Zan’ from Zanzibar. It may be mentioned that Zanzibar supplies cloves to the world more than half of its requirement. The clove industry developed under the patronage of the Sultan of the country. A visit to Serengeti – the world renowned game park in Tanzania: The famed game park of Tanzania is situated in Serengeti. The game park is like an ‘eco-park’ as has been established in Bangladesh and many other places in the globe. Most of the tourists come to Serengeti National Park to witness the wild animals such as wildebeest (see below), zebra, leopard, elephant and giraffe in their wild state. Wildebeest, which looks like a bison from a distance, graze in millions and migrate from one territory to the other when the food is in short supply. Visitors to Serengeti not permitted to get down from their jeep: Tourists re prohibited to get down from their vehicles as a precautionary measure against that attack of the wild animals. We were watching all kinds of animals, right from the jeep. Interestingly, the wild animals did neither run away at the sight of vehicles and the passengers sitting inside the vehicle. However, it was a different kind of excitement to walk through the wilderness. On one such occasion, while negotiating through an undergrowth, it seemed to me that I had been bitten by some objects. I got frightened thinking that it could be a snake bite. Thank God, later to my great relief I found that it was a scratch by a sharp prickly object. It was a full moon night. We wanted to enjoy the night life in the Safari Park. So we had a jeep ride through the woods. Suddenly our eyes fell on a pair of leopards sitting on a twig of a sparsely branched tree. It was a spectacular sight. Probably it was a mating couple. They did not feel disturbed at our sight. On the following day we spotted a number of rhinoceroses, some with one horn and others with two. Black rhinoceros, which we did not see is on the verge of extinction. Suddenly we saw at a distance thousands of animals moving Readers will have a better idea of the park and the animals that live there, if they surf the websites. URL: http://www.serengeti.org/ An excursion to the Game Park in Serengeti: An excursion of the undergraduate students to the Game Park in Serengeti was arranged. In their syllabus was included an exploratory excursion to this game park where the students were required to count the number of different kinds of animals by eye estimation from an airplane. They surveyed the territory in several sectors from a small hired airplane with the help of a binocular. By the side of the cockpit in the airplane, there was a sitting accommodation of two students besides the pilot and the instructor. Using a binocular the students counted the number of a particular kind of animal in a sector and recorded it group-wise. Using a specific formula they would estimate the number of animals in each category in the entire game park. The sight of wild animals from the airplane  and the panoramic beauty of the landscape gave us a  divine feeling as if we were flying over the vast tract of land in the Alauddin’s flying carpet. Flying over Ngorongoro crater, Serengat: While flying over Serengeti, suddenly our plane plummeted several hundred feet down in a few seconds. Since there was no runway below, we were all frightened thinking that the plane was about to crash killing all of us. Thank God, the next second saw the plane soaring high. We thanked God for sparing our lives. Later we learned that this was quite usual when a plane flies over the dead Ngorongoro crater. Due to sudden low air pressure created over the volcano, a plane loses its control diving several feet below its course. After disembarking from the plane, we decided to explore the bottom of the dead crater. Serengeti, the National Park. Note the rim on the edge and a lake in the center As we were heading towards the bottom of the crater, we were wondering how the active volcano throwing molten lava and its ashes became silent and were replaced by a vast expanse of green vegetation supporting thousands of animals of different kinds such as wildebeest, rhinoceros, buffaloes, and hippopotamus. When we were at the bottom of the crater, it seemed to us as if a part of the volcano caved in creating at its bottom a large expanse of land and a lake supporting a large population of both carnivores and herbivores. The equator over Tanzania: The equator has passed over Tanzania. That’s why it is excessively hot there except in the mountainous regions. In the cool hilly regions such as Arusha, coffee grows which is used for both local consumption and export purposes. As in many African States, in Tanzania also there are a number of tribes. The prominent tribe is called Maasai who live in the semi-arid Rift Valley region of Kenya and Tanzania. Apart from hunting, the majority of the Maasai tribe depends on agriculture for their livelihood. They own large herds of cattle, sheep and goats. Cattle play a central role in the life and culture of the Maasai. China and Tanzania are good friends: Tanzania and China have been good friends in the recent past. China has helped the republic of Tanzania in the construction of bridges, roads and thoroughfares without which the progress of the country would have halted. Tanzania imports a lot of canned fruits such as canned peaches, canned lichi and canned mango slices etc. People of different religions live in harmony: Although divided into many tribes the characteristics of Tanzanians are that they live in peace and harmony unlike this part of the world where there are often clashes between people of different religions. In some African families, members profess different religions: some are Christians, some are Muslims and some do not follow any religion. But they all live in harmony without interfering into each other’s personal freedom. In other words, there are no frictions among members of the family on account of religion. For instance, the Muslims fast during the month of Ramadan, the Christians living in the same house celebrate their festivals such as Christmas and Ester without any interference from other family members who may follow a different religion. Domestic help in the house of an expatriate: Unlike our country, it was difficult to find a domestic servant in that region. With difficulty, we got one part time. He was a teenager. Unlike our country, servants enjoy more freedom such as sitting at the dining table to eat their dinner. In fact an Indian colleague who brought the servant warned us saying that servants here were treated more humanely than in the Indian subcontinent. In the case of a dispute between the servant and his employer, the court decides almost always in favor of the servant. As Muslims we are supposed to treat our servants as members of the family giving them similar food and shelter but we found Tanzanian Christians more particular to follow that code of life than the Muslims from our part of the world. Loose Morals in an African Society: What struck me to be a trait repugnant to our culture is their loose moral character. There is a lack of faithfulness between the husband and wife. My immediate neighbor, a black African, was a professor of Economics. He married in an aristocrat noble family. My wife and I could hardly believe our eyes when we saw a woman spending the night with him on the same day that his wife had left for her parents’ house. To have a baby out of wedlock is not unusual: Students are employed part time to do research during the summer vacation. I employed a female student. One day from her I got an application in which she applied for a few days’ maternity leave. Since she was not married, it was a big surprise. I was also upset. My Indian colleague in the department advised me not to be disturbed on this issue because this was quite common in an African Society. East Africans seem to be more disciplined than we are: I had some job in the Registrar’s office of the University of Dar-ès-Salaam. On my arrival there, I found several big queues and I stood in one without disturbing the line. In the meantime, a white expatriate came and ignoring the queues, he went near the counter and tried to talk to the person at the counter. Immediately there were bitter protests from the people standing in the queues. The foreigner immediately understood that he broke the rule. Realizing his fault, at last he stood in the queue. Another time we went to a restaurant to have dinner. Finding no parking place, I stopped my car in the driveway keeping my eyes constantly on my car so that I could move it as soon as some other vehicle came. As ill luck would have it, soon I saw a car approaching the gate. I immediately rushed to the spot where my car was parked. But that did not prevent the car owner who was a local African abusing me right and left saying, “Who do you think you are? This is not India that you can park your car wherever you like.” I apologized to him but that didn’t pacify him. He went on and on. As I was guilty, I kept quiet. The Departmental jeep available to all staff members on first come first serve basis without prior permission from the Chairman: Any staff member could requisition the departmental vehicle on an official purpose merely on filling a requisition slip. It was available on the principle, “First come First serve basis.” There was no driver to drive the jeep. The staff member requisitioning the vehicle was required to drive. When we went to Serengeti National Park, we drove the jeep by turn on 8-hour shifts round the clock without stopping for rest. My turn fell from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. I had never been a night bird. I could not say, ‘No’ when my turn came to drive. First four hours I drove keeping wide awake but during the next 4 hours I felt sleepy. Since I was new to the route on a rocky terrain, all the time I kept on reciting Qur’anic verses for a safe journey. Since the terrain was rocky with steep inclines and sharp slopes, any mistake would have meant crash resulting either in the loss of lives or severe body injuries incapacitating one or more of us for good. I was afraid lest I fell asleep on the steering and crash the jeep with all the passengers. Thank God, we reached the Serengeti National Park safe and sound. Our return journey was without any problems. Copying in examinations is unknown: I set a date for final examination in my subject, genetics. The Head of the Department informed me that once I gave them the question paper, the whole examination would be managed by the administrative staff and there was no need for me to be present there for invigilation. After handing over the question paper to the Office Assistant, I went back to my room. However, I felt uneasy thinking that in my absence the students would copy the answers or adopt some other unfair means to pass the examination creditably. I therefore went near to the examination Hall and peeped through the half closed doors. I was amazed to see that they were all good boys and girls not taking recourse to any unfair means. They were not communicating with one another. On the other hand, I found some students of Indian origin whispering to each other. The Hindus or the Muslims in the Indian subcontinent, probably dishonesty is in their blood and at the first available opportunity, they adopt unfair means such as copying from notes they carry sneakily in their pockets. A large Indian Community in East Africa: Almost all the big business and trade centers were at one time owned by the expatriate Indians who originally came from Gujrat, India. Indian Culture and customs are so different from those characterizing Africans, that there was little mingling between the two communities. Soon a situation developed the African community could no longer tolerate the domination of Indians in business and trade sectors. Things have settled down now. One thing in Gujrati cuisine is that there is a touch of sugar even in salty dishes. So when I was invited for a farewell dinner by our best Gujrati friend, Mr. and Mrs. Hirji, I accepted it on one condition that no sugar would be added except in sweet dishes. They kept their words and I enjoyed each and every dish. They were simply delicious. Dishonesty is perhaps ingrained in our character. I still remember that the first boy in our class (class VIII) was copying from a small piece of paper in which a poem was written on it with punctuations given at the end of each line. After the examination was over, I asked him what he was copying from the paper when he knew the poem very well by heart. He promptly replied saying what he was copying were not the wordings of the poem but the correct punctuations in order to obtain full marks. I spent four years in East Africa enjoying my stay with my family members. It was a unique experience that I would never forget. Indeed, it was worthwhile to know the region, which was culturally so different from ours.

President Julius Nyerere’s integrity of character

In 1973 when I went to Tanzania, President Julius Nyerere was the President of the country – one of three sovereign States of East Africa. In one of the civic gatherings, I met one of the admirers of the President of the country. He was complimenting the President of the country because of his integrity of character, honesty and extraordinary stamina to build the country where everyone would have two square meals, basic education and medical treatment. The President’s admirer said to me that that President Julius Nyerere’s son was a school student who commuted to the school by bicycle. In wonderment, one of his supporters queried as to why the President’s son would not use the Government transport. The President retorted the questioner saying that “Why should my son enjoy that privilege; my son is not the President of the Country. It is the privilege of the country’s president.” This was the integrity of President Nyerere. I was awe-struck. A president could be so humble. It reminded me of our Caliphate days when no distinction was made between the caliph and the ordinary civilians of the state. Once, a caliph was distributing clothes among the community members. One of the recipients noticed that while every member of the public received one piece, the caliph kept two pieces for him. The recipient who noticed it protested against this discrimination. Instead of being annoyed, the caliph satisfied the curiosity of the questioner. The caliph said that the questioner had every right of knowing   about the favoritism but the fact of the matter was that the second piece was his son’s, who gave it to his father as a gift. Here in Bangladesh we cannot think of the Head of the State or the cabinet ministers or high officials of the ministries using their private cars for their dependents. It’s taken for granted that their dependents and near relatives would enjoy all Government facilities including accompanying the Head of the State to travel to foreign countries. Corruption would have been eradicated from the society if high officials did not enjoy the privileges exclusively meant for the Head of the estate.

