My Life – Page 6 – Adnan's Den

Hurricane Sidr: Ciy life collapsed

Sidr, the largest cyclone in the history of Bangladesh, ripped through the southwestern coast late Thursday. It was a nightmare for Bangladesh. Not only the coastal area but also the city life was tremendously disturbed. Sidr caused the National Power Grid to collapse completely yesterday morning, which ultimately triggered a knock-on effect on piped water supplies, telecommunication and gas filling station operations.

This hurricane actually hit the coastal area of Bangladesh. But the capital Dhaka was also fallen within it’s grasp. After the thursday midnight, the gusty wind became more furious with heavy rain. At 7 o’clock of Friday morning, the electricity supply was terminated. In evening when I went outside home, I saw the actual catastrophe that was accomplished by Sidr.

On Friday evening, me and my mom went to Motijhil for joining a Doa Mahfil of one of my late relative. I could not refill the CNG cylinder of our car as all the Gas Station was remain closed. So I had to switch the engine in Octane mode. The whole city was tremendously disturbed by the storm. When I was crossing the Rajarbag Police Line, I had to drive very carefully as large trees were uprooted and flattened on the street blocking the traffic. Some people were trying to remove the trees by sawing them, as it is difficult to carry those large trees to other places.

This picture has been taken from the Farmgate area on Friday night. as there were no neon signs, lighted billboards or streetlights for the Power Grid failure; only the headlights of the vehicles glimmered on the street.

Photo Courtesy: The Daily Star

Electronic Communication system came to a halt as there is no electricity supply. Even the internet was disrupted! The cellular telecommunication was very much sporadic, as sometimes network coverage was totally blank. After evening, I could not contact anyone using my mobile phone as the network strength indicator of my phone had suddenly disappeared! The hurricane affected the National Power Grid heavily. Today when I am writing this post, still there is a discontinuous supply of electricity.

As I mentioned earlier, it was the most robust cyclone in the history of Bangladesh. It was stronger than those of 1970’s and 1991’s. Still the damages could not be measured properly, but it is sure that it will be an enormous amount.

Please… be at the side of the victims. They need your help.

Miss U, Dipu.

I am terribly missing you buddy, since you went to Bhutan on an official assignment. It’ll be very difficult for me to spent days without talking to you. I’ll miss our Friday’s & Saturday’s adda and the snacks in Star Kabab. The night before your leaving I couldn’t imagine what I’ll feel after you left Bangladesh. Only three days have been passed after your leaving Bangladesh, but it seems to me as if I am missing you for ages! I never thought of such a long interval since we’ve first met in IUT.I can’t say what is friendship because it is a matter of realization. For the last few years I realized your shadow in every steps of my life. I found you in my joy as well as my sorrow. You are one of my source of every kind of helps. Without realizing you have become my closest friend.

May your stay in Bhutan be remarkable. Never be hopeless, yaar. Always remember, there is one of your buddies who will pray for you forever. You are always something more than a friend to me.

Hope to see you on the upcoming Eid-ul-Adha, inshallah. Miss you yaar!

Back to the Busy Life.

I am going to embrace the busy life again. As the classes of Fall 2007 semester in AUST has begun in a full swing, I’ll be again in the classroom in front of a white board delivering lectures. For the last three weeks, AUST was not so much active as the students were in vacation after their semester final exam. Though the classes started from this week; due to the first week of the new semester, AUST did not seem to be alive at all.

This semester I was assigned to co-ordinate a new course, that is, Digital Electronics. My previous course, Programming Language, is assigned to Minhaz Akram (one of my senior from IUT and a lecturer in EEE department AUST). Mr. Ahmedullah Siddiq, Assistant Professor from our EEE department helped me much for this subject. Hopefully I’ll enjoy the subject. As it is a new subject for me, it will keep me quite busy for a pretty long time.

Sometimes I think, what I’m missing in life? Life is becoming very busy day-by-day. Can’t manage time for meeting the old friends. Can’t have a moment break to escape from the monotonous of every day’s life. Can’t get a chance to enjoy the beauty of the nature. But whatever I say, I’ve no choice, this is life, and I’ve to admit it.

