He said, "Don't ever stop reading."

I cannot say I have read any Humayun Ahmed novellas published in the past 8-10 years seriously. I took them with me to the bathroom - yes; but could not particularly remember what I read there after I came out. Of course in the age of social media and paranoid entertainment I was also not ignorant of his personal life and all the little gossips that were surrounding everything he did in recent years. I must also confess of the negative impressions about him that I carried around in some remote part of me. But when around midnight my brother called and gave me the news I could not but be sad. I continued to watch some Batman series but my heart was heavy.

One of the fondest memories that I have and will always cherish of my childhood ( circa 1993/4) is that of going to Nilkhet with my mother on a weekday. She took all of three of us, hired an autorickshaw and we went to New market area which was about 30 minutes by autorickshaw from our place back then . I can't clearly remember the events such as meeting my Aunt( mom's sister) , roaming around in new market, Mother and Aunt buying sarees and other household utensils although logic suggests that is possibly what happened. What I do remember of the event though is standing in front of Nilkhet and her buying stacks of books. All old. All Bengali.  And a big huge pile of Humayun Ahmed.I think she tried to catch up because we had just come back from overseas after a substantially long period of time. I can remember the sky was cloudy and I can remember she was happy. (By the way we were not allowed to read them cause the books were all for adults or Boroder Boi as we'd be told.)

One of my earliest memories of watching a movie in a cinema is also with mother, also around New market and has also to do with Humayun Ahmed. It was based on his novel Shankhanil Karagar and it was in Bolaka Cinema opposite new market. I can smell her nostalgia even today because of the way she told us how she used to always come to Bolaka while a student in Dhaka University. Anyway it was the three of us again with mother waiting in the queue. And it was a long queue. At some point she said it would e impossible to get a ticket if we waited in the queue. So the strategy was that she was with my elder brother in one queue and younger brother and I queued up in the next counter. I cannot remember how the movie was entirely.

I dont wait for Himus and I dont wait for his new novels for a long time now.In fact I cant remember waiting for them ever as there were so many already in our house that I could not finish reading before already growing out of him . He did not make me want to be a writer. I cannot say I have affinity for the films he directed. There is one thing he did and that is he made me want to read more and more.

It makes me infinitely sad.