One cannot but recall Humayun Ahmed's feature film Srabon Megher Din (Monsoon Days) as the illustrious storyteller was laid to rest in the serenity of his favorite retreat Nuhash Palli yesterday.
Rains that had always enthralled the fiction writer poured in Gazipur during his burial in a litchi garden as if the sky too was shedding tears. Relatives, fans, well-wishers, and villagers joined the rally of mourners in Pirujali village and wished a goodbye to the novelist and filmmaker.
Around noon, a convoy led by a freezer car carrying the body of Humayun reached the Palli where thousands of people had been waiting to receive the most celebrated writer of their time. On the way, thousands lined up along the roadside to bid him farewell.
Before the namaz-e-janaza started at 1:35 pm, people had paid tribute to Humayun Ahmed under a shade at the Palli that the writer had built on a 40-bigha stretch of land. Kulsum, an octogenarian lady, said she had heard a lot about the man, watched his TV plays, but never saw him in person. “I am here to see the famous man for the last time.” After the janaza, Humayun Ahmed went on his last journey on the shoulders of relatives and his son Nuhash.
Around 2:00 pm, the coffin of the writer, who influenced millions for decades through more than 300 books, dozens of dramas and films, was lowered into the grave.
Humayun's second wife Meher Afroz Shaon broke down in tears as she took part in the burial, throwing a handful of earth into the grave.
Nuhash, along with the writer's daughters Nova and Sheela, brothers Ahsan Habib and Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Zafar's wife Yasmeen Haque and sisters Sufia Haider and Mamtaz Shaheed held each other tight and wept.
Drenched in tears and rains, fans and well-wishers joined filling up the grave with earth.
“Nuhash Palli had always been a place of happiness. Events like shooting dramas or cinemas were usual here. But the place is totally different today; it's a mourning ground today,” Khaleque Mia, a villager of Pirujali, told The Daily Star.
Ejazul Islam, a staff of the Palli, said, “Sir [Humayun] was so good a man that he never misbehaved with us. We can never forget our memories with him.”
Ahsan Habib, himself a famous cartoonist and editor of the satire magazine Unmad, said, “My brother has achieved fame far more than I had imagined.”
Earlier, the convoy of about 25 vehicles started its journey from the mortuary of the city's Birdem Hospital around 9:10am. Many passers-by stopped and waved goodbye. The motorcade got longer as nearly a hundred other cars joined it on the way.
The decision that Humayun Ahmed would be buried at Nuhash Palli came in the wee hours of yesterday as Shaon refused to budge from insisting that her husband's grave had to be at the Palli, saying it was his last wish.
However, Humayun's three children from his first wife -- Nova, Sheela and Nuhash wanted their father to be buried somewhere in Dhaka so that everyone could visit his grave easily.
On the prime minister's instruction, LGRD State Minister Jahangir Kabir Nanak got involved in the process of mediation. Finally, Sheela, Nova , and Nuhash compromised on the dispute.
On Monday, thousands of people irrespective of caste and creed, religion and political belief paid their homage to the playwright at Central Shaheed Minar in the capital.
Later, his second namaz-e-janaza was held at the National Eidgah on the High Court premises. The first one was at Jamaica Muslim Centre in New York on Friday (Bangladesh time).
Humayun Ahmed, 64, who was a chemistry teacher at Dhaka University before getting fully involved in writing, died at Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital due to infection in the lungs following two surgeries for colon cancer.
His brother Zafar Iqbal, who was with Humayun in New York, told correspondents, “My brother was out of danger of cancer, but it was the infection that obstructed his recovery. It was very unfortunate for the family.”