Witnessing swarms of Locusts destroying extensive crop fields

Many of us do not know about the colossal damage wrought by locusts. This scourge moves in millions and wherever they see a crop field ready for harvest, they perch on them and eat them in no time. When they leave the field, all grains are eaten away by them. It was 1974. I was then in Dar-ès-Salaam University living in one of the University houses. Suddenly I heard from the neighbor that there would be a wide scale attack of locusts in a short while and that all the crop fields in and around our area would be devastated. The neighbor told me that the whole sky would be overcast with dark cloud at the approach of the locust. Finally, the dark hour arrived. I was at home at that time. We came out of our house to watch the flight of locusts. In an instant, the little monoester stopped flying as if by a unique command and invaded the crop down below all at once. In no time, the eating by the devil was over. When they had left, we were amazed to see the crop plants in the neighborhood all bare stripped of all grains. Locusts look almost like a grasshopper but slightly bigger in size. They are tasty. Local people catch them by means of a special kind of trap and eat them as one of their favorite foods. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) did a great job by eradicating locust. Locusts breed in specific places in the desert regions. The eggs laid down in millions are destroyed completely by aerial spray of insecticides. There are FAO-employed watchdogs who visit the breeding grounds on the desert location periodically to ensure that no eggs are left on the ground.

It was 1969. I was working in Sindh University, Hyderabad as Professor of Botany. Late Professor Nurul Alam at BUET from the then East Pakistan and I from West Pakistan were selected by the then Pakistan Government to visit USSR at the invitation of the Soviet Government. We arrived at the Moscow airport. At the airport were present two Government officials to receive us – one of them was the protocol officer of the Soviet Government and the other was a lower grade official from the Pakistan Embassy. After pleasantries, the Pakistani clerical staff handed over to us a list of members of the Pakistan Embassy with their phone numbers with the remark that in case there was any problem we could contact any one given in that list. Since I had a lot of time at my disposal, I requested the protocol officer to drop me at the Embassy office. I wanted to call on the ambassador or alternatively any other high official. Only the third Secretary was available. I was told that the third Secretary was from the then East Pakistan and that it would be to my advantage if I met him. I located his room and finding the door ajar, knocked at the door and entered the room. Far from welcoming me, he was annoyed although I introduced myself as a Professor of Sindh University and I informed him that I had arrived at Moscow the same morning as a member of two-delegate team representing Pakistan. He was annoyed because I entered his room without prior permission. He was not prepared to listen to my explanation that I didn’t find any peon in front of his door to send message to him and that the door was partly open. I offended him very much; he said that his contemporary CSP officers were Chairmen of private colleges and the principals could not see them forthwith. They were to wait outside their offices for hours before they were given permission to see them. I apologized to him because I didn’t want to create any scene in his office. It pacified him. At one stage of the conversation, he invited me to have luncheon with him at his house. I accepted his invitation and said that I would return to his office after I paid a courtesy call to the ambassador. Soon it was time for luncheon. After I bade goodbye to the ambassador I went straight to the Third Secretary’s room. He was waiting for me. He stepped into his spacious luxury car and opened the door for me. I boarded the car and closed the door with a slight bang. My host immediately reacted to it and said that I should have closed the door more gently. The gentleman didn’t realize that I had been using my car for over 10 years and I knew how to close the door properly. For the sake of my mental piece I kept quiet. We reached our destination safely. Read more…

In nineteen thirty’s the proportion of Muslim students in an educational institutions was low. In a class of thirty students, we were only six. In order to give a respectable place, instruction was issued from the Government that of the two positions: captain and vice-captain in a class one must be a Muslim student. Since Hindu students were the majority, the captain was invariably a Hindu and the post of the vice-captaincy went to a Muslim student. The selection of the two positions was mostly dependent on good results. I was the best among Muslim students; so naturally I was nominated vice-captain. Apart from assisting the captain in the maintenance of discipline in the class, one other job of the vice-captain was to distribute snacks among the students during the recess break only when the captain was absent from the class. Incidentally, we were only charged half a rupee (Taka) per student per month for snack. The snack either consisted of fruits such as a finger banana or an orange depending upon the season, a cookie, or soaked gram and a special kind of sweet. There used to be a supplier who was given contract on yearly basis. Anyway, the responsibility of distributing snacks was of the captain and in the absence of the captain, it was the duty of the vice-captain to do the job. One day it was my turn when the captain was absent. Who knew then that some of my Hindu friends would not eat a food stuff touched by a Muslim? I learned my lesson. I decided that next time on such occasions I would let my classmates to pick up the snack so that none is deprived of the snack because of a different faith. Time has changed and nowadays one cannot imagine such a situation that food is desecrated by the touch of a human. This incident might appear to some readers to be a made up story but it’s true that such was the social justice prevalent during the yester years, say 60 years ago. The question started coming to me again and again, “Were we then untouchables? Then why such treatment was meted out to a human being!” Human misery at the old age; my respectable teacher was a victim of paralysis Human beings have both shortfalls and virtues. Teachers are no exception. But on the whole they are better persons. Compared to others, they are more conscientious, imbued with human qualities such as more devotion to their duties, honest. In spite of their virtues, they were financially not well-off and many of them suffered from grave illnesses at their old age not being able to undergo proper medical treatment. My respected teacher Abdul Bari was one such instructor. He was not even a graduate and yet he was a remarkable teacher and the students liked his method of teaching. He taught us English Grammar and ‘the human brain’ in hygiene. I still remember vividly how he taught us a difficult chapter like, ‘pronoun.’ He said there was an easy way to learn eight kinds of pronoun by remembering the first letter of each. For instance, Mr. Bari said, “the first letter of the eight pronouns is: pp dd ii rr. So if you memorize these eight letters and also the word each stands for, then you will remember them after some practice all your life. For instance, if you memorize that pp stand for personal and possessive, dd for demonstrative and distributive, ii for infinitive and interrogative and finally, rr for relative and reflexive, then it will be indelibly engraved in your mind.” So we listened to his advice and still we remember them well although 77 years have elapsed since we were students of class IV. In hygiene, he taught us how the brain functions. For instance, when any part of our body is hurt, the brain receives the message first through our nerves and relays it to the place of injury. Instantaneously, the message is interpreted and we withdraw our part of the body where the injury has occurred. I went to Rajshahi University as an external examiner 30 years later and decided to call on our venerable teacher, Bari Sir. At that time he was bed-ridden with paralysis. I went to his house and saw some boys busy in playing. They had no time to listen to an unfamiliar person. With great difficulty, I retrieved the information that Bari Sir was lying on the floor downstairs in a room. I went there and saw that dynamic teacher lying listless on a mat with none to attend him. It was pathetic to see our beloved Sir lying there being unable to move and talk. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. I could hardly control myself. I went near to him and introduced myself as his favorite student saying that now I was a staff member of the Department of Botany, Dhaka University. He nodded his head indicating that he recognized me. When I narrated him how he taught us grammar particularly the pronoun chapter, he could not control himself. I could see a few drops of tears rolling down his cheeks. It was too much for me to bear that pathetic scene. I made a quick exit. Although I followed his footstep by teaching in a number of universities in and outside the country, I dare not compare my efficiency with his. He was far superior to me in his unique method of teaching. Wits win the race! It was 1940. I was a student of class X. We got the news there would be a debating competition organized by Rajshahi High Madrasa. The topic was: “Is High Madrasa education better than High School Education?” We all expected that the competition would be very tough and we were waiting for the outcome of the debate on such a controversial subject. My close friend and I went there much ahead of the start of the competition. The debating started. Each side was bitterly attacking the other, advocating that theirs is better than their opponent’s. Since the competition was held within the Madrasa premises, the Madrasa students naturally cheered their friends at every available opportunity with thunderous applause and frequent clapping. Because the environment was in favor of the Madrasa students, the general impression was that they would win the debate. The Principal of the Madrasa was presiding over the function. Since the majority of audience was from his institution and there were frequent applauses supporting the resolution, he took it for granted that the motion would be carried out overwhelmingly in favor of the motion. But then something happened beyond anybody’s expectation. Some student against the motion stood up and pleaded with the president to allow him to speak just for a minute. Suspecting no foul play in such an innocent request, he nodded his head. Standing on the dais, the student said, “Sir, I want to ask you just one question. Where does your son study – in a high school or Madrasa?” The majority of the listeners knew that the Principal’s son was a student of Rajshahi Collegiate School. This question created a deafening laughter and the motion was defeated. In other words, the panel of judges unanimously declared the opposition group to be the winner. Sometimes application of a little brainpower brings a group to victory. This way just one carefully worded question proves mightier than a hundred words.

