We meet myriad numbers of people in our life. Friends, teachers, juniors, colleagues or even anonymous. Not all of them will have the abilities to change the perspective towards your personal goal or career incentives. It takes compassion, skills and an enormous expertise in his professional field.
Let me proudly introduce you to the person who did this to me. I am sure he touched many others’ soul but in this article I will just write about us.
Academically speaking, I was neither a back-bencher nor an absentee. I had my attention towards what teachers say and provide. As a result, I always had the GPA up to the first class category. But when it comes to choose what comes after graduation – I could see I was bewildered and crestfallen, who’d spent worrying about everything, felt betrayed and eventually, didn’t care how he felt. (The readers, don’t breathe a word about this, ok?)
It was back in 2018, I was in my last semester. The first class of ME 413 – Energy and Environment. Course teacher: Dr. Ashiqur Rahman. In that class he taught us the engineering ethics and what can go wrong while dealing with grey problems instead of the Black and White ones. I was amazed with his perfect tone and eloquence.
Here I would love to mention a glimpse of my personal background for the convenience of the readers to understand why Dr. Ashiqur Rahman played a crucial role in context of setting goal of higher study. Since my childhood, my mother’s immense affection for the trees and pets crept into my own understanding of the environment and ecology as I kept discovering their inherent balance, beauty, and also their fragility. Ironically, as soon as I got admission into the undergraduate program to study mechanical engineering, I realized that I had landed into a world where consideration of plants, trees, pets and ecosystems hardly gets preference within the academic curriculum. I saw how, unbeknownst, I have become a party to an academic cohort whose works can be historically linked with the decaying health of environment, ecosystems, and biodiversity. Growing up in a developing country, provided me the appropriate perspective to observe how the technocratic policies of the operations of fossil fuel-based power systems were blatantly affecting the human-health and biodiversity and that too happening at a time when the country was becoming more and more manufacturing-oriented at the wake of a decline in certain industries in the old industrialized nations. During my undergraduate years, I convinced myself that there must some engineering solutions to foster sustainability and even bring some positive responsiveness to the current level of apathy at the policy level. Having been emboldened by ME 413 course contents, I felt ready to take further engagements towards addressing the economics of pollution, and engineering solutions for sustainability.
Dr. Ashiqur Rahman personally took care of me during the whole semester. One day, I arrived real late (which disgusts him vehemently). The class was almost over. I had to sign in the “Attended List” while he was about to leave the class. I requested him to give me the sheet to enter my name. In that case, any sir would harshly scold me but he didn’t. With an enormous patience, he managed to keep a gentle smile and gave me the paper to put my name on. I felt so good inside. I didn’t keep glancing round at him, though, because, I was watching my other classmate: I only knew what they were doing because they typically laugh and irate.
Another mention-worthy point about Dr. Ashiqur Rahman is, he doesn’t just go through the slides, although the way he makes his slides are wholesome. With his very commanding voice, he used to teach us the fundamentals of sustainable development and the prospects of it.
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When I am writing this paragraph, I am a second year PhD student at Brown University, Rhode Island, USA. So many days have past and regretfully (and shamefully), I noticed I never finished the blog. With an apology, I want to conclude the writing with a few statements.
I came across many BUET graduates by now who directly or indirectly know Dr. Ashiq Sir. One common thing is all of them only speak good about him. Of course, this should be the case. The awe of his personality, and charming friendliness make him approachable, yet, someone finds a virtual boundary that he/she can not pass because of the sheer respect they feel for him. Much can be said, but time is of an essence. I am very grateful to Dr. Ashiq Sir and it is not a lie if I write, for quite a long time, I wanted to be like him, wanted to talk him, wanted to copy his accent and every little details. My good wishes are for him, and I hope he remembers me in his prayers and good thoughts.