put up with overbearing behaviour or bullying from any boss. The result has been predictable: endless moves from one organization to another, frequent changes of track and failure to rise to a senior rank.
medical camps for the sick and needy people in different remote areas of Bangladesh.
Dr. Prince had a phenomenal memory. In the midst of all his duties and preoccupations he could remember everything. He could tell you in which issue of which year of the magazine a particular article had appeared. And he was able to pull a copy of that very issue from among the mass of papers in the cabinet. He could quickly extract the bits of information he required on any subject from a great pile of leaflets, brochures and booklets. If he didn’t find what he needed straight away he patiently continued his search until he succeeded.Dr. Maswoodur Rahman Prince: My boss, my mentor
I never saw him
demand any payment for the consultations or medical assistance he gave; neither from colleagues nor from anybody else. He knew a huge number of people, and listening to their complaints and writing prescriptions for them took up a great deal of his time
Emdadul Hoque Howlader
Before I met him, I had never managed to get settled into regular employment. My nature is such that I have scant patience with bourgeois manners and pretensions, and I lose my temper rather easily. I have never been able to put up with overbearing behaviour or bullying from any boss. The result has been predictable: endless moves from one organization to another, frequent changes of track and failure to rise to a senior rank.
As a consequence of switching jobs so often I was accustomed to low pay, a poor working environment and constant ill-treatment from arrogant employers. But then, thanks to a chance encounter, everything changed and I found myself working under a man of remarkable humanity and wisdom who was not so much my boss as my friend and mentor. Thanks to this great man, the late Dr. Maswoodur Rahman Prince, it became possible for me to keep working in the same job, the ninth I had had, for many years.
I was just back from Kabul and was suffering from certain health problems. On the advice of Shafat Bari Ivan, a veteran teacher from Brac University I went to see Dr. Maswoodur Rahman at the New Protikar clinic in Green Road. The moment Dr. Prince heard that I had been a student in the Mass Communication and Journalism department of Dhaka University he picked up his phone, made a call and handed the phone to me saying, Here, speak to your old teacher Shamsul Majid Harun! Harun Sir then explained to me over the phone that Dr. Prince was a childhood friend of his who was now producing a health journal named Stethoscope in the house of The Independent national English daily, and went on to suggest that I might like to start working with him.
After that I had a long and fascinating conversation with Dr. Prince. He told me to come and see him at his office in the Bell Tower the following day. Regular visits to the Bell Tower ensued, and once he had observed my work and approved of what he saw Dr. Prince suggested I might like to resign from my existing job and join his English daily. It took a month to sort things out, then I started work in his office. I expected that once I became an employee his attitude would change and he would be as officious and arrogant as any other boss. But I could not have been more mistaken. As the days and weeks went by my admiration grew and grew: here was a truly extraordinary man, outstanding in intelligence and ability, who wore his qualities very lightly and behaved to me, a subordinate many years younger than him, not as a boss but as a friend.
Let me now offer the reader a proper introduction to this remarkable boss of mine. His full title was Dr. Capt. (Retd) Maswoodur Rahman, MBBS, AMC. He was known to his relations as Khokan, to his friends as Prince. He came from a distinguished Bhuiya family long settled in the Vikrampur area of Munshiganj (Dhaka) District. According to his friend Professor Syed Nihal Adil, an eminent ethnologist now settled in Sweden, that family was the first among the Twelve Bhuiya clans, whose ancestor was the Mughal governor Isha Khan. Dr. Princes father, Principal B.M. Rahman, was a well known educationist and community benefactor. His elder brother Dr. Mizanur Rahman Shelley, Director of CDRB, is a former government minister and noted journalist, writer and social analyst. His youngest sister, Sayeeda Nahrin Saqi, has been awarded the MBE for her services in the UK community where she lives.
After gaining his MBBS degree from Dhaka Medical College, Dr. Prince joined the Army Medical Corps in what was then the Pakistan Army. He happened to be posted in West Pakistan when the Liberation War broke out in the East wing. At that point he, along with other Bengali officers in the armed services, was suspended from duty and interned. It was not until early 1974 that he and his colleagues were released and allowed to return to their homeland. They were absorbed into the Bangladesh Army, but Dr. Prince soon took retirement from the military.
He started private practice and was recruited by BICC whose Chief Medical Officer he became. But this man was more than a doctor. He was also a poet, an award winning journalist, an essayist, a script writer for radio and television, a community worker. He was the Founder Chairman of Mother Teresa Memorial Society, Bangladesh, Founder Chairman of World Peace and Human Rights, Bangladesh, and Chief Adviser for the Student Welfare Council of the Bangladesh Open University. At one time he was International Vice President of Service Civil International (SCI) and President of SCI, Bangladesh.