November Rain.

It’s November, the beginning of the winter. The curtain of fogs are just waiting to be fallen. Every morning is becoming chiller than the previous day. Sun rises in late everyday. Weather is becoming more lifeless. The trumpet of winter is heard from a distance. All arrangements has been set, just waiting for the arrival of winter. Countdown has been begun. But all of a sudden, like an adroit warrior, Rain just swept away all the preparations. This November rain took place in this afternoon, making a sudden pause to the urban life.

From the very morning, the sky was bright with a shiny winter sun. After a few hours, the sky began to change it’s look, turning into gloomy grey from gleeful combination of blue and white. Then it changed into dark grey at afternoon. I was on a rickshaw at that time. I could smell the scent of rain in the wind. After a few minutes, large chill drops of rain began to trickle upon me. Not a bad feeling. It was comfortable until the smaller drops started to bite. I pulled the rickshaw-hood to cover myself.

Then all of a sudden, it turned into a heavy rainfall. People were running to and fro for shelters. I was half soaked. I could not see the front view, all nature suddenly became blur. Dhanmondi Lake was looking like a artistic masterpiece. The pulsating lake surface together with a down poured nature made a picturesque view. The streets were shinning with the bright headlight and red taillight of the cars. A few minutes later, the rain had stopped. But it left it’s muddy signature on the street.

I am an engineer, not a poet. Engineers were claimed to have a solid mechanical heart and were far from realizing the beauty of nature. And I am not opposing this hypothesis. But sometime those mechanical organ feels flabby inside and can be allured by the beauty that is molded by the Almighty Himself. And I am not so much different from them!

One year in AUST!

I should have written this article earlier, due to my busy life I couldn’t find out spare times to write it all! Actually I also forgot the date of my joining in Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology as a Lecturer. Last Wednesday Shorif Bhai, one of my colleagues, reminded me the anniversary. I was amused at that time by thinking that how fast time flows.

After graduating from IUT on September 2006, I joined in AUST on October 2006. Frankly speaking I didn’t have any desire for the teaching life. While I was student, I used to dream of various engineering jobs but not the teaching. Even “I can be a teacher” – i never thought this line in my life; but now I am a teacher… a teacher of a prestigious private engineering university of Bangladesh…who could’ve think of that?

I’m still confused whether I am enjoying my job! But I found my colleagues very helpful and approachable. I always used to think that teachers are always boring, they don’t have any fun in their life or at least what they call fun is not fun to us. My this type of idea was punctured when I got in touch with my colleagues. In our teacher’s common room (Rm#213) of EEE department , there is always an euphoric environment all through. Bobby bhai and Ferdous bhai is the center of any gossip. Sometimes Jahangir bhai also joined there. Shorif bhai is one of my closest colleagues though he is 2 years senior to me. He is very friendly and jolly by nature. Biplob Bhai, Minhaz Bhai, Mushfiq Bhai, Mizan Bhai – all are very much helpful in any condition. Monju bhai is a sweet guy who likes laugh and is popular for his pinching people. He is a constant supply of fun. By the way I am the junior most lecturer in our department still now. I’ve Kaiser Habib, not junior to me but my batch-mate. So we two are the most junior teachers in the whole university!

I almost forgot to mention Momo aapu and Sadia Aapu. We call them “Sokhi” which means something like “friends forever” in Bangla. They sit together, eat together, take a break together, gossip together, take labs together, even they had the record of being sick for almost a week together! Oh… there is one difference between them, they live in different places, one in Mohammadpur and another one in Uttora. By the way, I like Momo aapu, because she never says “no” when I ask her for a lunch after invigilating her class tests.

I’ve got some students who greeted me on EID day. I was very much surprised at that, because I could not remember that I greeted any of my teachers on Eid day. By the way, I do have some potential students, who are very mush eager to prove themselves.

Another year of my AUST life has begun. Don’t know what is in future, but to my horrible, I think, slowly I am gonna like this profession! If it happens then history of mankind will be never aware of a dazzling Engineer in Electrical domain (that means me 😀 ).