In the middle of 1970’s, East Pakistanis living in the West were harassed primarily because of the popularity of Shaikh Mujib, who won the election by majority of votes. West Pakistanis did not want Shaikh Mujib to lead the country as P.M. Any way we felt insecure in Sindh because behind our back some of our colleagues were continuously pouring venom against Bengalees. One day, my son and daughter then aged 12 and 10 years returned home crying. On their return home, they were insulted in the University bus by their classmates in the following words, “Bangalee Babu ayah, murgi chorakè laya; Murgi ne mara panja, Bangalee Babu Ganja.” When translated, they more or less mean, “The Bengalee gentleman has come, stealing a hen. The hen slapped the Babu on his head, and the Bengalee Babu became bald.” We tried our best to pacify our children but to no purpose. We realized that time has come now for us to leave for Dhaka. Academically speaking I was very happy in Sindh University with a number of Ph.D. students working under my guidance and we were publishing a number of papers each year in local and foreign journals such as Natureand Science. Fortunately for me a professor’s post fell vacant in DU. I applied for it and was offered the post but not without any hassle. In fact, the professor’s post was created by Late Professor Osman Ghani during his tenure of office at Dhaka University. Dr Ghano visited Sindh University located nearly 10 miles away from Hyderabad some time in 1970. He spent quite some time with me at the Botany Department. He was quite impressed to see the progress and development of the department, particularly its Ph.D. research program. By then four students completed their Ph.D. and they published the results of their findings in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science, SABRAO Journal and Canadian Journal of Genetics and Cytology. When Dr. Ghani asked me to join Dhaka University, I replied, “I would love to.” He assured me that he would create a post of professorship in Botany and that I should apply for it. He would see to it that I get the appointment because he wanted the Ph.D. program in Botany to start in DU. The story behind my obtaining the Professorship needs to be told because it’s an interesting episode and adds one more historical event in which conspiracy was hatched against me to deny me the post. On my way to Japan to avail of a fellowship offered by Japanese Society for Promotion of Science (JSPS), I broke my journey in Dhaka. During my stay there, my father-in-law took me to see his lawyer friend, the Treasurer of the University. As a Treasurer, he was an ex-officio member in the appointment Committee for professors. After introducing me to his lawyer friend, my father-in-law casually mentioned that I had applied for the post of Professor of Botany. Immediately, his friend said that applications for the vacant post of all professors were lying at his residence. He asked my f-in-l to wait in the drawing room to enable him to find out the latest position about the filling up of the post of Professor of Botany in the relevant file. He came back after a while and said, “Your son-in-law has no chance of being selected to the post. He does not have one single publication in support of his candidature.” He showed us the statement made by the Registrar’s office regarding the qualifications of candidates under different heads. In the ‘publication column’, it was marked ‘nil’ against my name, whereas the remaining candidates were credited with a list of their publications. The sky fell over my head. We sought the advice of the Treasurer. The latter suggested that I should make an appointment with the regular VC, Justice Abu Sayeed Chowdhury when he returned home from abroad. That’s what I did. In time Justice Sayeed returned from his trip abroad. He got infuriated when I told him the whole story. He said to me in a loud voice that to him the only yardstick for a teaching position is qualifications and experience and no other criterion. In an emotion-chocked voice he said, “It does not matter to me whether the candidate is a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or a Christian. The only criterion open to me to select a candidate is his/her qualifications and experience.” While I was there with him in his chamber, he talked to the Registrar over telephone in an angry tone inquiring whether the Registrar himself scrutinized the statements in which the qualifications of professorial candidates were summarized. He was unhappy with the Registrar’s reply and asked him to prepare the comparative statements under his direct supervision. Although Justice Sayeed didn’t say anything, it was clear to me that the post was mine. Naturally, I was not welcome at the department particularly by those who failed to compete with me. I didn’t have even a separate room for me at the department although I was appointed a full professor. I shared a small room in the top floor with a junior colleague. However, the scenario changed very fast as the liberation war came to a close. Most of the Non-Bengalee staff members left the country at the first available opportunity for fear of being maltreated by ‘Muktisena and their henchmen’. I replaced Dr. Majeed Ahmed as the Head of the Department. As a result the problem of my sitting accommodation was solved. Three students, namely, Kayesuddin Ahmed, Shah Newaz and Shamsuddin Ahmed got themselves enrolled as Ph.D. students under the joint supervision of Dr. Qazi Akhter Ahmed, one of the past Directors of Bangladesh Jute Research Institute and myself. Thus the Ph.D. program started soon after my joining the Department thus fulfilling the wish of Professor M. O. Ghani. The Tissue Culture Laboratory was established with difficulty. The British Council helped us by donating two of their used AC’s. We procured a laminar flow with a UNESCO grant given to me under staff development program, which included my visit to Nottingham University where I worked for three months under the guidance of Professor E. C. Cocking, the world renowned plant tissue culture expert. I approached the Dhaka Branch of the British Council whether they could finance the staff exchange program between the Botany Department DU and that of Nottingham University. To our great joy, our request was acceded to. The exchange program enabled me and Dr. Mozammel Haque to visit the tissue culture laboratory at Nottingham University. The Chief Technician of the TC Lab at Nottingham University worked for six weeks in the TC Lab at Dhaka University and improved our lab facilities. I became quite popular as a Ph.D. guide. In Dhaka University, 16 students did their Ph.D. under my solo or joint guidance. Unlike many universities outside the country, a rider was placed on the teachers restricting the maximum number of Ph.D. students that a teacher could guide. Since I was about to retire, I decided not to take any more student. The last Ph.D. student under my guidance was Shamsad Begum, the Chief Scientific Officer, Bangladesh Nuclear Agriculture Institute (BINA). My account about the Department would remain incomplete if I do not mention what hurdles I had to go through as Chairman of the Department. Regarding allocation of funds for the study tour of different research groups, a meeting of the academic committee was convened to decide the amount of money to be apportioned to each group. Based on the individual requirement i.e., number of students in the group and the place of their visit, every section requested for funds. Our group wanted to visit an international research organization called ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for Semi-Arid Tropics). As the Head of the Group, I requested for the maximum amount of grant that was given to an individual groups without asking for any extra grant for the Indian portion of our trip. We mentioned in our application that the expenditure in excess of the individual grants for the extended tour would be shared equally by the participants and the accompanying teachers. In spite of this assurance, our request was turned down by the Academic Committee. This decision literally distressed me. I asked my colleagues what wrong was there in visiting an International research center particularly when we were bearing the extra expenses entirely on our shoulders. The reply from a particular Professor was that since the proposal was made by me, he would oppose it anyway without considering its merit. I took advantage of the negative attitude of my colleague and explained the purpose of our choosing that organization for the study tour. Although my colleagues generally gave their blind support to any proposal tabled by this gentleman, this time they voted in favor of mine. It was a great relief. Sincerity and hard work are a key to success: an opportunity to visit the USA It was 1961. I was then a Professor at Sindh University. One day the VC of the University, Dr. Raziuddin Siddiqui called me and inquired whether I would be interested to do research work in an American University of my choice. He said that in order to encourage promotion of science in the developing countries, the USA Academy of Sciences offer fellowships to university teachers. In case I was interested, he would recommend my name. He continued that the tenure of this fellowship is for two years and has an additional advantage in that the wife and the children of the awardees obtain full travel grants together with subsistence allowance. The fellowship is awarded on condition that the nominee would find a place of research on his own initiative. Probably my research experience and the fact that I had already published the results of my research work in a prestigious weekly science magazine Nature helped me secure nomination of the VC. Although, I had no idea about the basis for such a nomination, I had a hunch that the VC’s nomination was as good as obtaining it. Fortunately, for me I met an American Professor, Professor L.F. Randolph a few months earlier in Karachi. He came to the Pakistan Science Conference being invited as a guest speaker of Pakistan Association for Advancement of Science. I was very impressed to listen to his illuminating talk on the rescue of embryos resulting from difficult interspecific crosses such as Iris. He found that he could successfully cross two Iris species but hybrid seeds do not germinate unless incubated in cold. He also discovered that excised hybrid embryos, if rescued and grown in a suitable nutrient medium, grow and develop into normal hybrid plants. I told the professor that my problem in obtaining interspecific hybrid in the genus Corchorus is similar and probably embryo rescue in this genus may bring about the same results. He assured me that he could provide me all facilities in his lab at Cornell University but was unable to offer me any fellowship. However, he said that I would be most welcome in his lab if I could come on some foreign scholarship or on my own. After I left VC’s room I immediately remembered of what professor Randolph told me in Karachi Science Conference. I wrote to him that there was a possibility for me to visit the USA and work in his Lab. to learn embryo rescue work. The Professor immediately replied reiterating his offer but he said that he was retiring the following year and if I could arrange an alternate laboratory for my work in the second year, then he would gladly accept me. We soon got ready to fly over to New York en route to Washington DC for our orientation course. Our eldest son Yousuf was then only 5 years old and our daughter Zeba was little over 4. We decided to stay overnight with our American friend, Professor C.L. Withner who had earlier visited Dhaka as an instructor for a refresher’s’ course meant for college teachers to update their knowledge. As a local instructor, I worked with him at the Botany Department, Dhaka University. Within a month or so we became good friends. I accompanied him to various forest areas in the Sylhet district from where he collected a lot of orchid material. He was very pleased with his collection because he came across a few with which he was not familiar. Prof. Withner insisted on our visiting his home in Brooklyn in case we got a chance to go to the USA. I informed him about the date and time of our arrival at the Kennedy airport. He himself was surprised at this news because he didn’t expect to see me there so soon after he had left Dhaka. We were excited to see him at the airport bay waving his hands. He drove us in his big car to his home. The warm hospitality extended by him, his wife and family members touched our heart.hearts. Some of Withner’s family members slept on the floor while leaving the regular bed for four of us. Next morning Dr. Withner took us to the Greyhound Bus Stop (Town terminal) from where we boarded the bus for Washington DC. At the Washington DC Bus stop the representative of the US Academy of Sciences was present to receive us. We were taken to a big hotel where a suite of two rooms with attached baths together and a lounge were booked for us. Inside the room, we felt so hot that we requested the attendant to keep the window slightly open to let the fresh air into the room to reduce the temperature to a comfortable level. We went there for an orientation course. This course was compulsory for foreigners to give them an opportunity to get familiar with the American customs and cultural practices. This training helped us get adjusted to the American way of living. However, a couple of days’ orientation course cannot cover all the situations that a foreigner may encounter there. For instance, towards the beginning of our stay at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, my wife received a number of threatening anonymous abusive calls from strangers in which they asked us to leave the country. My wife, who was only 24 then, was very much shaken. The strange coincidence was that the call came only during the morning hours when I was away to the Department. We complained the matter to the foreign students’ Advisor. He advised us to ignore such calls saying that such callers were cowardly and would never confront us. He also advised us to get our phone unlisted. Thank God, we did not receive such obnoxious calls after we unlisted our phone number. After 3 days’ stay at Washington DC we headed for Cornell on a Greyhound bus. It was a comfortable bus ride. It passed through a large number of small and large towns. We enjoyed the journey. Soon we reached Cornell. We saw Professor Randolph waiting for us at the bus stop. We waved our hands acknowledging that we had seen him. He waved back. We carried three big suitcases and a number of medium sized bags. Professor wouldn’t let us carry those heavy luggage saying that he knows that the Indians engage porters even to carry small pieces of baggage. It was a large car. He dumped all our stuff in the luggage space of his car and we were ready to leave for the University campus. Our accommodation was arranged temporarily in one of the University guest houses. We stayed there for a few days until we found a suitable accommodation near the campus. It was the second floor of a two storied building. A nice Egyptian Christian family lived downstairs. He welcomed us as a neighbor. The professor told me to settle down first before I commenced my research work. The professor took us to his house for luncheon. It was a large house with a big compound where professor grew his research material – various Iris species and their hybrids. There we met professor’s wife. She was not only professor’s life partner but also a close associate in all his research work. It was she who did the entire embryo culture work for the professor. Introducing me to her, the Professor said, “Here is my wife who would show you the entire process of embryo culture right from the sterilization of the appliances, glassware and growth media, dissection of embryos from the hybrid and transfer them aseptically to flasks containing the medium.” The following day I met her at the Department. She showed an old model autoclave and its parts. She showed me how to light up the gas burner properly and close the autoclave lid tightly after ensuring that the entire air inside the machine was completely replaced by steam. The steam at first leaves the Machine intermittently in puffs. When the steam flows continuously without any break, the valves are closed carefully. If closed prematurely a mixture of steam and atmospheric air is built up resulting in the bursting of the equipment. Mrs. Randolph narrated an incident that could have taken away her life. Luckily, just at that moment she went outside the autoclave room on an errand and that was the time when the machine broke down with a deafening sound. It may be mentioned here that latest autoclave models are provided with built-in safety device.devices. In case pressure is built up inside the autoclave chamber, the machine automatically stops. I got a space in professor’s lab. There I met Professor’s research assistant, Mr. Satyen Banerjee – an– a M.Sc. in agricultural genetics from Calcutta University. The professor was very particular about time. He would come to his lab exactly at 8 in the morning, take luncheon break for half an hour at 12 noon and would work until 5 in the evening. In spite of Professor’s clear instructions, Mr. Banerjee didn’t maintain time. The professor warned him a number of times without any effect. One day I inquired asked Mr. Banerjee about the reason for his not listening to professor’s verbal warnings. Thereupon Mr. Satyen Banerjee narrated a very interesting story of his life. Before he came to Cornell, he was at Cooch Behar (India) College as a lecturer in Botany. Mr. Banerjee had not faintest idea one of his female colleagues nurtured love for him and kept it a secret from the man she loved. The moment the news spread around that Banerjee had been awarded an assistantship at Cornell University, and that he was leaving soon, the female lecturer was very upset and could no longer suppress her deep feelings for Mr. Banerjee. She became desperate to pour out her tender emotion. She wrote a love letter to Mr. Banerjee that she wanted to marry him. Banerjee took the letter seriously and instantly fell in love with his colleague. He wrote back to her saying that he also had tender feelings for her but nothing could be done before his departure to the USA. Once he was at Cornell, he would write to her about the details as to how their love could turn into a marriage. After his arrival at Cornell, every day Mr. Banerjee received a big letter from his lady love and in return would burn the two ends of a candle to reply. As a result he could not get up early enough to report for duty in time. One day the professor called me and said that I should warn Mr. Banerjee. I told the professor that although we speak the same language i.e., Bengali, I could not oblige the professor because of estranged relationship between India and Pakistan. So I suggested that the professor should talk to Mr. Banerjee directly. Apparently he did. After a while, I got the news that my young friend had lost his job. He tried to get admission in other American universities but everywhere he was refused. In the States, once a student is expelled from a laboratory, he is not accepted in any other University of the States. After a good deal of effort, he finally was accepted by Hamilton University in Canada. By that time, the couple got engaged. It was so arranged that Banerjee’s fiancée would come to Hamilton and stay alone in a separate house until they got married according to the Hindu custom. That’s exactly what happened. When I visited them in Hamilton later in the year, the couple was already husband and wife living happily. Space provided in the greenhouse: Cornell University is in Ithaca, New York and it gets very cold during the winter, temperature going much below freezing point. Summer on the other hand is warm and inside the greenhouse one can grow tropical plants for a few months. Prof. Randolph gave me enough space in the greenhouse to grow my experimental material namely, jute plants belonging to the two species of Corchorus: C. olitorius and C. capsularis. Since I succeeded earlier in getting hybrids, using C. olitorius as female, this time I only took C. capsularis as female and made a large number of crosses smearing the stalk of the female flower with lanolin paste containing 300 mg/l indole-3-acetic acid. Professor’s wife showed me how to dissect embryos from crossed fruits and transfer them to the growing medium. Interestingly, she didn’t use any inoculation chamber. The entire operation was carried out on the laboratory bench wiped out clean with rectified spirit. She used two Petri dishes, one containing ethyl alcohol and the other autoclaved water. During the operation her finger tips would remain dipped in alcohol except when she would pick up a seed soaked in sterile water for dissection. She would wash her finger in sterile water and holding the seed between her thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she would make an incision on the seed coat. Instead of trying to remove the embryo with the help of a knife and needle, she would squeeze the seed gently and more often than not, the embryo would pop out. The dissected embryos were transferred from the tip of the forefinger to the growth medium with the help of a sterilized needle. I learned the method meticulously and used it to grow hybrid embryos from the cross, Corchorus capsularis x C. olitorius. Eventually, I got a hybrid seedling but the hybrid plant did not mature to produce flowers and fruits. The paper was published in Nature 201, 320 (18 January 1964). Coming back of my stay in the USA on the second year, I wrote a letter to Professor G. L. Stebbins (Jr.) the celebrated plant evolutionist inquiring whether I could work in his lab for a year or so, making it clear to him that I didn’t need any financial assistance being a scholar of the National Academy of Sciences. The professor regretted saying that he had no space in his lab where I could work. I wrote back saying that I didn’t need any lab space. Whatever space is available in the Head house would do – I pointed out to him. My earnest desire was to work in close association with him and not a fancy place in the lab that was under construction then. The professor was pleased with my answer and conceded to my request. My wife and I decided to cover the entire distance of nearly 3000 miles from Cornell to Davis by our car. Since I was a member of the American Automobile Association (AAA), I approached them to prepare an itinerary mentioning the towns we would like to touch on our way from Cornell to Davis. I requested them to provide me with a route map starting from Ithaca to Davis. We wanted to go to Niagara Falls via Hamilton to meet Mr. and Mrs. Banerjee, meet Prof. MM Rhoades at Indiana University and Dr. Ikram I. Chaudhury at Logan University, Utah. While acknowledging my letter, Prof. Rhoades wrote that it was the right thing for me to do to inform him of my visit much ahead of my stipulated journey. Otherwise, he couldn’t make it because of his tight teaching and research schedule. Here I would like to narrate an interesting story which I would like to share with my readers. A tycoon was traveling from New York to California. On the way when they were around Réno, suddenly, the plane broke down. The captain of the plane announced that they would soon land at the Réno airport because of engine trouble. The passengers, if they so wish may spend time in a Casino. They would be informed in due time about the departure of the plane. The passengers entered a Casino and started gambling. The tycoon was not an adept player and soon lost all his money. Then suddenly he wanted to go to a toilet but he had not even a dime, which he could insert to open its door. So he borrowed a dime from a fellow passenger on condition that he would pay him back on their arrival at California. When he went to the toilet area, he found the door of all the bathrooms locked from inside. So he waited outside one of the bathrooms. When the toilet door opened, the occupant of the toilet found some stranger in front. He said to the stranger that he needn’t unnecessarily spend a dime to enter the facility? He wouldn’t lock the door and the stranger could go inside thus saving a dime. The tycoon was in a high spirit and went again to Casino to play with the dime he had saved. This time fortune smiled on him and not only did he recover the money he had lost earlier but earned a lot of extra money. As he was narrating the story, he heaved a deep sigh saying that his only regret was that he didn’t ask the name of the gentleman. Those who were listening to him said, “How come you will regret. Didn’t the gentleman who lent you the dime wrote his name and address on a slip of paper?” The tycoon was surprised to notice that none of the fellow passengers had the intelligence to figure out that he was talking about the gentleman who kept the toilet door open for him and not the one who lent him the dime.”

