A few days ago several of my colleagues and I were returning home by a CNG-run auto-rickshaw after our scheduled office time at night. It was around 11:30 pm. Any regular commuter on Dhaka roads knows this is not a peak hour for traffic, but not lean time either. This is such a time when drivers of public transports in Dhaka try to showcase their skill in speed after driving the vehicle rather slowly the whole day.
At such a time, our auto-rickshaw driver was also not immune to the temptation. He showed his talent as sped past the Aarong Intersection at the western end of wide Manik Mia Avenue disobeying the traffic light. Awed, I just asked, “Bhai, what have you done! There was a red light there. You should have waited for the light to turn green.” The driver, however, in a rather casual tone answered, “Bhai, there is no traffic rule after 11:00 pm.”
Listening to his response to my worries, I thought about reporting this to the supervisor of our office’s transport department. Maybe this could be a solution for one driver but what could be the remedy of this startling collective idea of transport drivers that “There is no traffic rule after 11:00 pm.”
Upon reaching home, I disembarked the CNG-run auto-rickshaw and said to the driver, “Listen, you said ‘there is no traffic rule after 11:00 pm.’ What if another driver of a larger vehicle were there at that time and thought the same and violated the traffic lights. Could you imagine the result?” He did not feel the necessity to respond verbally to what I said. He just shrugged, closed the door of the backseat and went away.
Standing there at the entrance of the building where I live, after a very long time I recalled some words I read in a newspaper article written by Syed Abul Maksud in Prothom Alo, most probably in 2007. He wrote, as far as I can remember, “It is very easy to call politicians names as they are easily identifiable because they are not even 1 per cent of the population. But the mass of people of more than 99 per cent remain hidden in a mist; we cannot identify them or hold them accountable for anything. It is this hidden mass that mostly defines the zeitgeist, not the otherwise.”
Syed Abul Maksud wrote many books and articles based on his research and profuse study. Those range from philosophical musings to education, literature, social issues and feminism. He was also a regular columnist to several newspapers and those articles were not just fillers.
Maybe, just maybe, you can correct the behaviour of one driver or a few drivers through punitive actions but what about the mass of not only transport drivers but normal youths and many others, who take pride in violating the traffic rules.
The article presented a comparative discussion of actions by Bangalees during and after the Liberation War and the people of Vietnam after their war with the US. That article, more specifically the last few sentences of the article expanded my horizon to a great degree that would have otherwise taken a huge amount of reading and meditating on those for a rather long time. Once again, I realised the value of the life and writings of Syed Abul Maksud, who was rather laconic, as has been described by his friends and acquaintances.
Syed Abul Maksud wrote many books and articles based on his research and profuse study. Those range from philosophical musings to education, literature, social issues and feminism. He was also a regular columnist to several newspapers and those articles were not just fillers.
The Daily Star Books has published a collection of newspaper articles by Syed Abul Maksud under the title “Bangali Musalmaner Buddhibrittik Bibhrom O Biswashinota” in 2019. Some of the articles of the book are about the crème de la crème of the Bengali intellectuals and their sometimes deliberate and intentional contradictory behaviour. Such a revealing book is rare in Bangladesh.
In several cases, he was the first person to write books on the subjects he dealt with. His book on Sir Philip Joseph Hartog is one of such books. He also wrote a large book on Maulana Bhashani, who was one of the first persons from the then East Pakistan to say goodbye to West Pakistani rulers before the Liberation War in 1971.
The Daily Star Books has published a collection of newspaper articles by Syed Abul Maksud under the title “Bangali Musalmaner Buddhibrittik Bibhrom O Biswashinota” in 2019. Some of the articles of the book are about the crème de la crème of the Bengali intellectuals and their sometimes deliberate and intentional contradictory behaviour. Such a revealing book is rare in Bangladesh.
But he was not just a man of letters; he was an upright and a man of words too. He was a news editor at the state-run news agency, Bangladesh Sangbad Sangsatha (BSS) in 2004. At that time he wrote a scathing article in a newspaper on the attack on writer and Dhaka University professor Humayun Azad. The article invoked the ire of the then information minister and the prime minister’s political affairs adviser. They advised Syed Abul Maksud not to publish such columns. In protest, he resigned from the news agency job in just 15 minutes of receiving the “advice”. Later, he wrote, “If I were to choose between writing and a job, I would love to always choose the first one.”
23 October 2026 was the 80th birthday of Syed Abul Maksud, who breathed his last in 2021. A few newspaper articles were published by a handful of newspapers commemorating his birthday. But it passed mostly silently. It was not so unexpected though. But it would be better for us if we remember him and study his writings. They surely will help us in times like today.