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BREAKING NEWS: Humayun Ahmed dies

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MYSTERY OVER HUMAYUN’S DEATH
‘Infection transmitted through food or water’

M. Shahidul Islam

He was arguably the best among the contemporary story teller. Now his own story must be told with painstaking probing, courage and hindsight. The sad demise of Humayun Ahmed on July 19 at New York’s Bellevue Hospital did not occur due to cancer for which he had undergone treatment since September last year.
According to hospital records, the legendary writer succumbed to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), spurred by a post-surgery infection. The killer infection got transmitted by a virus which, according to experts, might have been injected into his frail metabolism leading to the fatal consequences.
“Although viruses can spread by simple contact, exchanges of saliva, coughing, sneezing and sexual contact, Humayun’s infection was transmitted through the oral route via contaminated food or water,” opined an expert, insisting on anonymity.

This simply implies he may have been poisoned. On July 18, a day before he died, Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative at the UN acknowledged that an ‘unknown virus had attacked the writer, affecting his lungs and liver.’ The oft spoken virus is a phenomenon of which no one was aware of, or prepared for.
Prior to departing New York for Dhaka on May 11, his wife, Meher Afroz Shaon, said the third phase of his treatment would start through the operation at Bellevue Hospital in New York on June 12. “The operation is very important. So the writer wants to meet relatives…to seek blessings,” she added.
When asked about his condition, Shaon exuded confidence. “You can understand, we’ve been allowed to travel to Dhaka as his condition has improved. He will have to stay in the hospital for two weeks after the surgery,” she said.
As the writer returned after 20 days of sojourn in his native land, he found himself afflicted by a new disease. According to Mazharul Islam of Anya Prokash Publications Ltd., who’s a long-time friend of the writer, “On the day of his death, doctors said his kidney and heart were still working well. But soon, his lungs were attacked by a foreign infection.”
How does one succumb to ‘foreign infection’ in the oldest and one of the most acclaimed US hospitals is the mystery that is sprouting speculations, angst, murmurs and conspiracy theories. This is also a hypothesis that’s being probed and gaining convincing credence with each passing moment.
Humayun and his close family members have long been under the spell of an inexplicable dilemma since the banning of his latest novel, Deyal, and the author’s negation to correct his version of the tales of August 15, 1975 that he strove diligently to fictionalize with brutal candidness. The dilemma compounded further due to the government’s pre-emptive move in January to appoint the writer as the special adviser to the Bangladesh mission in New York; aware that the book would be published soon and some of its contents were not palatable to the powers that be.
In hindsight, government’s act of generosity appears superfluous, for the writer had paid for his treatment from September 2011 to January 2012 when the government chipped in. The purported generosity of the government would have been blemish-free had the writer not been on the throes of publishing his first political novel; one which covers the hyper-sensitive Mujib killing episode; a matter of intense passion and preoccupation to the incumbent Prime Minister of the country.
Now, many of Humayun’s well wishers have started to believe that the writer’s negation to rewrite some chapters of Deyal has foisted him face to face with the country’s judiciary as well as the government which had quickly proscribed the book pending to some correction, following the May 15 court ruling.
While in Dhaka, Humayun found the Deyal proscribed for allegedly distorting how the nation’s first president and his family members were murdered in 1975.
Upon arrival at the Shahjalal international airport, famed writer Zafar Iqbal, Humayun’s intimate sibling - who was present in New York during Humayun’s death - confirmed that Humayun “died not of cancer, but of post-surgery virus infection.”
The reiterated claims are profoundly worrying as they irreversibly shift the cause of the writer’s death from cancer to virus infection, and, the transformative anecdote helps propel the plot of his death into a higher trajectory of suspense.
In life, Humayun was often labelled by his fans as a ‘moonstruck fantasist’ due to his obsession with moonlit-night and rain. The ‘moonstruck’ king of romanticism and laughter was not a lunatic, however, as the term would literally imply. A prolific, charismatic author of 322 books and countless drama and cinematic scripts, he had had reasons enough to feel awe-struck and intimidated by the banning saga and what followed.
In the terminal days, he was helpless too; for a legal foil for the ban of his book was offered by a High Court ruling on May 15 after the Attorney General quickly moved to seek the ban upon seeing some fragmented citation of it on May 11 in a vernacular daily. The Attorney General argued that the book ‘misrepresented established facts’ about the August 15 tragedy by not fully conveying the brutality of the killings.
Of particular concern to the government is the narrative of the death of Sheikh Russel, Mujib’s 10-year-old son, who was gunned down at point-blank range while being huddled in a room with his two sisters-in-law. “It was a brutal scene, but it was not depicted properly in the novel,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters at that time. Alam insisted that Russel was with a caregiver (nanny) in another room, not with his sisters-in-law, as the book claimed.
How big a deal that is? And, who had testified where exactly Russel was before being killed, most of the inmates of the house being dead? Above all, are fictions supposed to be the blow-by-blow depiction of facts?
Those questions will never be answered by a coterie of self-gratifying, partisan pundits for whom hobnobbing with the government is more important than seeking truth. An author read by millions and of high stature, Humayun had least expected a concerted onslaught on his writings, although the history of Bangladesh has been re-written many times since the coming to power of the AL-led regime in 2009. He felt thunderstruck when the axe came down hard on his composition too.
Earlier in March, the high court ordered police to censor 17 academics for allegedly distorting the history of the liberation war and maligning Mujib in a school textbook. In January, millions of copies of a textbook were ordered seized after dispute erupted over crediting the heroes of the independence struggle. One of Humayun’s cardinal sins was his portrayal of Colonels Farooque, Rashid, et al - the masterminds of the August 15 coup - as liberation war heroes.
Of course they were heroes in 1971, and, that is the correct version of history. True liberation war heroes are those who’d joined the battle, braved the bullets and shed the blood. Besides, the fabric of history may be woven from facts, writers have their own interpretation of events and occurrences. Humayun, like many others, exercised his chic ingenuity to depict an event as he perceived it. As a veteran in the field, he might have spruced up and fantasized many other anecdotes to captivate readers, although, as yet, we do not know for sure due to the book never having encountered the daylight.
 