After my arrival in Manchester city every morning I looked up advertisements in local dailies for accommodation. No matter how early I rang up the advertisers, the reply was the same – “Sorry, Sir. All places are full up.” The same disappointing reply came for days in a row. Being desperate, one morning I asked one of the advertisers, “Excuse me, Madam. I have a humble question for you. For the last few days I have been regularly calling first thing in the morning for a vacant place to stay using the phone number given in the ad but every day I get the same reply that no seats are available. How that is possible?” The lady at the other end was moved. She said that your guess is correct. The moment a foreigner talks face to face or on the phone, we understand that he/she is from the Indian subcontinent. We are not prejudiced against color. What we do not like in the people of Indian origin is the way they use the bathroom. Instead of keeping their feet on the floor, they place them on toilet seats. As a result, they get dirty soon and become unfit for the use of the next person. Moreover, Indians like to take bath every day but it’s not possible for us to supply hot water every day during the winter for every boarder; they also splash water on the floor while bathing. Another problem: local students go home whenever there is a long vacation; on the other hand, a foreign student stays at the lodging. As a result, we cannot enjoy a our vacation. Read more…

It is hard to believe that 86 years are already gone from my life. And yet it seems that only the other day I spent my childhood days in my grandparents’ house in Midnapore town now a district town in West Bengal, India. I was born there on an historic day in human history, August 6, 1924. Inscrutable are the ways of God! Who knew then that that on this particular day 21 years later, the World would witness one of the worst massacres ever perpetrated in a war. World War II concluded in 1945 after the Japanese surrendered following the drops of two atom bombs razing to the grounds the two big cities, namely, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in quick succession killing nearly over one lakh people in the two cities and injuring nearly an equal number. The injured persons suffered severely from the atom blasts from which the majority didn’t recover completely. For the rest of their lives they lived either disfigured or mentally retarded. The harmful effects of atom bombs continued for 2-3 generations producing deformed and defective children. When the memories of the childhood keep on coming in my mind, I get thrilled. It is like watching a video taken more than four scores of years ago. I wish those glorious days revisited me. My grandpa was a flourishing Mukhtar (lawyer in the lower court) and well-respected elite of Midnapore town, and maintained a decent living. He had a Ford motorcar, petrol driven pedestal fan, foot-operated sewing machine. Unlike other lawyers, he was not only interested to amass fortune but he was deeply interested in widening the horizon of his knowledge. I have seen him not only subscribing London Illustrated Weekly but also reading it with a good deal of interest. He was also fond of listening to the English Music. Both his daughters, of whom my mother was the eldest, inherited this trait from their father. However, their education was confined to home education, there being no schools for girls’ education. The question may arise in the readers’ minds naturally, how come I was born in Midnapore (মেদিনীপুর) town when my father came from a village called Daulatpore (দৌলতপুর) 26 miles away from Chittagong town, and mother from lavpur (লাভপুর), a village in Birbhum (বীরভুম) district, West Bengal. In other words, the two places, Chittagong and Midnapore towns are far away over 300 miles from each other. Then The nearest Railway station from our village home was Nazirhat (নাজিরহাট). My grandfather’s youngest brother worked as a lecturer in English at Rajshahi College where the two, my father and the young lecturer of English, the matchmaker were colleagues. Since the latter was desperately looking for a young man who could marry his niece, he approached my father. My father agreed and the matter was settled. Initially our residence in Rajshahi town was located by the side of a primary missionary school. The teachers there were mostly Saotal (সাঁওতাল)– one of the aboriginal tribes in the northern area of Bangladesh. They were all Christians converted by the Missionaries from various European countries. In complexion the teachers were very dark, although the facial cuts of some of them were pretty. They lived in a hostel f far away from the school. The teachers commuted to the school by school bus. The school bell would ring after their arrival and we would all sing the song, “Didimoni nomosker; apni boro parishker (দিদিমণি নমস্কার; আপনি বড় পরি®‹vর)পরিস্কার) meaning “Sisters greetings to you, you are all very fair.” They did not pay any heed to our comments as if they did not hear what we said about them. All of them without exception were devoted teachers. They taught us both Bengali and English alphabets and numbers with great care and taught us how to write them with an improvised special type of pen made out of tender bamboo shoots. The tip was split longitudinally in order that it could hold ink. We were taught how to make vertical and horizontal strokes and circles with the help of the above improvised pen. The teachers were ever-loving and never missed an occasion to smile at us. However, they would also make fun out of us. For the first time when I approached the class teacher in order to go out to call to nature, she said, “chhoto bari na, boro bari (ছোট বাড়ী, না বড় বাড়ী)” meaning whether to urinate or pass stool. I was not familiar with the expression. Miss understood my predicament and nodded her head implying that I could go. I didn’t like one thing in the Missionary School. Each day the school would start at a different timing depending upon the arrival of the school bus carrying the teachers. Because there was none to supervise them, almost all the students were happy because they could play uninterrupted. Since our house was located across the street next to the school premises, we waited in our house till the school bell rang. Boys were allowed only in the Kindergarten, the rest of the students in the school were girls. Some of the girls in the fifth and sixth grade were grown up. One morning when I arrived at the school, there was a great commotion in the school. A grown-up girl was being interrogated by the teachers. Being curious, I asked a senior student. She was curt and dismissed the question saying that I had better keep quiet because I would not understand. I returned home and told my mother about the incident. My mother told me that I could not continue in that school because in that institution one female student was in the family way outside the wedlock. I didn’t understand what my mother implied. Rajshahi Collegiate School: Thereafter I got admitted in Rajshahi Collegiate School in 1933 and studied there till I passed Matriculation examination in March 1941. I still remember the first day in my High School. My father took me there and I was formally admitted. Mr. Sobhan was our class teacher. We were 30 students in that class of which only six were Muslims. The teacher asked us whether we knew the name of the District Magistrate. During those days, the Head of the District Administration was designated District Magistrate and not as Deputy Commissioner as they are known today. Mr. Sobhan was furious when none of us could open our mouth. In a thunderous voice he reproached us and said, “Shame on you! You are students of the best school in the district and yet, your general knowledge is so poor that you couldn’t answer a simple question such as this.” Looking back, I think Mr. Sobhan was unjustified to take us to task. None of us had formal education; then how would our teacher in the first day of our schooling asked us a question of such a general nature.

