To my Abbu, with love

syedfromsylhet
4 min readNov 15, 2020

If you know me even the tiniest bit, you would know that I am very partial to my father. Rain or shine, happy days or bad days, I call Abbu twice a day — once when I wake up and once before I hit the bed. More often than not, the conversations are brief — he asks me if I prayed, if I exercised and in his trademark fashion, he asks, “any new developments?”.

This morning’s call was a bit different. As I enthusiastically told him about the press release I wrote for Youth Policy Forum’s Rohingya Advocacy Initiative, he heaved an exasperated sigh followed by a wry smile. If I had not known my Abbu so well, I would have just taken it as a dismissive sigh — but I know what went through his mind as soon as I uttered the word “Rohingya”.

In 1978, Abbu, a fresh medical graduate then, was one of the top students in his class at Sylhet Osmani Medical. Every expectation was that he would soon get his postgraduate degree (essential when you are a doctor in Bangladesh), become a renowned specialist and work in a government hospital.

He did none of these things. In a career sacrificing move, he rushed to volunteer as a doctor in the 1978 Rohingya camps — the first instance of Rohingya influx to Bangladesh. He spent a year or two in squalid and less than ideal camps, trying to save at least one Rohingya child. “I treated 500 Rohingya babies a day — most of whom would die,” my Abbu would often gravely reminisce.

His decision to stall postgraduate studies and forgo the opportunity to be a government doctor was not the biggest sacrifice he did, however. When he returned two years later to his village in Moulvibazar, he came back with a year old Rohingya baby who had been orphaned by the genocide perpetrated by the Burmese Army. To my American friends who would not understand the significance of such a move, he was not only from an ardently Islamic family, but it was a late 1970s Bangladesh where conservatism was the norm and it was a taboo for a single parent, let alone man, to raise a child.

Today as much proud as I am of my dad, I am also scared. Abbu retired last year from his hospital, but still stepped up as COVID ravaged Bangladesh. He treated patients in his old hospital and kept his private practice open unlike many of his peers. Some of his junior doctors have tested positive in the last 2 days and I am genuinely concerned about what the virus could do to my almost-70 father. When I asked him this morning if he could please take a break, he laughed it off and muttered “Tawaqqal Al Allah” (Perfect trust in God!).

I could go on and on about all he has done, how he built a high school, an orphanage, treats his fellow villagers even during Eid, but I know that’s something my Abbu would not appreciate. Whenever I ask him about those contributions, he is quick to deflect and sometimes even tries to show off a cynical side by saying that the prayers and love he received gave him success in the late stages in life as a doctor and investor.

The Rohingya crisis is deeply personal to me. In 2017, when there was another round of ethnic cleansing and Rohingya displacement, I was thousands of miles away at Vassar — basking on all the perks and privileges that come with going to such an esteemed institution. With the help of a few other friends and my college’s President I started the Vassar Rohingya Project — which, regrettably, never made an impact. But I know that whatever I do, in a personal capacity or through Youth Policy Forum, it would never come close to what my Abbu was able to do. I also know that whatever I achieve in life, it will never be enough to fill in such big shoes. I could never make the sacrifices he made, I could never talk with such eloquence, I could never be as informed about our history and heritage as he is.

The prayer of choice for one’s parents in Islam is “Rabbir Humhuma Kama Rabba Yanee Sagheera” (My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up when I was small). Yet everyday when I utter those words with fervent conviction, it does not feel enough. How can I fit in the prayers on behalf of the Rohingya children who died in his arms? How can I fit in a prayer on behalf of the countless other children he saw perishing in his hospital? How can one prayer from a sinful man like me make justice to my Abbu who raised hundreds of orphans in Moulvibazar?

He is my superhero, and rightly so.

He is my mentor, and my closest confidante.

He is my first love, and my last.

He is a doctor, yet he is so much more.

--

--

syedfromsylhet

The consumer to creator arc is taking longer than I care to admit