A great amount of work went into writing the book “The Boy Refugee: a memoir from a long-forgotten war”. As early as in the mid-70s, I had started writing notes to myself about our life in the camp. I had the benefit of my mother’s counsel and she helped me add to these stories. My father on the other hand never wanted to share any of his memories, it was perhaps too painful for him.
I wrote down my thoughts on pieces of paper during my summer breaks and stashed them away in my little green suitcase. Little by little the pile of papers grew. Most of these memoirs were handwritten with a pen. Some of the notes were typewritten using the manual Cannon typewriter one of my uncles had gifted us.
These notes stayed safely in my green little suitcase for all these years and finally came in good use when I earnestly started the book few years ago. My son Ahad Azimuddin also used these notes as reference material for his thesis on the genocide in Bangladesh. Here are some remarkable pictures of these notes written almost 43-45 years ago.
