Humayun Ahmed, our king of words
At a time when almost everybody was reading Humayun Ahmed's novel, I hardly read the same thinking them to be of less literary value. No one then told me that there was a great message and food for thought and recreation in his deceptively simple, direct and light-hearted style of telling stories. Then when the writer married Shaon, an architect and artiste of his daughter's age, I bracketed him with other bohemian type popular and prolific writers of the world. How wrong I was then! I now very well understand that he lived his life aggressively.
What is remarkable is that Humayun has become larger than life after his death. Even people like me who had wrong notions about him have started to know about Humayun. He was imposing but beneath that apparently hard attitude flowed the stream of love and affection. Small wonder the protagonists of his novels and drama were, as it were, his own alter egos. .
The way we paid respect to this great mind, turning out in thousands when our 'King of Words' was being laid to eternal rest only shows depth of their love for the writer in their hearts. People braved torrential rain and muddy terrain to come and have a glimpse of their beloved writer in his last journey of life. What was the magic? It was nothing but the love for literature and a benevolent regal mind. Cannot we now come forward in thousands to rid ourselves of all those bad things he criticized through his writings?
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