The Amnesiacs

The themes of the thirty-three odd essays in this slim volume range widely: from the propriety of saying Bismillah to begin commemoration of Rabindranath’s birthday to the collective amnesia of the Bengalis; from the defence of standard Bangla pronunciation to an examination of the pervasive corruption in society; from a call for banning the brutal lathee to globalisation. Mahfuzur Rahman writes with wit,insight,and mordant humour in sparkling English. A lifelong advocate of critical inquiry and reason,he returns again and again to secularist ideology and liberal beliefs. A humanist,he brings to bear on his writing his passionate sympathy for the wretched of the society. In his eclectic presentation,the lover of the Bengali language in him appears in his never-ending allusion to the language movement. A devotee of nature,he turns to poems on the sizzling Bengali summer. The economist in him comes through in a number of essays on stark economic problems and policy. And the sceptic in him mocks the sorry state of polity and politicians in the country,just as easily as he derides pride,prejudice and hypocrisy. To readers of Mahfuzur Rahman’s essays,bon appétit! Mahfuzur Rahman. Economist. He took his Master’s degrees in economics from the Universities of Dacca (1955) and Manchester (1966) and Ph.D from the Netherlands School of Economics,Rotterdam (1973). He served as an economist in the former East Pakistan Planning Department and Bangladesh Planning Commission. He was a senior economist at the United Nations from 1976 to 1995. He was assistant director for economic policy analysis,and headed a branch in the department of economic and social affairs at the UN headquarters charged with the preparation of the department’s flagship annual publication,The World Economic and Social Survey. His publications are eclectic and include: Exports of Manufactures from Developing Countris,Rotterdam University Press (1973),World Economic Issues at the United Nations: Half a century of debate,Kluwer Academic Publishers,Boston