A man basking in the warmth of life

It was a sad beginning of the day for each of us working in the Holiday. And a hectic day too, for it was Thursday, the last weekday, when we all remain busy, hurrying to complete the last-minute tasks on hand for the production of the newspaper on Friday. We could not see anything sad impending until we stepped in the office to hear that someone from Akbar Imam’s house had rung up in the morning to deliver the shocking news of his death, on his way to hospital after he had suffered a cardiac arrest at dawn.

Each of us after entering the office was stopped short by some collegue or the other asking if we had heard of the news, the last man in, with a blank look, kept staring and then pushed off silently to his desk, thinking that the man who loved life had shuffled off his mortal coil, untimely, and gone off into an unknown world.

I first met him when I joined the Holiday in 1998. On my first day in office, feeling a little sheepish, I talked to the Chief Editor, who then introduced me to Akbar bhai. Being the first workday of the week, there was almost none around and Akbar bhai, pulling up a chair, sat at his desk and showed his warmth and friendship to assure me that there would be no problem working in this new work environment. We exchanged pleasantries and talked of our respective university studentship days. We had both studied at the same department of the University of Dhaka, although his studentship was around 20 years older than mine.

Basking in the warmth of life, he was always jovial, ready to accept what may come, for the better or the worse. Over a cup of tea, crunching a biscuit or two, we two worked late into the night, with no one around, writing reports or doing the layout of the pages.

One thing very typical of him was that he always started his with one report in hand and, as it neared the last weekday, he landed up with a handful of tasks, all by his own plans, which were at times almost impossible to accomplish. he was upright and dauntless in his professional duties, always eager to put in what could be the talk of the town. He, at times, even entered into the production room as late as the time when printing plates were going to the printers and started demanding that certain news items should be accommodated otherwise the Holiday would miss its edge over others.

Rambunctious, argumentative, feisty and courageous to a fault, he was one of the most fearless reporters I have ever seen. He dared to write reports that others did not dare to think of touch. His report on former Home Minister Md. Nasim’s son getting into street brawl with a[n] unwary youth and then a whole party-gang hounding out the latter and brutally beating him in thana custody made way to the US Human Rights Report of 1998. No other paper would touch the story. He wrote on the MIG purchase scam, the depredations of the so-called Eagle Bahini, etc. He became the start reporter of Holiday by penning many scoops. No injustices escaped the attack of his scathing pen.

His father was an MLA in Pakistan times when most of today’s elite had just begun emerging from the villages. Being an honest man, he left Akbar bhai and his siblings no legacy but education and a commitment to the truth.

We lost touch with each other for about a year and a half. I was off on a job with another magazine, and he stayed back. By the time I came back to the Holiday, he had left the Holiday house and joined a web magazine. This time I planned several times to ring him up to say “hello,” but like many other might-have-beens, this never took place. However, may the departed soul rest in peace.

—o—

Akbar Imam, who worked as special correspondent with the Weekly Holiday, died in the morning on 18 Oct. 2001. The news on his death was printed in the 19 Oct. 2001 issue of the Holiday on page 15.