AUGUST 16, 2012

R

It is hard to believe that 88 years are already gone from my life. And yet it seems that only the other day I spent my childhood days in my grandparents’ house in Midnapur town now a district town in West Bengal, India. I was born there on an historic day in human history, August 6, 1924. Inscrutable are the ways of God! Who knew then that that on this particular day 21 years later, the World would witness one of the worst massacres ever perpetrated in a war. World War II concluded in 1945 after the Japanese surrendered following the drops of two atom bombs razing to the grounds the two big cities, namely, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in quick succession killing nearly over one lakh people in the two cities and injuring nearly an equal number. The injured persons suffered severely from the atom blasts from which the majority didn’t recover completely. For the rest of their lives they lived either disfigured or mentally retarded. The harmful effects of atom bombs continued for 2-3 generations producing deformed and defective children. When the memories of the childhood keep on coming in my mind, I get thrilled. It is like watching a video taken more than four scores of years ago. I wish those glorious days revisited me. My grandpa was a flourishing Mukhtar (lawyer in the lower court) and well-respected elite of Midnapore town, and maintained a decent living. He had a Ford motorcar, petrol driven pedestal fan, foot-operated sewing machine. Unlike other lawyers, he was not only interested to amass fortune but he was deeply interested in widening the horizon of his knowledge. I have seen him not only subscribing London Illustrated Weekly but also reading it with a good deal of interest. He was also fond of listening to the English Music. Both his daughters, of whom my mother was the eldest, inherited this trait from their father. However, their education was confined to home education, there being no schools for girls’ education. The question may arise in the readers’ minds naturally, how come I was born in Midnapore (মেদিনীপুর) town when my father came from a village called Daulatpore (দৌলতপুর) 26 miles away from Chittagong town, and mother from lavpur (লাভপুর), a village in Birbhum (বীরভুম) district, West Bengal. In other words, the two places, Chittagong and Midnapore towns are far away over 300 miles from each other. Then The nearest Railway station from our village home was Nazirhat (নাজিরহাট). My grandfather’s youngest brother worked as a lecturer in English at Rajshahi College where the two, my father and the young lecturer of English, the matchmaker were colleagues. Since the latter was desperately looking for a young man who could marry his niece, he approached my father. My father agreed and the matter was settled. Initially our residence in Rajshahi town was located by the side of a primary missionary school. The teachers there were mostly Saotal (সাঁওতাল)– one of the aboriginal tribes in the northern area of Bangladesh. They were all Christians converted by the Missionaries from various European countries. In complexion the teachers were very dark, although the facial cuts of some of them were pretty. They lived in a hostel f far away from the school. The teachers commuted to the school by school bus. The school bell would ring after their arrival and we would all sing the song, “Didimoni nomosker; apni boro parishker (দিদিমণি নমস্কার; আপনি বড় পরি®‹vর)পরিস্কার) meaning “Sisters greetings to you, you are all very fair.” They did not pay any heed to our comments as if they did not hear what we said about them. All of them without exception were devoted teachers. They taught us both Bengali and English alphabets and numbers with great care and taught us how to write them with an improvised special type of pen made out of tender bamboo shoots. The tip was split longitudinally in order that it could hold ink. We were taught how to make vertical and horizontal strokes and circles with the help of the above improvised pen. The teachers were ever-loving and never missed an occasion to smile at us. However, they would also make fun out of us. For the first time when I approached the class teacher in order to go out to call to nature, she said, “chhoto bari na, boro bari (ছোট বাড়ী, না বড় বাড়ী)” meaning whether to urinate or pass stool. I was not familiar with the expression. Miss understood my predicament and nodded her head implying that I could go. I didn’t like one thing in the Missionary School. Each day the school would start at a different timing depending upon the arrival of the school bus carrying the teachers. Because there was none to supervise them, almost all the students were happy because they could play uninterrupted. Since our house was located across the street next to the school premises, we waited in our house till the school bell rang. Boys were allowed only in the Kindergarten, the rest of the students in the school were girls. Some of the girls in the fifth and sixth grade were grown up. One morning when I arrived at the school, there was a great commotion in the school. A grown-up girl was being interrogated by the teachers. Being curious, I asked a senior student. She was curt and dismissed the question saying that I had better keep quiet because I would not understand. I returned home and told my mother about the incident. My mother told me that I could not continue in that school because in that institution one female student was in the family way outside the wedlock. I didn’t understand what my mother implied. Rajshahi Collegiate School: Thereafter I got admitted in Rajshahi Collegiate School in 1933 and studied there till I passed Matriculation examination in March 1941. I still remember the first day in my High School. My father took me there and I was formally admitted. Mr. Sobhan was our class teacher. We were 30 students in that class of which only six were Muslims. The teacher asked us whether we knew the name of the District Magistrate. During those days, the Head of the District Administration was designated District Magistrate and not as Deputy Commissioner as they are known today. Mr. Sobhan was furious when none of us could open our mouth. In a thunderous voice he reproached us and said, “Shame on you! You are students of the best school in the district and yet, your general knowledge is so poor that you couldn’t answer a simple question such as this.” Looking back, I think Mr. Sobhan was unjustified to take us to task. None of us had formal education; then how would our teacher in the first day of our schooling asked us a question of such a general nature.

It is hard to believe that 88 years are already gone from my life. And yet it seems that only the other day I spent my childhood days in my grandparents’ house in Midnaporetown now a district town in West Bengal, India. I was born there on an historic day in human history, August 6, 1924. Inscrutable are the ways of God! Who knew then that that on this particular day 21 years later, the World would witness one of the worst massacres ever perpetrated in a war. World War II concluded in 1945 after the Japanese surrendered following the drops of two atom bombs razing to the grounds the two big cities, namely, Hiroshima and Nagasaki in quick succession killing nearly over one lakh people in the two cities and injuring nearly an equal number. The injured persons suffered severely from the atom blasts from which the majority didn’t recover completely. For the rest of their lives they lived either disfigured or mentally retarded. The harmful effects of atom bombs continued for 2-3 generations producing deformed and defective children. When the memories of the childhood keep on coming in my mind, I get thrilled. It is like watching a video taken more than four scores of years ago. I wish those glorious days revisited me. My grandpa was a flourishing Mukhtar (lawyer in the lower court) and well-respected elite of Midnapore town, and maintained a decent living. He had a Ford motorcar, petrol driven pedestal fan, foot-operated sewing machine. Unlike other lawyers, he was not only interested to amass fortune but he was deeply interested in widening the horizon of his knowledge. I have seen him not only subscribing London Illustrated Weekly but also reading it with a good deal of interest. He was also fond of listening to the English Music. Both his daughters, of whom my mother was the eldest, inherited this trait from their father. However, their education was confined to home education, there being no schools for girls’ education. The question may arise in the readers’ minds naturally, how come I was born in Midnapore (মেদিনীপুর) town when my father came from a village called Daulatpore (দৌলতপুর) 26 miles away from Chittagong town, and mother from lavpur (লাভপুর), a village in Birbhum (বীরভুম) district, West Bengal. In other words, the two places, Chittagong and Midnapore towns are far away over 300 miles from each other. Then The nearest Railway station from our village home was Nazirhat (নাজিরহাট). My grandfather’s youngest brother worked as a lecturer in English at Rajshahi College where the two, my father and the young lecturer of English, the matchmaker were colleagues. Since the latter was desperately looking for a young man who could marry his niece, he approached my father. My father agreed and the matter was settled. Initially our residence in Rajshahi town was located by the side of a primary missionary school. The teachers there were mostly Saotal (সাঁওতাল)– one of the aboriginal tribes in the northern area of Bangladesh. They were all Christians converted by the Missionaries from various European countries. In complexion the teachers were very dark, although the facial cuts of some of them were pretty. They lived in a hostel f far away from the school. The teachers commuted to the school by school bus. The school bell would ring after their arrival and we would all sing the song, “Didimoni nomosker; apni boro parishker (দিদিমণি নমস্কার; আপনি বড়পরি®‹vর)পরিস্কার) meaning “Sisters greetings to you, you are all very fair.” They did not pay any heed to our comments as if they did not hear what we said about them. All of them without exception were devoted teachers. They taught us both Bengali and English alphabets and numbers with great care and taught us how to write them with an improvised special type of pen made out of tender bamboo shoots. The tip was split longitudinally in order that it could hold ink. We were taught how to make vertical and horizontal strokes and circles with the help of the above improvised pen. The teachers were ever-loving and never missed an occasion to smile at us. However, they would also make fun out of us. For the first time when I approached the class teacher in order to go out to call to nature, she said, “chhoto bari na, boro bari (ছোট বাড়ী, না বড় বাড়ী)” meaning whether to urinate or pass stool. I was not familiar with the expression. Miss understood my predicament and nodded her head implying that I could go. I didn’t like one thing in the Missionary School. Each day the school would start at a different timing depending upon the arrival of the school bus carrying the teachers. Because there was none to supervise them, almost all the students were happy because they could play uninterrupted. Since our house was located across the street next to the school premises, we waited in our house till the school bell rang. Boys were allowed only in the Kindergarten, the rest of the students in the school were girls. Some of the girls in the fifth and sixth grade were grown up. One morning when I arrived at the school, there was a great commotion in the school. A grown-up girl was being interrogated by the teachers. Being curious, I asked a senior student. She was curt and dismissed the question saying that I had better keep quiet because I would not understand. I returned home and told my mother about the incident. My mother told me that I could not continue in that school because in that institution one female student was in the family way outside the wedlock. I didn’t understand what my mother implied. Rajshahi Collegiate School: Thereafter I got admitted in Rajshahi Collegiate School in 1933 and studied there till I passed Matriculation examination in March 1941. I still remember the first day in my High School. My father took me there and I was formally admitted. Mr. Sobhan was our class teacher. We were 30 students in that class of which only six were Muslims. The teacher asked us whether we knew the name of the District Magistrate. During those days, the Head of the District Administration was designated District Magistrate and not as Deputy Commissioner as they are known today. Mr. Sobhan was furious when none of us could open our mouth. In a thunderous voice he reproached us and said, “Shame on you! You are students of the best school in the district and yet, your general knowledge is so poor that you couldn’t answer a simple question such as this.” Looking back, I think Mr. Sobhan was unjustified to take us to task. None of us had formal education; then how would our teacher in the first day of our schooling asked us a question of such a general nature.

My eldest son, Yousuf Islam just came back after his graduation in Heriot-Watt University at Edinburgh. He got a comfortable job with Siemens – one of the largest companies in Bangladesh in the Energy and Healthcare Sectors. Yousuf was very keen to do his Ph.D. in Britain. Soon a good opportunity came. Commonwealth scholarships were advertised in the local dailies. Since he got a first class throughout his career and an undergraduate degree from a well-known U.K. university, he was a strong candidate to win a scholarship. But we learned to our fear that hardly anyone working in a foreign or local firm/company obtains a scholarship because one of the main objectives of Commonwealth scholarships is to build manpower for higher educational institutions such as universities. My wife and I made an excellent plan to prepare our son for the interview. We pretended that we were Interview Board members and prepared a number of questions which were likely to be asked to a candidate. One of our questions was: Why do you want to do a Ph.D. when you are at present employed in one of the celebrated companies of the world? Another likely question we asked: When you know that a higher degree in the academic line may not prove to be a key to your future success in the Company why do you try to obtain a Commonwealth Scholarship.  Yousuf got nervous when we put the above questions to him and a few more. We gave him enough time to prepare the answers. When he faced us second time his performance was much better. Finally Yousuf appeared before the Interview Board. He impressed the Board Members with his answers. When asked by the Board why being an company employee, he applied for the Common Wealth Scholarship Yousuf said, “We face many problems with our products and the best way to solve the problem is a thorough research and find an economic and practical solution. Instead of proving to be an impediment, a higher research degree will be a gateway to a phenomenal success of the company.” Yousuf spent maximum time with the Board and his boss who worked also in the same company was dismissed after 15 minutes. We were overjoyed when the results were announced. That year Yousuf was among few who were selected for the scholarship. It was obvious that if we didn’t prepare Yousuf to face the Interview with adequate preparation and build up in him enough confidence, he wouldn’t have succeeded to top the list among those who were selected for one of the scholarships that were awarded that year.

