This is not a memoir. It is merely an attempt to record what I had witnessed and tried to do in the countries where I was assigned during my tenure with the United Nations World Food Programme. Prior to my international assignments, I had the privilege to work in Bangladesh for little over six years with the World Food Programme. As a newly independent country, Bangladesh confronted myriad challenges including impoverished infrastructure, poor irrigation facility, frequent natural calamities that devastated households and washed away crops in the fields and increasing unemployment.
The famine in 1974 revealed that Bangladesh not only lacked enough food grains in its stock, but the administration was unable to arrange movement of food grains to remote country sides promptly. Though the government setup mass feeding centers in rural and semi urban areas, the situation turned precarious and thousands died. During 1977 and 1978, there was crop failure in Bangladesh due to prolong drought followed by floods especially in the northern region of the country. The greater Rangpur in general and Kurigram and Lalmonirhat in particular were affected by crop failure.
The government took serious note of it and prevailed upon WFP to do everything possible to avert another famine. I used to visit the affected areas every month and kept the management abreast of the situation. WFP had supported the government in providing food grains to low income people, landless famers and laborers families every month without interruption. WFP made similar arrangements to families affected by “lathyrism”, a disease that gradually de-capacitated the lower part of human bodies, in certain areas under Rajshahi and Kushtia regions. The very timely pre-emptive actions of the government successfully averted a famine in 1979.
During this period and in subsequent years I had crisscrossed the country to monitor WFP projects. This was a rewarding experience. During my assignment in Eritrea I was left with enough time due to the deadlock resulted from the seizure of WFP food commodities by the government. I started writing about major incidents, events and about my interaction with people, government officials and media personnel in different countries. I made some progress and decided to continue during my days in retirement. However, once I stepped into retirement, I was attracted to changing political landscape in the United States. Barak Obama, an African American, entered the presidential race.
He attracted large crowds beyond ethnic and racial divide and promised them a better future. People believed Barak Obama and elected him as the President of the United States. This was the first time in the history of the United States an African-American defeated white indomitable adversaries and moved to the White House. I followed the events very closely and began writing to the newspapers in Bangladesh and in Pakistan. My debut in journalism was exciting.