MYSTERY OVER HUMAYUN’S DEATH
‘Infection transmitted through food or water’

M. Shahidul Islam

He was arguably the best among the contemporary story teller. Now his own story must be told with painstaking probing, courage and hindsight. The sad demise of Humayun Ahmed on July 19 at New York’s Bellevue Hospital did not occur due to cancer for which he had undergone treatment since September last year.
According to hospital records, the legendary writer succumbed to Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), spurred by a post-surgery infection. The killer infection got transmitted by a virus which, according to experts, might have been injected into his frail metabolism leading to the fatal consequences.
“Although viruses can spread by simple contact, exchanges of saliva, coughing, sneezing and sexual contact, Humayun’s infection was transmitted through the oral route via contaminated food or water,” opined an expert, insisting on anonymity.

This simply implies he may have been poisoned. On July 18, a day before he died, Bangladesh’s Permanent Representative at the UN acknowledged that an ‘unknown virus had attacked the writer, affecting his lungs and liver.’ The oft spoken virus is a phenomenon of which no one was aware of, or prepared for.
Prior to departing New York for Dhaka on May 11, his wife, Meher Afroz Shaon, said the third phase of his treatment would start through the operation at Bellevue Hospital in New York on June 12. “The operation is very important. So the writer wants to meet relatives…to seek blessings,” she added.
When asked about his condition, Shaon exuded confidence. “You can understand, we’ve been allowed to travel to Dhaka as his condition has improved. He will have to stay in the hospital for two weeks after the surgery,” she said.
As the writer returned after 20 days of sojourn in his native land, he found himself afflicted by a new disease. According to Mazharul Islam of Anya Prokash Publications Ltd., who’s a long-time friend of the writer, “On the day of his death, doctors said his kidney and heart were still working well. But soon, his lungs were attacked by a foreign infection.”
How does one succumb to ‘foreign infection’ in the oldest and one of the most acclaimed US hospitals is the mystery that is sprouting speculations, angst, murmurs and conspiracy theories. This is also a hypothesis that’s being probed and gaining convincing credence with each passing moment.
Humayun and his close family members have long been under the spell of an inexplicable dilemma since the banning of his latest novel, Deyal, and the author’s negation to correct his version of the tales of August 15, 1975 that he strove diligently to fictionalize with brutal candidness. The dilemma compounded further due to the government’s pre-emptive move in January to appoint the writer as the special adviser to the Bangladesh mission in New York; aware that the book would be published soon and some of its contents were not palatable to the powers that be.
In hindsight, government’s act of generosity appears superfluous, for the writer had paid for his treatment from September 2011 to January 2012 when the government chipped in. The purported generosity of the government would have been blemish-free had the writer not been on the throes of publishing his first political novel; one which covers the hyper-sensitive Mujib killing episode; a matter of intense passion and preoccupation to the incumbent Prime Minister of the country.
Now, many of Humayun’s well wishers have started to believe that the writer’s negation to rewrite some chapters of Deyal has foisted him face to face with the country’s judiciary as well as the government which had quickly proscribed the book pending to some correction, following the May 15 court ruling.
While in Dhaka, Humayun found the Deyal proscribed for allegedly distorting how the nation’s first president and his family members were murdered in 1975.
Upon arrival at the Shahjalal international airport, famed writer Zafar Iqbal, Humayun’s intimate sibling - who was present in New York during Humayun’s death - confirmed that Humayun “died not of cancer, but of post-surgery virus infection.”
