Celebrating a teacher's legacy: essays in honour of Mizanur Rahman

My baba is an associate professor…

That is my earliest memory of talking about my father. As a child I naturally felt his presence as a constant in my life. I remember waiting in the park in Skopping, Stockholm, waiting for him to come out of his lab. I remember him pressing my head when my nose bled in the harsh Nordic winter. I remember lying in the cozy Stockholm bedroom where he narrated stories of lal bon nilbon to me.

But those were my personal matter. After returning to Bangladesh at age 4, and starting school at YWCA and then Oxford and then at 7 getting into Holy Cross, I was continuously forced to answer a particular question: what does your father do? That was the answer I memorized and mechanically provided.

Now in my mid thirties, when I look back, I want to change that answer slightly. My baba is a TEACHER. Through and through. I am highly doubtful whether there is any part of his personality and human psyche; his id, ego super ego; his conscious and subconscious, that is not a teacher. He teaches incessantly.

He taught me how to ride a bicycle in the premises of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh. Well all fathers do that you may say. But how many fathers would teach the theory of it? He taught me not just to paddle and balance, but the universal theorem that once I learned riding a bike, I would never forget it. He taught me golf. We would go down to the Teachers’ Training College field where we would race and play golf.

Baba taught me how to pronounce English words. He would read me from the Radiant Way, and then dictate which I had to correctly pen down on my khata. During the months-long oborodh of 1996, baba taught me translation. Every morning he would give a sheet full of arithmetic and translations, on the promise that if I get them done attentively, we would go cycling at around 11am. It was during one such cycling excursions that I encountered the then leader of the opposition and the current Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina. She smiled at me and asked: hey, don’t you know it’s not right to drive a bike during a hartal? I was obviously too stupid to register what had just happened.

In 1999, baba went to Moscow for a 6-month fellowship with the Ford Foundation. He was just getting on with establishing street law in Bangladesh, and wanted to get as much clinical legal educational training as he could. We accompanied him for the last three months. He taught me how to read Russian alphabet, and basic Russian phrases, how to bargain at the market, read and say 1 to 10, 50 and 100. All I remember now is minia zabut Arpeeta, kharasho, spasiva, and dasvidania. So I practically became ma’s guide. If we had to meet baba after office somewhere, baba would give me metrorail directions. I would read the name of the stations, and take ma from place to place. (I am sure my mother will object to me bagging all the credit, but she’s not going to read this article before publication, so here’s my chance!).

Baba bought for me a white board. He wanted me to build a routine for myself. I used the board for drawing instead. Yet he would sometimes come into my room, and suddenly give some philosophical lecture and write phrases on the board. I remember one incident clearly: he was telling me the value of limit. He wrote on the board with big block letters: EXCESS OF ANYTHING IS BAD. I remember that every day. While shopping, while binge-watching too much Netflix.

Baba also taught me about wonders. It must be around 1995-6, when he gave me a Bangla book on unbelievable facts. The first story was about a small town called Pisa. It had a tower there, which was not straight, and supposed to crash any moment. Yet, the tower has been standing firm for centuries. It was no less a fairytale than lal komol-nil komol for me. Wooow, a tower that is crooked! Imagine my euphoria, when in 2017 I stood in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa, a wonder of the ancient world civilization, with my spouse holding my hand. The pages of a flimsy Bangla paperback materializing in front of my eyes as I lived and breathed! Would I ever feel that rejoice had it not been for the teacher my father was who decided his daughter must know about the marvels of world history?

Baba tries to be simple although he has been unduly criticized by people for wearing well-pressed trouser and shirt with suspenders. Huh, he vomits communism with his every word, but look at his fashion. Yes, as I grew up, I got introduced to the cruelties of the world. I saw that the man I hero worshipped was hated by many in the world. I wondered why. I was yet not completely familiar with jealousy. The only luxurious party we threw for my father was in 2002, after he was promoted as a full professor at the University of Dhaka. Then I started saying, my baba is a professor.

Professor Mizanur Rahman, or Dr. Mizan, as he goes, is an enigma. The outside world has no idea who he is. The teacher who mesmerizes the students at HRSS using Emotional Pedagogy the teacher who transforms far-fetched theories of Public International Law into realities for students living in an underdeveloped country ( at that time) like Bangladesh, is a teacher even outside classrooms. He taught about Titanic before the movie hit the theatre. He brought a copy of Eric Seagull’s Love Story for his teen age daughter- a blasphemous act by Bangladeshi middle-class family value standards. He taught the philosophy of Rabindranath. He taught me patriotism. He teaches about Muktijuddho, about Bangabandhu.

But I guess, the best thing he teaches is not giving up. Nothing else explains his obsession with building rebellious lawyers through HRSS, a 21-year venture that still doesn’t have a respectable income. He cries when each HRSS ends, because he knows out of 48 participants, not even one may become a rebellious lawyer. Yet he keeps teaching.

So, as Empowerment through Law of the Common People- ELCOP celebrates his teaching life by publishing the anthology, I look at him and say, baba, a teacher doesn’t retire. Please don’t let go of your energy. There are so many souls who need your teaching. Teach now out of the venues. Teach through living.

Because,

My father is a Teacher.