Appointed by FAO, I went to attend an important meeting of the Feasibility Study Group on the formation of the erstwhile International Jute Organization (IJO) in Dhaka. The meeting, which took the final decision about its creation, was held in Calcutta in 1982. Since those representing Jute Research Institute Dhaka and I were Government guests, apart from a good hotel accommodation, a car was placed at our disposal and the service of a protocol officer. The latter always accompanied us wherever we went. On one Sunday, the protocol officer asked leave of absence from me. He said, “Sir, I have an important appointment this evening. Would you kindly let me be off from duty only this evening?” I told him that there would be no problem since from my student days, I knew Calcutta very well and as such, I could find my way out easily. Then out of curiosity, I asked him who that important person was with whom he had an important meeting. He answered with a smile at the corner of his lips. His answer was a big surprise for me. He said, “My son is a teenager high school student and that at every weekend (which is a Sunday in India) I have an appointment with him. I spent quality time with him and him only. He tells me how he fared in the school during the week. He talks about his problems if he faced any during the week and their probable solution.” I asked him to do me a favor of taking me to his house to meet his son. He gladly agreed. His house was located quite at a distance from the hotel. It took more than an hour for us to reach there. It was a small house but tidy, pleasing the eye. As I was waiting in the drawing room, my host went inside to fetch his son. Believe me I was so impressed with the teenager that I could hardly believe my eyes. Father and son were perfect friends and the son had nothing to hide from his father nor did father keep anything secret from him relating to his upbringing. It was big a lesson for me. Compared to him I hardly spent time on the rearing of my children. I left almost everything to my wife to raise them, hardly sharing any responsibility with her except on rare occasions. My wife spent with them quality time late afternoon every weekday and listened to their stories about what had happened that day in their schools. In 1970, my wife and I had been to Japan for three months. Our sons and daughter stayed at their grandparents’ house. They felt our absence very acutely and wrote to us almost every day. One of the letters from the then 13 years old son, Yousuf brought tears to our eyes. He wrote to his mother that he missed his mom very much particularly not being able to relate his story in a breath to mom after his return home from the school. We showed that letter to one of our Bengalee friends from Calcutta. After reading that letter, she also became emotional with drops of tears in her eyes. I know closely a family where mother and daughter relationship was very cordial. When the daughter was a university student, one of her male classmates proposed to take her for an outing. She wanted to give him an answer the next day. The daughter discussed the matter with her mother. Mother gave her a sound piece of advice. The mother said, “Invite your friend to visit your house and ask him to propose to your parents that he would like to marry you.” The boy was not prepared to get such an answer from his classmate. He got nervous and never again he talked about the matter. It became obvious that the intention of her class mate was ill- motivated. In another family, the mother-son friendly relationship saved the teenager son from drug addiction. One day the boy’s mother noticed something unusual in her son’s behavior. He had just returned from the school and began to behave in a strange way. He was unusually quiet not communicating to anyone. When the mother asked him for his strange deportment, he replied, “Nothing except a bad headache”. It was mother’s instinct and she realized there was something seriously wrong with her son. She held her son’s two hands firmly and placed them over to her head, “Tell me the truth, my son; or else you know the worst consequences of telling a lie touching the top of your mother’s head. That will put her life in a great risk in which she may lose her life (অপমৃত্যু).” Our son no longer could bear it and he burst into tears confessing the truth. He said one of the senior class students gave him in a small packet some white stuff and asked him to take it and feel great. After he took the stuff, he felt heavy and dizzy in his head (মাথা ঘুরা ও ঝিমঝিম করা). The senior student also threatened him with dire consequences if the news ever leaked out. If not for anything, at least for the safety of one’s own children, parents must give more time to them and monitoring closing their activities outside their home. There is a famous saying, “You cannot have the cake and eat it too.” The adage is a great lesson to learn to raise an ideal family. If someone and his wife enjoy social life every evening, they cannot expect their offspring to develop into model children. That simply cannot happen.

Events in Bangladesh belie the adage: the judge changes but the verdict does not

 It was the year 2000. I was then in Austin working in the University of Texas as an Associate Researcher. I received a semiofficial letter from Mr. M. Fazlur Rahman, a senior civil servant and the then Secretary, Science and Technology, Government of Bangladesh. In that letter he wrote that the  S&T Minister would be busy in a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at Vienna coinciding with an important Interim Steering Committee meeting of Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF)  to  be held in September 2000 Washington D.C. and whether I could represent Bangladesh in that important meeting. In view of time constraint, he suggested that I travel to Washington D.C. at my own expenses, and that the amount would be reimbursed to me after the completion of the journey.
I immediately wrote him back saying it would be my pleasure to be of any service to my beloved country and that I would love to attend the GBIF Steering Committee meeting as the Head of the Bangladesh Delegate. In order to economize I stayed in one of the cheap hotels near the Conference Centre at Washington DC. I was glad that apart from representing Bangladesh, I could do something substantial for developing countries. I advocated to the organizers of this International Conference that the trip by the delegates from the least developed countries to the venue of future Conferences be funded. There was a lot of discussion on my proposal and finally it was accepted to my great joy. The next GBIF meeting was to be held in Copenhagen and along with the invitation letter; they informed me that I would receive a prepaid return economy class air ticket for the journey. For personal reasons I could not avail of that rare opportunity. I was very happy to note that I could do something to ensure participation by the delegates from the least developed countries by way of meeting their travel expenses from the organization’s fund. I came back from the Washington DC conference being happy and satisfied. I went to the Bangladesh Embassy. With the help of the office accountant, I prepared my TA. Bill, and sent it through diplomatic bag to the S&T Ministry for reimbursement of the amount I spent from my resources. In fact, I was complimented by the Ministry for managing my whole travel expenses so economically. I was expecting the payment at the most within a month. After the transfer of Mr. Fazlur Rahman to the Ministry of Health, the scenario changed. Objection was raised to my travel on the ground that all foreign travels from Bangladesh were banned during the period I undertook the journey. I replied back, “My travel didn’t originate from inside Bangladesh. I travelled on an official request from the then Secretary S&T.” No action was taken in spite of this clear cut explanation. Thereafter, I contacted a number of times the Secretary and even the State Minister of the Ministry but to no effect. Last time the reply by the Secretary astonished me inexplicably. He said right to my face that my claim for the reimbursement of the T.A. has been time-barred and therefore annulled. It’s more than 11 year that have passed by but my bill was not paid and I don’t think that it would ever be paid. Since my childhood we were taught the adage, “হাকিম নড়ে, হুকুম নড়েনা (judge changes but the verdict does not).” In this case, the verdict changed to my great surprise. Morally I could not justify the action of the Ministry except that there was a regime change after I had submitted my T.A. bill. I often asked myself what has the regime change to do with the payment of my TA when I actually undertook the journey and served the cause of the country. I met another Bangladeshi expatriate from Australia. He made the same complaint to me that his TA bill was not paid although he made the journey on Government request.

The close company of parents is essential for the healthy growth of the children

Appointed by FAO, I went to attend an important meeting of the Feasibility Study Group on the formation of the erstwhile International Jute Organization (IJO) in Dhaka. The meeting, which took the final decision about its creation, was held in Calcutta in 1982. Since those representing Jute Research Institute Dhaka and I were Government guests, apart from a good hotel accommodation, a car was placed at our disposal and the service of a protocol officer. The latter always accompanied us wherever we went. On one Sunday, the protocol officer asked leave of absence from me. He said, “Sir, I have an important appointment this evening. Would you kindly let me be off from duty only this evening?” I told him that there would be no problem since from my student days, I knew Calcutta very well and as such, I could find my way out easily. Then out of curiosity, I asked him who that important person was with whom he had an important meeting. He answered with a smile at the corner of his lips. His answer was a big surprise for me. He said, “My son is a teenager high school student and that at every weekend (which is a Sunday in India) I have an appointment with him. I spent quality time with him and him only. He tells me how he fared in the school during the week. He talks about his problems if he faced any during the week and their probable solution.” I asked him to do me a favor of taking me to his house to meet his son. He gladly agreed. His house was located quite at a distance from the hotel. It took more than an hour for us to reach there. It was a small house but tidy, pleasing the eye. As I was waiting in the drawing room, my host went inside to fetch his son. Believe me I was so impressed with the teenager that I could hardly believe my eyes. Father and son were perfect friends and the son had nothing to hide from his father nor did father keep anything secret from him relating to his upbringing. It was big a lesson for me. Compared to him I hardly spent time on the rearing of my children. I left almost everything to my wife to raise them, hardly sharing any responsibility with her except on rare occasions. My wife spent with them quality time late afternoon every weekday and listened to their stories about what had happened that day in their schools. In 1970, my wife and I had been to Japan for three months. Our sons and daughter stayed at their grandparents’ house. They felt our absence very acutely and wrote to us almost every day. One of the letters from the then 13 years old son, Yousuf brought tears to our eyes. He wrote to his mother that he missed his mom very much particularly not being able to relate his story in a breath to mom after his return home from the school. We showed that letter to one of our Bengalee friends from Calcutta. After reading that letter, she also became emotional with drops of tears in her eyes. I know closely a family where mother and daughter relationship was very cordial. When the daughter was a university student, one of her male classmates proposed to take her for an outing. She wanted to give him an answer the next day. The daughter discussed the matter with her mother. Mother gave her a sound piece of advice. The mother said, “Invite your friend to visit your house and ask him to propose to your parents that he would like to marry you.” The boy was not prepared to get such an answer from his classmate. He got nervous and never again he talked about the matter. It became obvious that the intention of her class mate was ill- motivated. In another family, the mother-son friendly relationship saved the teenager son from drug addiction. One day the boy’s mother noticed something unusual in her son’s behavior. He had just returned from the school and began to behave in a strange way. He was unusually quiet not communicating to anyone. When the mother asked him for his strange deportment, he replied, “Nothing except a bad headache”. It was mother’s instinct and she realized there was something seriously wrong with her son. She held her son’s two hands firmly and placed them over to her head, “Tell me the truth, my son; or else you know the worst consequences of telling a lie touching the top of your mother’s head. That will put her life in a great risk in which she may lose her life (অপমৃত্যু).” Our son no longer could bear it and he burst into tears confessing the truth. He said one of the senior class students gave him in a small packet some white stuff and asked him to take it and feel great. After he took the stuff, he felt heavy and dizzy in his head (মাথা ঘুরা ও ঝিমঝিম করা). The senior student also threatened him with dire consequences if the news ever leaked out. If not for anything, at least for the safety of one’s own children, parents must give more time to them and monitoring closing their activities outside their home. There is a famous saying, “You cannot have the cake and eat it too.” The adage is a great lesson to learn to raise an ideal family. If someone and his wife enjoy social life every evening, they cannot expect their offspring to develop into model children. That simply cannot happen.

My school friend Mozammel ended his life by committing suicide

In the same High School, Mozammel studied in the same class as my immediate younger brother. Although younger to me by a couple of years, we soon became good friends. We lost contact with each other when I moved in 1943 to Calcutta to study honors in Botany. He chose liberal arts while I pursued science. I don’t know the reason. In the University, he got admitted in Botany. During those days there were subjects such as Botany and Geography where an arts student could study Botany. However, such students were awarded an M.A. degree instead of M.Sc. The famous jute scientist Professor B.C. Kundu, the former Director of the Indian Jute Research Institute at Barrackpore was an M.A. in Botany. Soon Mozammel changed his line of profession. Like his father, he earned Bachelor’s degree in Law and started practicing law in Rajshahi Judge Court. Rarely did he come to Dhaka but whenever he did, he visited our house – once in Gandaria in the suburb of Dhaka and the next time in Nilkhet. I was still a single then. My mother and sister liked Mozammel and cordially received him. In our Nilkhet house, I still remember him sing in a melodious and resonant voice a popular song in the accompaniment of a harmonium, “Kisisé payar ho gayya, dil bé-karar ho gayya (কিসিসে পেয়ার হো গেয়া, দিল বেকারার্‌ হো গেয়া)” – meaning, “Oh I have fallen in love with someone and my heart has been in pain remembering her.” This was in early fifty-one. Toward the end of that year, I sailed for England and lost contact with my friend due to adjusting myself to a new country and a heavy pressure of work. When I came back in the middle of 1954, I received the sad and poignant news of the death of my friend under an extraordinary circumstance depicted below: One morning as my friend was going to the court, he witnessed a semi-fatal accident on the way. Since he was present at the scene of the accident, the police included him as a witness. At that time it didn’t occur to him that he would be called to stand in the witness box and answer all kinds of unpleasant and objectionable questions put by the defendant’s lawyer. Subsequently, the more he thought about the scenario, the more he got nervous. He couldn’t imagine himself in the witness stand. He considered it to be beneath his dignity and prestige to stand in the same witness box where all kinds of criminals including murderers appear to reply to the questions of the defendant’s lawyers. To save himself from this ignominy he decided without the knowledge of anyone in the house to commit suicide by hanging himself from the ceiling fan. I was dumbfounded when I heard the news of the tragic death of my friend whom I liked very much for his amiable and sweet nature. If my friend knew the kind of punishment a person committing suicide is destined to receive from Allah, he would have probably refrained from taking his own life. Perhaps his ignorance about Quranic sanction about suicide, led to his death. Allama I. I. Kazi’s Unnatural death: Somewhere in the book I mentioned about the unnatural death of my most respected Vice Chancellor, Allama I. I. Kazi. His reason was somewhat different. At the end of her life, Allama’s German wife Elsa Kazi was bed-ridden and suffered most agonizingly from old age complications. They didn’t have any son or daughter to look after them and alleviate their acute suffering. Eventually she breathed her last leaving her husband all alone. After the passing away of his beloved wife, Allama imagined himself in the same situation. He didn’t want to be a burden and an object of pity to anybody. So one day as he was walking on the Indus River Bank, he jumped from an overhang into the river. Before he actually fell into the river water, he hurt himself badly by colliding with the rough surface of the embankment thus most tragically putting an end to his life. I was then in Hyderabad and saw the dead body wrapped in white linen. The blood was still oozing out and wetted the shroud. I couldn’t figure out one thing even now although his death occurred so many years ago. Allama was deeply religious and a few days before his death he discussed before the gathering which always assembled there in the open veranda in the late afternoon about the consequences of suicidal death. In the Qur’an, taking one’s life and committing suicide are equally forbidden. Since we cannot give life, we cannot kill any. It’s still mysterious to me that how my dearly-loved VC for whom I had profound reverence took away his life, knowing full well the religious implication of such an unnatural death.

