Outstanding scholar
Your editorial (20.Oct) ,”A unique achievement” where the illustrious and arduous activities of Professor Jamal Islam and his sister Professor Sultana Zaman are briefly mentioned is indeed an overdue acknowledgement of such talents and their activities in Bangladesh.
I did not have any opportunity to meet Professor Zaman , however the mention of Jamal threw me back about sixty years when in Autumn of 1951, I, along with a handful of other Bengali lads were sent to Lawrence College in Ghora Gali (about one and a half mile down from the hill-town of Murree in Punjab) for special training and where we met the only other two teen age Bengali brothers Kamal and Jamal Islam. Kamal was couple of years older than me, (a proficient singer of Hindi and Urdu songs at student parties by the way), and moved in senior circles so I did not see much of him. But Jamal and I were about the same age and soon became easy friends and developed a rapport. And although it was far away and long ago, we have been in intermittent touch and memories of our time in Lawrence College are ever-fresh in my mind. In particular even at that tender age I remember we conversed a lot about the mysteries and apparent paradoxes of many mathematical puzzles and phenomena (for instance parallel lines meeting at infinity) and that of the visible and theoretical universe. The rugged and silent mountain peaks, the cedar and pine laden Himalayan foot hills certainly contributed to such lofty meandering of the minds. I remember our shared reading of a book in the college library, where we were admitted at different times. The book was an adventure story about pearl divers in a South Sea Island and was called “Twenty Fathoms Deep”.
With the onset of winter and snow Lawrence College was in hibernation for about 3 months. Kamal and Jamal returned home ( to Chittagong) for vacation and we, who were under a special training programme to be mariners were moved to Aitchison College , Lahore, and then in summer of 1952 we were sent to UK by the Pakistan Central Government to complete our training in UK taking several years.
Later in late sixties and onwards I met Jamal a few times ( once with my family) at his Cambridge home called “Sabzazar” and enjoyed the hospitality of him and his wife and discussed many mathematical and cosmological matters as before. I knew that he was in first name terms with many Nobel Laureates including Professor Salam, and was working as a visiting Professor in many US universities. He gave me a recently published copy of his book, “The Ultimate Fate of the Universe” (Cambridge University Press, 1983) which I still cherish. He was working at the time as 'Reader in Mathematics' in City University, London, and was commuting from Cambridge. He expressed his intention to leave for a comparable job in Bangladesh rather than stay abroad, which I thought was extremely noble and unselfish of him.
Of course I have again renewed our contact over the last few years and although I did not know the details of his accomplishments, reading it in your editorial makes me extremely proud of him as my childhood friend. After retirement from my own job as a British Civil Servant, I became a mature student to gain proper knowledge of my scientific and mathematical interests, and inter alia studied for an MSc degree in Astrophysics at the University of London. Then I came across various textbooks on relativistic cosmology, with tensor analysis etc., written by Jamal ( and published by Cambridge UP), which are required reading material in many universities in Britain and the U.S. Also I met many Professors and visiting Professors in informal gatherings, lectures and discussions who all knew Jamal and his writings and who were surprised to hear that I was at school with him. A rare and reflected honour indeed!
The school song of Lawrence College of the time (I understand it was a version of the old Eton Boat song) often rings in my ears: “Forty years on when afar and asunder/ Parted are those who are singing today. When you look back and forgetfully wonder/What you were like in your work and your play?..”
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