On his Facebook page Dr. Prince summarized his own interests thus: Voluntary work, travelling, editing and writing; cultural and archaeological history, specialized write-ups on population and development issues; arranging free medical camps for the sick and needy people in different remote areas of Bangladesh.
The books written by him include the poetry collections Choray Choray Gyaner Pora (Learning through Nursery Rhymes), Dhakka (A Hefty Nudge), Chora Chimti (A Surreptitious Pinch), Dui Bondhu Dui Digonto Dui Dhara (Two Friends, Two Horizons, Two Styles) (this was written in collaboration with Yousuf Khan Majlis), and medical treatises Shasthyo Kotha o Aids Tothyo (About Health and AIDS) and Coronary Artery Diseases.
Wherever he went friends and acquaintances would cluster round him seeking his help with health-related issues: please take my blood pressure, please write me a prescription, please refer me to a specialist, give me a covering letter, draft a request for my diagnostic test fees to be reduced, tell me what to eat... Dr. Prince did all these things gladly for if anyone relished the pleasure of doing good turns for other people it was he.
I never saw him demand any payment for the consultations or medical assistance he gave; neither from colleagues nor from anybody else. He knew a huge number of people, and listening to their complaints and writing prescriptions for them took up a great deal of his time. I used to see friends come rushing to ask for his help when they had even the tiniest cough or cold. And so great was their faith in him, they would show him prescriptions written by eminent specialists and seek his approval before proceeding with the treatment prescribed.
His mobile phone seldom got a rest, it was glued to his ear most of the time, for that was another way his friends and acquaintances used to seek help from him. And it wasnt always medical diagnosis they wanted; he was their most trusted source of advice on all sorts of matters, legal, domestic, social, even spiritual.
The office of any newspaper is naturally an information hub, and when senior figures gather together in it a particularly rich flow of information results. At The Independent office every kind of topic would come under discussion not only medicine but also history, sociology, politics, geography, anthropology, religion, art, literature, culture and biography. Sometimes there would be profound and serious exchanges of views, sometimes light-hearted argument.
Among the senior figures I saw passing through were the veteran journalists Jamilur Rahman Bhai, Shahnur Wahid Bhai, Monju Bhai, Nil Ratan Haldar, Sanowar Ali, Syed Mehdi Momin, Kazi Mushtaque Ahmed, Saidur Rahman Bhai. As access to the Bell Tower was unrestricted many of Dr. Princes old friends used to drop in, such as his fellow student (batch-mate) Professor Dr. Hafiz Uddin Ahmed, Principal of Monowar Sikdar Medical College, and a consultant urologist and surgeon who is also a writer and a poet, with whom Dr. Prince would have the most hilarious exchanges of pure wit. Another visitor was Syed Nihal Adil, the ethnologist: as soon as he came in the talk would turn to horoscopes, history (from Gaur and Varendra to Suvarnapur), ethnography (from the Santals to the Khumis) and heaven knows what else. Occasionally his old friend and fellow poet Yousuf Khan Majlis would appear, while on a visit to Bangladesh from his home in Switzerland. Khan Majlis would talk for a while about days long past, and then he would light his pipe and suck on it in pensive silence. Then there were the well known actor Mamunur Rashid and the engineer Syed Akhtar Hussain, who were close friends of Dr Princes; and no end of other acquaintances, each of them drawn to him for their own special reasons.
As soon as Dr. Prince entered the Independent office the whole room seemed to come alive. The air started buzzing with excitement and good humour
Emdad, hadudu! he would exclaim when I came into the office. I was expected to reply in the same vein, kabadi, kabadi, kabadi! Nor would it do if I uttered those words quietly; they had to be crowed as loudly and energetically as they would have been by a real kabadi player on the pitch. I was quite taken aback when I first encountered this ritual, which would also be performed by the journalists Nil Ratan Haldar, Sanowar Ali and Shahnur Wahid. Hadudu! Dr. Prince would cry, and they would shout in unison kabadi, kabadi, kabadi! This would be followed by a general roar of laughter.
Dr. Prince had another special greeting ritual which he used with our colleague Badrul Alam. The two of them used to compete to see which of them
could be first in giving the salaam. And Badrul was not allowed to cheat by appearing unexpectedly from behind the boss. No, Badrul, that wont do. Go out and come back in again. When Badrul came back into the room they would both yell slamalekum! simultaneously and then chortle with delight.