Judges are not free from greed

We forget that judges are as much human as the rest of us are. Except the High Court Judges, those in the lower judicial cadres are vulnerable equally to unprofessional conducts. I am describing a glaring example of misconduct by a sub-judge at the District court. It’s a common knowledge that the same piece of land is sold many times and it’s only through official search it’s possible whether said land is free from encumbrance. My father-in-law (f-in-l) bought a piece of land. To his surprise, he found that this property was fraudulently sold earlier. In order to take its possession, he filed a suit against the illegal owner. The lawyer who took up the case met the concerned judge. The latter listened to the lawyer carefully and remarked that it’s a straightforward case and there was every reason to believe that his client would win it. However at the end of the dialogue he asked for a bribe of Tk. 3000/- (equivalent to the current Tk. 48,000/-), failing which his verdict would go in favor of the contending party. When the lawyer approached my f-in-l with the proposal, he became very angry. He said angrily, “I can never stoop so low even if that means for me to lose the case.” Close relations who were around him tried to convince him that the environment in the country was such that without underhand means to win a case of this nature was almost impossible. When finally my f-in-law agreed, the lawyer went to the judge and offered him the amount. The judge remarked, “It’s too late now. The other party had already offered the judge Tk. 5,000/- and the judgment would go in their favor.” I don’t remember whether my f-in-l appealed against the judgment. Readers can well imagine since then corruption in our country has arisen phenomenally. Elsewhere in this book a description of the Qur’anic School Society (QSS) has been given. We required a plot of land to build a permanent structure for the organization. We were assured by the Deputy Commissioner (DC) that a plot of Khas land would be allocated in the name of the organization for this purpose. As instructed by the DC, I went to see him at his office in old Dhaka to initiate the transaction. DC received me cordially and called his PS and introduced me to him. The PS took me to the concerned dealing officer to prepare the document. After the PS had left, the officer asked money from me. I told him straight to his face that ours was an Association aimed at building the moral character of the school children. How could we be a party to break the moral fabric of our organization? He was a hard nut to crack. He firmly said, “It’s none of my concern to know the objectives of your Society. There is no other option for you except to bribe me if you want your file to move. He also cautioned me not to complain against him to his boss because that move would be futile. I refused to yield to this immoral demand and thus our endeavor came to an abortive end. Although not directly related to the theme of the episode, it may be mentioned here that nowadays a religious organization commands hardly any respect from the public. A number of flats opposite Dhaka College but slightly away from the Mirpur Road were available for sale. Accompanied by an Executive Committee member of the Society we went to negotiate with the owner of the flats. The owner was very pleased to meet me when I told him that I was a Professor of Botany, Dhaka University. He replied that he would be glad to sell the apartment to me. He retracted his step immediately after I had disclosed that I would like to buy the flat for the use of Qur’anic School Society. What would you like to call it – corruption or an inducement?  An expatriate in East Africa is required to produce an income clearance certificate from the concerned government department to buy air tickets for himself and the members of his family in order to leave the country. In order to be on the safe side I went to that office two months before my due departure date. When I approached the assistant, he said, “It’s too late. You should have come three months before your due departure date.” I felt as if the sky had crashed upon my head. After hearing about my urgency, he said that there was a way to help you. He said, “However, you need to pay me for this favor.” Showing me a huge pile of files he said, “Without clearing the previous files, I am afraid, I cannot touch your file. However, if you pay me at the same rate as my salary, I shall look into your file after office hours.” He refused to treat that money as tantamount to illegal gratification. As agreed upon, I went to his office after a few days to get the clearance certificate. It was a clever contrivance. He asked me to shove the money inside an envelope and drop it underneath his working desk. He picked it up making sure that none was watching him while he was engaged in that operation. To a certain extent, I understood the logic behind his taking remuneration in lieu of the extra work he did outside office hours. What I didn’t understand was as to why he was so secretive about the deal when he said that his conscience was clear.

Nothing like Orientation to succeed in life

My eldest son, Yousuf Islam just came back after his graduation in Heriot-Watt University at Edinburgh. He got a comfortable job with Siemens – one of the largest companies in Bangladesh in the Energy and Healthcare Sectors. Yousuf was very keen to do his Ph.D. in Britain. Soon a good opportunity came. Commonwealth scholarships were advertised in the local dailies. Since he got a first class throughout his career and an undergraduate degree from a well-known U.K. university, he was a strong candidate to win a scholarship. But we learned to our fear that hardly anyone working in a foreign or local firm/company obtains a scholarship because one of the main objectives of Commonwealth scholarships is to build manpower for higher educational institutions such as universities. My wife and I made an excellent plan to prepare our son for the interview. We pretended that we were Interview Board members and prepared a number of questions which were likely to be asked to a candidate. One of our questions was: Why do you want to do a Ph.D. when you are at present employed in one of the celebrated companies of the world? Another likely question we asked: When you know that a higher degree in the academic line may not prove to be a key to your future success in the Company why do you try to obtain a Commonwealth Scholarship.  Yousuf got nervous when we put the above questions to him and a few more. We gave him enough time to prepare the answers. When he faced us second time his performance was much better. Finally Yousuf appeared before the Interview Board. He impressed the Board Members with his answers. When asked by the Board why being an company employee, he applied for the Common Wealth Scholarship Yousuf said, “We face many problems with our products and the best way to solve the problem is a thorough research and find an economic and practical solution. Instead of proving to be an impediment, a higher research degree will be a gateway to a phenomenal success of the company.” Yousuf spent maximum time with the Board and his boss who worked also in the same company was dismissed after 15 minutes. We were overjoyed when the results were announced. That year Yousuf was among few who were selected for the scholarship. It was obvious that if we didn’t prepare Yousuf to face the Interview with adequate preparation and build up in him enough confidence, he wouldn’t have succeeded to top the list among those who were selected for one of the scholarships that were awarded that year.

Tanzania – My wife’s promise

We were at Tanzania then. It was summer 1973. I went to Dar-es-salaam, the capital of Tanzania with my family, consisting of my wife and three children. I went there on a visiting professorship in the university of Dar-es-salaam. There I met many expatriates from different parts of the world, who also went there on a similar mission. There I met one doctor Mrs. Lahiri from Calcutta who taught physics there. The husband, Mr. Lahiri, was an accountant and also an expatriate. One evening we were there on a dinner invitation. It was quite a big party with mostly Bengalis a. The party went on almost until midnight and we ate delicious dishes to our hearts’ content. During the course of conversation, Mrs. Lahiri mentioned that she was in desperate need of a 2 x 2 slide projector and whether any of us could tell her where she could  find one. My wife immediately mentioned that she saw an ad in the billboard in the campus that a slide projector was on sale. The price was reasonable. Thereupon Mrs. Lahiri wondered whether my wife could provide her further information about the projector. My wife promised that she would make an inquiry and provide her with the details after contacting the seller. On our return to the campus, we stopped at that particular location in the University where the notice about the sale of the projector was hung on sale. My wife copied all the details and after reaching home first thing she did was to ring up Mrs. Lahiri. It was such a big surprise for Mrs. Lahiri that my wife would contact her so soon. She said, “We talk about all sorts of things and promise also to our friends, but in most of the cases, such promises are forgotten.” Mrs. Lahiri said that this was the first time in her life she found someone who kept her promise. The following day Mrs. Lahiri rang up the seller of the slide projector and the deal was finalized. The moral of this incident is to tell the readers that in the sub-continent we give our words only to break them. My wife was a teacher for me in this respect. There have been many occasions where I did not keep my promise, mostly because it completely went out of my mind (about the promise). After living with my wife for so many years, I have also cultivated this habit and now-a-days I do not promise unless I seriously mean it. I may mention here that I once invited a dear friend of mine to my house for dinner. I forgot to tell my wife about it. The food was not cooked. It also slipped from my mind that I had invited someone for dinner. On the appointed day, my wife and I went out to visit some friend and did not inform our cook that someone was expected to come. On that day, my friend came and found none in the house except the cook. The gentleman asked the cook whether there was a party in the house and whether he was given instruction to welcome any guests. It was a big surprise for my friend who happened to be a professor of ophthalmology in Sindh medical college, Hyderabad, when the cook informed him about our absence from the house.

Terrorists also have a principle to follow

It was soon after Bangladesh became a sovereign state. I was the Head of the Botany Department, Dhaka University. The last date of applying for admission was over. I was sitting in my office when a number of unruly students forced their way into my room. I had a hunch that they were not normal students and that they won’t hesitate to take law in their own hands if their request for which they came to see me was not acceded to. I asked them to take their seats and inquired about the purpose of their visit. One of them impolitely asked me to admit one of their friends who accompanied them. I inquired whether their friend sat in the admission test and the marks he scored in that test. The reply was in the negative. As soon as I said that without admission test, it won’t be possible for me to consider this case, the situation took a bad turn. The gang leader said, that he couldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer and either I sign the admission form or face the consequence of being manhandled until I yielded. I asked them to calm down and give me a chance to explain the situation. Willy-nilly, they agreed. I said to them that before their arrival, my nephew (sister’s son) had visited me for admission but I refused to sign his form because his marks fell below than that of the last candidate who was allowed admission. They left the room without further hue and cry. The ethical side of this incident is that one cannot have two morale standards, one for his favorites and relations and the other for the rest. Incidentally, fortune smiled on my nephew; later he got a chance in the Rangpur Medical College and became a well-established physician in a complex established by him and his friends. The denial of his admission in the Botany Department was a blessing in disguise for him. A few years later in early eighties, when I was the Chairman of the Department I had another encounter with the unruly section of another student group. The Department got some grant from the Government for construction of the first floor of the Western Wing of the New Building. The contract was given as per rule to the lowest bidder. While the construction was in progress, the contractor came to me and entreated me to do something or else the construction would stop. The contractor said that he had already given a good amount of money to the ‘chandabaj’. He said that he had already stretched his pocket as much as he could and to stretch it further would mean a heavy loss of his investment. He would have either to stop the construction work or use low grade material to continue. I called the concerned student group via a third party to meet me. I explained to them that the contractors were not angels and if they were to meet the demands of every party that approached him, then he would make up the loss by adding more sand than that recommended as per building code and as a result the building would collapse. I told the concerned student leaders that the entire blame in case the roof collapses would fall on their shoulders and if some students perish in the incident, they would be answerable to the student community. Miraculously this strategy worked and the construction of the first floor was completed without further trouble between the contractor and the concerned student leaders.

