Dhaka, March 6 -- I came to know Selim Samad back in early 1980s through the introduction of two of my friends, Hasan Ferdous and Afsan Chowdhury. Both Hasan and Afsan had been working at the time for the launching of another of our common friend Enayetullah Khan's English language weekly Dhaka Courier. They included me in the team as an absentee member and through this involvement I came to know Selim Samad, who had been a school friend of Afsan and came forward to support Courier during its crucial launching time.

Since then, we kept a long-standing cordial understanding whenever we came in contact with each other, in Bangladesh or somewhere else in the wider world. I remember his detailed and fascinating confession about a slow develo...