The reiterated claims are profoundly worrying as they irreversibly shift the cause of the writer’s death from cancer to virus infection, and, the transformative anecdote helps propel the plot of his death into a higher trajectory of suspense.
In life, Humayun was often labelled by his fans as a ‘moonstruck fantasist’ due to his obsession with moonlit-night and rain. The ‘moonstruck’ king of romanticism and laughter was not a lunatic, however, as the term would literally imply. A prolific, charismatic author of 322 books and countless drama and cinematic scripts, he had had reasons enough to feel awe-struck and intimidated by the banning saga and what followed.
In the terminal days, he was helpless too; for a legal foil for the ban of his book was offered by a High Court ruling on May 15 after the Attorney General quickly moved to seek the ban upon seeing some fragmented citation of it on May 11 in a vernacular daily. The Attorney General argued that the book ‘misrepresented established facts’ about the August 15 tragedy by not fully conveying the brutality of the killings.
Of particular concern to the government is the narrative of the death of Sheikh Russel, Mujib’s 10-year-old son, who was gunned down at point-blank range while being huddled in a room with his two sisters-in-law. “It was a brutal scene, but it was not depicted properly in the novel,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told reporters at that time. Alam insisted that Russel was with a caregiver (nanny) in another room, not with his sisters-in-law, as the book claimed.
How big a deal that is? And, who had testified where exactly Russel was before being killed, most of the inmates of the house being dead? Above all, are fictions supposed to be the blow-by-blow depiction of facts?
Those questions will never be answered by a coterie of self-gratifying, partisan pundits for whom hobnobbing with the government is more important than seeking truth. An author read by millions and of high stature, Humayun had least expected a concerted onslaught on his writings, although the history of Bangladesh has been re-written many times since the coming to power of the AL-led regime in 2009. He felt thunderstruck when the axe came down hard on his composition too.
Earlier in March, the high court ordered police to censor 17 academics for allegedly distorting the history of the liberation war and maligning Mujib in a school textbook. In January, millions of copies of a textbook were ordered seized after dispute erupted over crediting the heroes of the independence struggle. One of Humayun’s cardinal sins was his portrayal of Colonels Farooque, Rashid, et al - the masterminds of the August 15 coup - as liberation war heroes.
Of course they were heroes in 1971, and, that is the correct version of history. True liberation war heroes are those who’d joined the battle, braved the bullets and shed the blood. Besides, the fabric of history may be woven from facts, writers have their own interpretation of events and occurrences. Humayun, like many others, exercised his chic ingenuity to depict an event as he perceived it. As a veteran in the field, he might have spruced up and fantasized many other anecdotes to captivate readers, although, as yet, we do not know for sure due to the book never having encountered the daylight.

Poisoned in a US hospital???? The doctors would have immediately known he was poisoned and an autopsy would have uncovered the nature of the poison.
 
well it was american doctors who were responsible for post-operative infection! Humayun succumed to this respiratory tract infection in his post operative immune compromised state! No one said anything! Thanks God it didn't happen in Bangladesh! Bd te hole doctor der gushti uddhar hoe Jeto!
 
The guy was weak. His immune system wasn't strong enough to sustain this kind of treatment. This BS should stop and people should move on. Too many death/grave worshipers in Bd. What is this BS about placing flower wreath on dead body and grave yard. It has become fashion in BD. Don't give me this crap about showing respect to dead as if death can see or feel. :angry:
 
Poisoned in a US hospital???? The doctors would have immediately known he was poisoned and an autopsy would have uncovered the nature of the poison.

