Soon, I started to understand the breadth of his business acumen. I heard about a negotiated last minute deal that made him the chairperson of Philips, Bangladesh. I heard about how he first thought of and created a major insurance company called Reliance Insurance in Bangladesh. I heard how he became the longest serving President for Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was during that time when I first heard that he also wanted to start a daily newspaper. This was the time when only the Bangladesh Observer ruled the English newspaper space. However, entering newspaper business, especially an English newspaper which traditionally has low subscription base, was not really the idea of profit in Bangladesh for a businessman.

In spite of all his achievements, he never rested on his laurels. Knowing about my fascination with photography, he always told me how he always wanted to make a movie in his life. I always laughed on the side thinking it was just another of his many whims. Around that time, he divested from Transcom Limited. Everyone thought he would lead a quiet and peaceful life after that. Always full of ideas, That is when he started dreaming of Ekushey TV. Unlike most businessmen in Bangladesh, he believed in social entrepreneurship. He believed that it was possible to do greater good and to do good business at the same time. If he didn't believe in that, he could never build the way he built Ekushey TV. He wanted to change the shape of electronic media in Bangladesh and therefore not thinking about profit, he brought the best people from abroad. Ekushey was his dream. At the age of sixty-five, by creating a home for others to make movies, he started materialising his dream of making movies.

Not only for its people-focused progressive programmes, Ekushey was also known to all for its professional culture. It was the first company to attract a major foreign investment from abroad. All of this did not happen out of thin air. There was this man's vision and work behind all this. He wanted to show the world that Bangladesh can have a company run by international standards. Ekushey TV's superior management showed that he was right. His dream was materialised.

But what a brutal ending the dream faced!

The government of Bangladesh fought tooth and nail at the court to shut down the channel that became the darling of common mass. There were a lot of ironies in that case. Two of them struck me the most. The first one was the attorney who ran the case. The case for the government was led by a once leftist student leader and a family friend Deputy Attorney General Adilur Rahman Khan who was a frequent visitor to our house in the heady days of anti-Ershad movement. He talked about his dream of equality in the society. It was comical to see that Adil was materialising his "dream" of socialism in Bangladesh by fighting hard for a regime that was bent on killing the media that talked about little people. The second irony was the other person who was instrumental in this closure -- Shafiq Rehman, editor of weekly Jai Jai Din, who himself suffered under media censorship and was driven away from the country for his outspoken articles against Ershad. Now his weekly was writing to shut down the only media that was free. Perhaps there lied the difference between AS Mahmud and the people who control Bangladesh. Bangladesh is full of people with myopic vision who could not see beyond their petty self interest. With their myopic vision they could not see the amount of effort and passion that was invested to create an organisation like Ekushey and what a permanent damage they were causing to the country by shutting it down.

Even before this closure, Mahmud got disillusioned by his friends and business partners who betrayed him. His wife always used to say, "The problem with my husband is that anytime he would see dirty politics seeping in his business, he would shy away from it in stead of confronting it". Perhaps this was his biggest drawback. He always wanted to be above the fray and above the pettiness of people. He was, indeed, too "naïve" in the dark and complicated world of Bangladeshi business. In this process, his health suffered and he went to London for treatment with his wife and son Farhad and his daughter-in-law Liana.

However, Ekushey TV was killed swiftly in the meantime. Also killed with that was one man's dream and everything that he had worked for all his life. The ever optimistic AS Mahmud was killed that day along with Ekushey. Six months after that, I brought him over to visit my place in New York after a lot of persuasion. However, I could not bring my old mejo chacha back. He was a deeply dejected man. The smile was gone from his face. He never asked me to return to Bangladesh any more. Neither did he want to meet anyone when he was there. It would have taken a lot to take the smile out of a man who had a zest for life. The politics of Bangladesh somehow managed to do that unthinkable.

He was in the hospital in London for two months after he had the stroke in early November last year. I used to visit him often. I saw him struggle and fight. When he would be sleeping, I would be massaging his legs and feet and wonder why he was there. What did this man do to be in a hospital in London so far away from Bangladesh and suffer like the way he did? What was his crime? Loving his country too much? Perhaps so. Bangladesh, these days, has no place for the real patriots. A man who would fancy good food everywhere could not eat the last two months of his life, a man who was full of life and smile forgot how to smile. A man who always inspired others to return to Bangladesh lost the yearning to return to Bangladesh even after his death. The politics of Bangladesh somehow managed to do the unthinkable.

A man who always shied away from the ugly side of human beings was always attracted by simplicity of the average people. That led to his eventually making friendship with the kinder and gentler little people at the neighbourhood he lived in London. The owner at the corner shop, the retired Greek neighbour next door, the stranger nurse from Lewisham Hospital -- they all became his good friends. Those friendships came from the heart where no mutual interest but pure human bonding was involved. That human bonding was what he cared for the most. He didn't want much. He wanted everyone to feel the same way he felt for everybody. Perhaps he set a very high standard for others. The cruel Bangladesh disappointed him. It was perhaps fitting that he was buried according to his wishes in England where he got the respect from the little people. A citizen of the world, as he would like to call himself, was not bound by geographical boundary after his death.

While we were going to his Janaja the other day, The Daily Star Editor Mahfuz Anam called his son, Farhad on the mobile phone to send his condolence. He also mentioned that he wanted to write a cover piece on him. After the conversation ended the usually strong Farhad burst out crying saying that it was too late. After writing this piece, I saw that Mr. Anam has written an elaborate piece on AS Mahmud. I thank him much for that. Alas, I wish he had written this piece while the man was alive. At least that would have given him some comfort that at least someone in Bangladesh did recognise the work he had done in the field of media for Bangladesh.

Once chacha was asked in an interview what his favourite passtime was. He replied that what he enjoyed doing the most was dreaming while he was awake. A dreamer and a visionary, Mr. A S Mahmud was laid to rest at London's Garden of Peace cemetery after living his exciting and colourful dreams for 70 glorious years. We can only hope that his eventful life would inspire many future AS Mahmuds to dream and change Bangladesh for the better.