A Highway Engineer's Untold Story
Shaikh Fazlur Rahman had never thought of writing a book but destiny chose this path for him. With the varied development of professional and personal life and the vagaries of fortune over a span of half a century, he felt he had to take up pen and paper to share his dreams, efforts, successes and failures which were all intermingled in his heart. He counts himself fortunate to have experienced great moments of history - the last days of the British rule in India, then post-independent Pakistan and most importantly the great liberation war and the emergence of Bangladesh. He is a keen observer of the ups and downs of our country, the sufferings of people, the erosion of moral values in general and some drastic changes in the social system. He came in contact with great personalities who earned his respect and admiration as well as with some well-known individuals who had flaws. In this book he depicts a kaleidoscope of life-a life full of struggles and challenges, successes and happiness, sorrows and miseries. We hope the readers will find pleasure going through the book.
A Roads and Highways engineer, spanning a long career in the sixties and in the early days of pre-liberation and post liberation times, Shaikh Fazlur Rahman portrays his professional life through the government corridors of power and politics, displaying his special expertise in constructing roads, highways and bridges in exciting and sometimes unexplored terrains in Bangladesh. Long retired, he looks back on his professional and personal life and tells us of an interesting but untold story of the different and challenging situations he has found himself in, while performing his duties as well as negotiating a well-informed path that brings him the ultimate goal of reaching the highest position in his department as the Chief Engineer. In his memoirs, Shaikh Fazlur Rahman brings insights and lessons of years of expertise in the Roads and Highways department that will certainly provide a wealth of interesting information to the young generations of engineers working in similar fields. In his writing, readers will also find a soft, kind and compassionate human being under the polite façade of a technocrat.