Poisoning or infection took place when he was home not in hospital. Something went wrong there for sure.
 
Poisoning or infection took place when he was home not in hospital. Something went wrong there for sure.

Case filed against Shaon, Mazharul for 'killing Humayun'

Chittagong, Aug 1 (UNB) – A case has been filed against Meher Afroz Shaon, wife of Humayun Ahmed, and Mazharul Islam, owner of Anya Prokash, on charge of killing the celebrated writer.

Advocate Nazrul Islam filed the case with the court of Chief Metropolitan Magistrate of Chittagong ABM Nizamul Haque on Wednesday morning.

The court took cognisance of the case and ordered Criminal Investigation Department CID) to submit a report in this connection after proper investigation.

In his case statement, Nazrul alleged that Humayun Ahmed was killed in a pre-planned way. “Shaon and Mazharul murdered him in collusion with each other to grab his property,” the plaintiff told the court.

Humayun Ahmed died on July 19 at Bellevue Hospital, New York, after a nine-month battle against cancer at the age of 64, bringing the curtain down on an illustrious career of nearly four decades.

UNBconnect... - Case filed against Shaon, Mazharul for 'killing Humayun'
 
^^^^ this kind of drama is pathetically unnecessary. That guy was weak towards women and married a girl his daughter's age so both are at fault here. Though islamically he could have kept both wives but he was not religious either. Just because he is a acclaimed writer the girl shaon is the only one at fault here eh? Pathetic people will cook up all sorts of conspiracies and make the girl's and the former wives life a living hell. Foul pasal chara ai Nazrul der moto loker ar kono kaj nai. Bunch of pathetic hypocrites.
 
ুহাশ তার বাবা হুমায়ুন আহমেদকে জুলাই মাসে একটা চিঠি লিখেছিলেন। শেষ পর্যন্ত সেটি আর পাঠানো হয়নি। অপ্রেরিত সে চিঠি আজ ইংরেজি দৈনিক স্টারে প্রকাশিত হয়েছে।

সেই চিঠির ভাষান্তর তুলে ধরছি:

বাবা, আশা করি তুমি ভালো বোধ করছ। আমার শরীরটাও ভালো যাচ্ছে না, টাইফয়েড হবার কারণে পাকস্থলী বেশ ভোগাচ্ছে। এক সপ্তাহ ধরে প্রায় কিছু না খেয়ে কাটিয়েছি, অন্যদিকে জাউ নামের এক অখাদ্য বিছানায় শুয়ে খেতে খেতে সেই ভাল...
ো খাবারের কথা ভাবছি যা সুস্থ হলে খেতে পারব। একবার গলদা চিংড়ি খাবার শখ হয়েছিল, তখন একটা ঘটনার কথা মনে পড়ল।

মা ও তোমার বিচ্ছেদ হবার পর আমার খুব খারাপ সময় যাচ্ছিল, সব সময় আশায় আশায় ছিলাম তুমি আমাদের মাঝে ফিরে আসবে। বিচ্ছেদ চূড়ান্ত হবার পর বুঝলাম দরজা চির জীবনের জন্য বন্ধ হয়ে গেছে । রসায়নের পরিভাষায় যাকে বলে আগুন জ্বলে উঠা, সেটি প্রত্যক্ষ করলাম। তখন আমার ভয় হয়েছিল তোমার সাথে আমার দুরত্ব বাড়বে এবং তুমি আমাকে তোমার ছেলে হিসেবে দেখবে না।

বিচ্ছেদের কয়েকদিন পর তুমি ফোন করে বললে তুমি বাজার থেকে মস্ত বড় এক গলদা চিংড়ি কিনেছ এবং সেটি রান্না করে আমাকে নিয়ে খেতে চাও তোমার বাসায়। শীতল যুদ্ধের সময় এটা যে সম্ভব না তা আমরা জানতাম ।ঘটনা ঘটলো অন্য কিছু। আধা ঘন্টার পর বাসার কলিং বেল বেজে উঠলো, দারোয়ান জানালো মস্ত বড় এক গলদা চিংড়ি নিয়ে তুমি গেটে অপেক্ষা করছ।

