Chronicles in the Time of Maladies (Hardcover)

This memoir was made possible due to the most extra-ordinary times of this millennium, the maladies of COVID19. Most senior citizens, the author being one of them, were termed as a vulnerable group and advised to stay at their homes on the proverbial Doctors Orders. As we were living through challenging times during the pandemic, it was believed that the best things could come from having the time and space to think and be creative when stuck at home. There was possibly no better time for reluctant writers to tell their stories ‘when the world slowed down, polluted skies cleared and animals reclaimed the streets.’
It’s often presumed that biographies of mostly celebrities, successful and great people should be penned down with lots of braggadocio of their achievements and sweeping their follies under the carpets. The biggest challenge is probably to attract readers to a candid memoir whose protagonist lived an average life like all other average people world over. Life is, however, precious and worth living even if one doesn’t possess any special talent in some field of human activity. Our life journey is an adventure to be exploited and reminiscences of even inexact, inadequate and flawed people can be interesting and perhaps their experiences might show a beacon of light to posterity.
This memoir is arranged into three parts and divided into nine chapters, starting with ethnic origin, childhood and schooling in the first part; followed by an eye witness account of the Liberation war and university education in Chittagong in the second part, and narratives of working life, a freelance lifestyle and a travelogue in the final part. Bookworms will find this an interesting read to relive the decades the author describes in the memoir. Readers are welcome to jump onto a time machine and accompany the writer backwards to yesteryears that portray the times and places the author had lived through.