Second wind

I am back!

It’s been over four years since my last entry. A lot has happened during the time. On a happy note to most of my previous readers, I got married to the girl I loved. And we are becoming parents in coming November.

There were other issues during this time which has in some ways changed my life entirely.

Back in 2008, the domestic problems got out of bounds, pushing me to go for professional help who asked us to have my father examined. I did that, alHamduLILLAH, with the support of some of my friends and family members. He was diagnosed with Dementia and lives in an old home now. I tried to help him out in any and every way possible. But, while never really accepting his sickness, he hated me to the point where he wanted to sabotage my wedding and even went to his good-for-nothing nephews and nieces to conspire against my mother, sister and me. Finally, my mother opted for a divorce. However, my father’s family is still on the lookout for us.

Soon after this, my sister married the boy she fell in love with. My mother, my wife and I were nevertheless shocked. However, in some ways, this is good as in Bangladesh no one would want to get married to a girl, who has a family history of mental illnesses.

I finally graduated from North South University and my internship was completed around the end of 2007.

Prior to my wedding, professionally feeling the need to earn more money, I joined an advertising agency in 2007. Five months later, I joined a PR firm. While in the Public Relations (PR) firm, I managed my family expenses and my father’s old home bills by working three other part-time jobs. Besides copy-editing for New Age and updating the somewhereinbangladesh event site as a part-timer, I also wrote for Campaign Bangladesh (CBD), a monthly magazine on the advertising, PR and media sector in Bangladesh.

CBD did not run for long. However, the involvement with the monthly churned the desire in me to write again. Soon, when New Age asked me to join in as a full-timer again, I left PR for journalism.

After getting into it, I decided, that this time around, I would no longer be writing for just money. Through my career and efforts in my everyday life, I would want to learn more and grow as a journalist, a writer, a Bangladeshi, a family-man and a Muslim.

After my recent jump in June, I was asked to initiate a new blog by a number of people. Primarily, there was Saad Hammadi, my best friend, colleague and ‘Spock’ in everything that where I am ‘Captain Kirk’. Then there was Margoob Chowdhury aka The Spam (he will hate me for this), a great friend and one of my advisers in life. There were also Alan from NewsBlaze, Michael from Worldcorrespondents and Mushfique Wadud from New Age.

I tried to start one in wordpress. But then, one thing led to another and I finally decided to write back here.

My blog will probably be different now. Besides the window into my life, you would be able to read some of my already published articles from Daily Star, New Age, Campaign Bangladesh and NewsBlaze. I would also like to post things I find interesting. I would appreciate your feedbacks.

It’s great to be back.

Btw, here’s the link to Saad’s blog: saadhammadi.wordpress.com. Besides investigative pieces and articles published in the New Age and other international publications like Himal South Asian and The Guardian, you will also get to read interesting slices of his life in it.