বিস্মিত, হতভম্ব আর খানিকটা উত্তেজিত আমি নিচে নামলাম, তুমি বললে: "পুত্র, আমি আসলেই এটা তোমার সাথে খেতে চেয়েছি, তবে এটা এখন সম্ভব হবে না।আমি তোমাকে নিশ্চয়তা দিচ্ছি আমি সব সময় তোমার পাশে থাকব, কোনো একদিন আমরা একসঙ্গে ভালো খাবার খাব, তবে এখন তোমাকে এটা নিতে হবে"- এই বলে তুমি আমার হাতে জীবন্ত গলদা চিংড়ি ধরিয়ে দিলে।

বড় চোখ আর লিকলিকে লম্বা পা-অলা বিদঘুটে প্রাণীটি আমার মনে আশার আলো জ্বালালো, সে আশা এই যে, পরিস্থিতি যাই হোক না কেন, তুমি সব সময় আমার কাছে থাকার চেষ্টা করবে।

আমার মনে হয় তোমার জন্য আমি কিছুই করতে পারিনি, অন্তত আমার যা করা উচিত ছিল।তোমাকে যখন ফোন করতাম, তুমি কথা বলার অবস্থায় থাকতে না, আবার যখন কথা বলেছি আমি তখন নিজেকে ঠিকমত প্রকাশ করতে পারিনি। তোমার মত কথক তো আমি নই ।

ঢাকাতে ফিরে আসার পর তোমাকে দেখতে গিয়ে খুব কষ্ট হচ্ছিল আমার। গেটে দারোয়ান প্রতি বারই থামাত। বাবাকে দেখতে চাইলে কোনো দারোয়ানের কাছে ছেলের জবাব দিতে হবে, এটা উচিত নয়। এটা কোনো ছুতো নয়, আমার আসলে তোমার কাছে আরো থাকার দরকার ছিল।

আমি সব কিছু বদলাতে চাই, আমি তোমাকে জানাতে চাই আমি সত্যি তোমাকে মিস করি, আমি তোমাকে জানাতে চাই আমার মত করে তোমাকে আমি পাইনা বলে আমার মনে অনেক জ্বালা। আমার এই চিঠিটা তোমার কাছে গলদা চিংড়ি, তোমার পুত্র নুহাশ।

An unsent letter By Nuhash

Baba

I hope you're feeling well. I haven't been feeling great myself. I caught typhoid and the sickness made my stomach extremely sensitive. For an entire week I ate nothing but a disgustingly unappetising form of rice that I believe is called jau in Bangla. Bed ridden and stuck eating jau, I imagined all the delicious things I'd finally get to eat once I was better. At one point, I was really craving lobster and it reminded me of something.

Right after you and Mom got divorced, things were pretty rough for me. For one thing, I always hoped that things might get back to normal and you would move back in with us. But after the divorce I realised that door is permanently closed. In chemistry terms, I witnessed a combustion; a burn. An irreversible process.

What I was most afraid of was that you and I would get distanced and you wouldn't see me as your son anymore. A few days after the divorce, you called me up. You said you just came back from the bazaar with some gigantic lobsters and you wanted to cook them and have them with me at your place. We both knew that wouldn't be possible. You can't have a feast during the Cold War. But that wasn't the end of it. About half an hour later, the intercom started ringing. The guard told me my father was standing outside the gate holding a live lobster. I went downstairs puzzled, amused and slightly excited. You said, "Son, I really wanted to have this with you, but it just isn't possible right now. I can assure you, however, that I'll always be around. And someday, we can sit and have a good meal together again. But for now, I want you to have this." And then you handed me a live lobster. That horrendous creature, with its beady eyes and slimy long feet, to me, meant hope. Hope that no matter the circumstances, you would always try to be there for me.

I don't think I've been there for you, at least not as much as I should have been. When I did call you, you were usually not in a state to talk. And even when we did, I've been too upset to express myself well. I was never the wordsmith you were. Coming to see you was painful when you returned to Dhaka before your surgery. It was painful to be stopped at the gates to your place every time. No son should have to answer to a security guard every time he wants to see his father. But none of that is an excuse; I should have been there for you more. I want all that to change. I want to let you know that I really miss you. I want you to know it still burns me that I can't have you around as much as I'd like. This letter is my lobster to you.
 
boring boring boring.. my grandmother also died the other day, but life goes on! Time to move on guys. Thread closed! :D
 

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