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A short life history of Ahmad Shamsul Islam0

I was born in Midnapore now in West Bengal in 1924. In Midnapore town lived my maternal grandpa who was a flourishing lawyer in the Lower Court. My father, Late Professor Md. Serajul Islam joined Rajshahi College as a lecturer in Arabic. I had my early education in a Missionary School. From third to 10th grade I was a student at Rajshahi Collegiate School. I appeared at Matriculation examination (now called SSC) from that school in 1941. Thereafter, I studied in Rajshahi College for two years and passed Intermediate in Science in 1945 (now called Higher Secondary School). The next four years saw me in Calcutta where I did my B.Sc. Honors and and M.Sc. in Botany in 1945 and 1947 respectively. On being awarded a British Council Scholarship I proceeded to Manchester University to do my Ph.D. Due to my good work at the Ph.D. level I was awarded the Currie Memorial Prize. Before going to Manchester I worked as a lecturer in Botany from June 1948 to December 1951. In 1955 I joined Sindh University as a full Professor and worked there until late mid 1970. I rejoined Dhaka University as a full professor in 1970 and continued to work there till my retirement in1990. Both at Sindh- and Dhaka University I started Ph.D.  Program and under my solo- and joint supervision, 20 students did their Ph.D. in various areas of genetics and breeding. Some papers containing the Ph.D. results were published in Nature, Science, SABRAO J. Japanese J Plant Breeding, J. of Heredity, Canadian J. Cytology.

Due to my role in research, teaching and contribution to removal of illiteracy and in agriculture I was awarded one of the country’s highest award, namely Ekushey Padak, President’s Gold Medal for my contribution in Agriculture and Bangladesh Academy of Science Gold Medal for being the best Biologist in 1986. I was founder editor of Bangladesh Journal of Botany indexed by Current Contents. As Chief Editor, I still edit the J. of PTC and Biotech. I have about 100 publications in local- and international journals.
After my retirement I migrated with my family to Austin in Texas and worked as a Research Associate at the Department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology for over 10 years until mid-2008. I am now leading a retired life devoting my time writing books which includes both Bengali and English version of my autobiography, a Textbook for graduate and undergraduate students in Bengali.
I have two sons and a daughter. My eldest son, Dr. Yousuf M. Islam is a Professor in Computer Science in Daffodil International University, my daughter is serving as a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in Dhaka University. My youngest son, Khalid W. Islam is a senior consultant to Apple from mento graphics. I have nine grandchildren between the ages 5 to 28 years. The eldest grandson, Nader Islam is a graduate in Accounting from Business School, University of Texas.  One of my grandsons, 17 year of Ahmad Ridwanul Islam is a celebrated debater on Human rights and a prolific writer espousing the casue of down-trodden underprivileged  children of the developing countries such as Bangladesh. The photograph is by the courtesy of Utube taken in the Ankara Conference of the Islamic Academic of Sciences.

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Professor Islam’s contribution to promotion of Plant Tissue Culture in Bangladesh0

About BAPTC&B Background Information leading to the formation of Bangladesh Association for Plant tissue Culture & Biotechnology (BAPTC&B): Workshop in Plant Tissue Culture to create interest among related scientists: In order to create an interest in the fast developing science of plant tissue culture among plant scientists, agriculture specialists and policy makers, a few staff members of the Botany Department, Dhaka University approached the Bangladesh Agricultural research Council (BARC) for funding an international conference on various aspects of tissue culture both from theoretical and practical point of view. Dr. Kazi Baduruddoza, the then Chairman of this organization bought the idea and provided adequate funds to organize a workshop in 1981. Selected scientists from various institutes and universities were participants. Among instructors were distinguished tissue culture scientists from all over the world: Professor T. A. Thorpe from Canada, Professor M. C. Rush from the USA, Dr. Deepak Pental from England, Dr. Krishnamurthy from the Fiji Islands, Late Professor YPS Bajaj, Professor Sipra Guha and Professor S.K. Sen from India, Late Professor Guzman and Dr. F. Z. Zapata from the Philippines, Dr. Goh from Singapore and many more. The proceedings were published with a set of recommendations made by the instructors with the cooperation of local scientists . The recommendations were forwarded to the British Council (BC) and other donor agencies. The response came only from the BC. They agreed to fund a 3-year exchange programme between Dhaka – and Nottingham University. A number of scientists from the Botany Department got trained in tissue culture techniques in Nottingham University. The Chief Technician from Nottingham University came for 6 weeks and helped set up the tissue culture lab in the Botany department, Dhaka University. In the meantime, the then Cholera Research Laboratory offered the use of their LAMINAR FLOW facilities to the students of the Botany Department, Dhaka University. Some Botany students took advantage of their generous gesture and completed their thesis work on such areas such as jute protoplast isolation and their culture. Request was sent to all general universities as well as to Bangladesh Agriculture University and research institutes to build their own tissue culture laboratories. Greenhouse in the Science Museum to grow tissue culture-derived orchids: The S&T Division awarded a liberal grant for the installation of a greenhouse next to the science museum in Agargaon in order to house the tissue culture propagated local and exotic orchids raised in the Botany Department, D.U. The Science Museum location was deliberately chosen. The purpose was to spark an interest among potential entrepreneurs to invest in setting up tissue culture based low cost industry. The greenhouse was set up in record time and indeed it created a potential clientele of entrepreneurs. Tissue Culture Courses at the Graduate Level: Tissue culture courses were introduced in Botany departments of almost all general and the agriculture universities. Some staff members and a few among those who passed out M. Sc. with specialization in tissue culture, did their advanced degrees of M. Phil. and Ph.D. from local universities and abroad. The end of eighties witnessed the growth of a sizeable number of plant tissue culture scientists. At this point it, it may be mentioned that on the request of the British Council, the former ODA arranged a visit of two British Tissue Culture experts, Dr. K.C. Shorts and Dr. A. Roberts in 1988 to Bangladesh. They visited tissue culture laboratories all over the country and saw facilities and the kind of research program that developed in Bangladesh. Among other things, they recommended that an association of tissue culture scientists be formed in Bangladesh to serve the cause of this emerging science. Establishment of Bangladesh Association for Plant Tissue Culture & Biotechnology (BAPTC&B). It’s in this backdrop that some tissue culture scientists felt an urgent need to start a separate organization to promote the growth of science of tissue culture and run a biannual (six monthly journal) of its own devoted soley to tissue culture and related science. The society was formed in spite of some initial opposition as to the justification of the creation of a separate association, when some existing biological societies were hard hit due to financial constraints. The impressive record of past activities, proves that it was a good decision on the part of founder members to form the tissue culture association. Journal of the Society: The Society is regularly publishing the journal called “Plant Tissue Culture” in short for the last eleven years ( #1 of volume 11 is due at the end of June) under the supervision of an efficient Board of Editors with Professor A. S. Islam as the Chief Editor. The journal has proved a popular medium for scientists of the Indian subcontinent, South East and the Middle East countries to publish their tissue culture related findings. Three International Conferences and the 4th one is due in the 1st week of November : The Society has organized THREE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES in 1993, 1995 and 1999. In the second international conference, a joint session of the scientists, journalists, investors, bankers, entrepreneurs was arranged with Professor Mohammad Yunus, the Founder and the Managing Director of “Grameen Bank” in the chair. The objective of the session was to create an investment climate to set up tissue culture based industry in Bangladesh on the pattern of some leading Asian countries like India, Thailand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Nepal etc. that were earning millions of dollars exporting tissue culture derived ornamentals in the form of cut flowers and potted plants. Among participants were big tissue culture magnets from India and Nepal. The first two conferences created enough momentum for a few interested parties to consider seriously setting up tissue culture based industry. Within two years as many as six companies were set up, BRAC (formerly, Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee) laboratory being the largest. One lab was set up in Rajshahi focused mainly on commercial production of potato microtubers. The 1999 Conference went on very well with a large number of distinguished scientists in the area of plant tissue culture and related disciplines. One of them was Dr. Mujeeb Kazi from CIMMYT. The then President of the Association could not attend the meeting; to mark the occasion he wrote a poem entitled, “Some Thoughts to Ponder as We Cross over to the 21st Century. ” In a nutshell, the poem describes the programme of BAPTC&B and the progress it made until March 1999 in the realization of its objectives. Now the Society is organizing the 4th International Conference on the first through fourth November, 2001. Please see the appropriate section for further information. Bangladesh now a member of the International Centre for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (ICGEB): Headed by Dr. Islam, BAPTC&B approached S&T Ministry to apply for membership of ICGEB. BAPTC&B soon realized that tissue culture without genetic engineering has limited uses; so it decided to broaden its scope of activities by bringing genetic transformation and genetic engineering within its fold; and hence its decision to approach S&T in order to obtain financial and technical help from ICGEB. Bangladesh is already reaping the benefit of being a member of ICGEB. Bangladesh has been recognized as an Affiliated Centre of ICGEB and now with its financial assistance and in collaboration with the Biochemistry Department of Dhaka University, BAPTC&B is organizing an International workshop on Novel genetic markers for crop improvement. The organizers of this workshop are: Dr. Syed Hadiuzzaman (President BAPTC&B and Professor of Botany, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh), Professor Haseena Khan (Biochemistry Department University of Dhaka, Bangladesh) and Glenn Gregorio (IRRI, Philippines). Three years back, GoB’s nominee, Professor Ahmed Azad elected to the Council of Scientific Advisors (CSA), ICGEB. Professor Ahmed A. Azad, is now serving the University of Cape Town, South Africa, as the Director of Research, Faculty of Health Science. CSA is the executive body of ICGEB and indeed it is a great honour to be elected to this prestigious body among tough competition in which the world’s leading scientists on biotechnology take part. Professor Azad’s capability as one of the world’s leading vaccine biotechnologists and the relentless effort on the part of BAPTC&B to back up his candidacy with the help of GoB, made it possible for Professor Azad to be elected to this august body of CSA. Copyright © 2001-2004; Bangladesh Association for Plant Tissue Culture & Biotechnology (BAPTC&B). All rights reserved. This site is Developed and hosted by T-Series Solutions.

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An article of interest to intending pilgrims to Makka0

প্রফেসর ড. ইউসুফ এম ইসলাম ‘দ্য নিউজ টুডে’ (The News Today) নামক দৈনিক পত্রিকায় হজ্জ
সম্বন্ধে সাত সপ্তাহ ধরে ধারাবাহিকভাবে প্রতি শুক্রবার এই প্রবন্ধটি সাতটি অংশে প্রকাশ করেন।
আগামী হজ্জ যাত্রীদের সুবিদার্থে ‘ইকরা’তে বাংলায় অনুদিত এই প্রবন্ধটির পুরোটাই প্রকাশ করা হল।
এ সম্বন্ধে কোন প্রশ্ন থাকলে ইউসুফ এম ইসলামকে সরাসরি নিম্নলিখিত ই-মেইল ঠিকানায়  জিজ্ঞাসা
করতে  পারেন। । এখানে ক্লিক করলেই প্রবন্ধটিকে সামনে দেখ্‌তে পাবেন।

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Prof. Yousuf’s Islam’s second busy day at Shiksha O Anusondhan ( শিক্ষা ও অনুসন্ধান) University: MoA signed0

Dhaka 9th March, ’13. Professor Dr. Yousuf M. Islam spent a very busy day in a
fruitful and productive meeting with the Deans of all the 15 institutes at the
Shiksha O Aunoshondhan ( শিক্ষা ও অনুসন্ধান) University (SOA). At the end of the
meeting MOA (a memorandum of SOA_UnivAgreement) between Daffodil
International University and

SOA was signed. We hope and pray that through such an agreement both the
universities will benefit furthering their academic excellence. Dr. Yousuf
accompanied by his wife will fly to Chennai early in the afternoon.

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