Emdad is his name,
From Afghanistan he came, He never went to war
He never died a hero,
All he brought back was zero.
Whenever he had to introduce me to another of his countless acquaintances Dr. Prince would recite a little doggerel rhyme he had made up about me and then roar with laughter. It was quite embarrassing. The witty use of words, the humour, the informality were all typical of the man.
There was a rule that whoever came to the office in a new shirt had to treat the others to a meal. The conversation might go like this:
Dr Prince: Badrul, your shirt is looking very crisp. Is it a new one?
Badrul: Er...
Emdad: Oh yes, sir, just look at it, its definitely new!
Dr Prince: Right, its Badruls turn today!
It was amazing how often the same shirt became new. But in fact whichever of us was supposed to be treating the others, it was nearly always Dr. Prince who actually footed the bill.
I happen to have the habit of wiping the rim of my teacup very carefully with a tissue before taking my first sip of tea. Unless I do that I cant drink the stuff. Inevitably Dr. Prince noticed this little foible of mine and seized on the chance for some fun. Here, Emdad, take this tissue, he would say teasingly whenever tea was being served. It was impossible not to laugh.
I never saw Dr. Prince speak roughly to anyone, and I never saw anyone being upset by his words. On the contrary, if ever you were suffering from discouragement or exasperation you only had to come and have a chat with Dr. Prince in order to be restored to equanimity and good humour. Similarly he was a wonderful person to travel with. He would never give his companions a chance to get bored, and with his wit and lively talk he would dispel all feelings of weariness and fatigue.
Dr. Prince had a phenomenal memory. In the midst of all his duties and preoccupations he could remember everything. He could tell you in which issue of which year of the magazine a particular article had appeared. And he was able to pull a copy of that very issue from among the mass of papers in the cabinet. He could quickly extract the bits of information he required on any subject from a great pile of leaflets, brochures and booklets. If he didnt find what he needed straight away he patiently continued his search until he succeeded.
He could always remember when and where any event was due to take place. He never forgot which people needed to be contacted or which emails needed to be sent. He would gently remind me of these things when I forgot.
The duty of a boss is not just to find fault but to correct and improve. A true mentor should offer his disciple guidance and advice and stand by him when he is in difficulties. Dr. Prince was fully aware of his responsibility as a mentor. Whenever I had drafted an article I would take it to him and he would go through it with great patience and thoroughness, correcting any mistakes he found. He would remain patient even if I made the same mistake again and again. He would never show any sign of annoyance or disrespect. On occasion we would receive a contribution written by a novice which was badly written and contained grammatical mistakes or erroneous information. If I had been the editor I would probably have binned it without a second thought, but Dr. Prince would go to the trouble of rewriting the piece in its entirety rather than reject it. It is my duty as an editor to give encouragement to up-and-coming writers, he would explain to me. My mentor also taught me how to conduct an interview, what kind of questions to ask, how to frame the questions, how to take notes and how to use them when putting together a report.
In good times or bad, through thick and thin, Dr. Princes commitment to Stethoscope was total. In 2014 he took his wife Mrs Jahanara Rahman Moni to Singapore for treatment and remained there for a period. But even from that distance he maintained regular contact with the office, discussed the articles which would come in the next issue, decided how and in what order they should be presented, even did some detailed editing over the phone. On other occasions he himself underwent various operations, twice for cataracts, once for his knee, another couple of times for the insertion of cardiovascular stents. Each time he would telephone frequently from his hospital bed and call me over for briefings, to make sure that the production of Stethoscope was going ahead smoothly. Nor did he concern himself with the Stethoscope alone: he would ask after staff members, friends and acquaintances how were they, what were they doing. His good humour and wit never deserted him even in his hospital bed, and he kept cracking jokes and reciting funny rhymes as usual.
April 2016 he had to go on sick leave again, this time for open heart surgery. He was admitted to Square Hospital in Dhaka city. I used to go regularly to see him, along with Dr. Wrishi Raphael. Each time we would take a bundle of Stethoscope copies with us, and Dr. Prince would hand these out to all the doctors and nurses in the ward. Although faced with major surgery he showed not the slightest sign of anxiety, but continued to amuse his visitors with jokes and wisecracks, and cross-examine them about their own health. Never before had I met a man like Dr. Prince, and I know I shall never again meet anyone with even half of his genius and humanity.
The writer is Senior Sub-Editor
Stethoscope, The Independent
