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earlier plan. It was decided that M. A. Hasan should leave immediately for Calcutta and Agartala to make initial contacts with the political leaders who had fled from Bangladesh. He would then send the signal for me to join him and form the new government.
    That night Aga Hilali, the Pakistani ambassador, came on a courtesy visit to Enayet Karim. Several of us, who were eating dinner, were quickly pushed into an attic room with our food. We sat there for two hours without making a sound, so that the ambassador would not know that his Bengali colleague was harboring three antistate activists in his own house.
    Hasan left for Calcutta and Agartala the next day as planned. From Calcutta, he sent a bitter message of disappointment in the leaders and advised me not to come. Soon after, the Mujibnagar government was formed. Bengalis in the United States and Canada concentrated on the campaign for Bangladeshi recognition, on stopping military aid to Pakistan, and on freeing Sheikh Mujib.
    The Bangladesh League of America was established in New York under the leadership of Dr. Mohammad Alamgir, a physician, and in Chicago the Bangladesh Defense League was created by Dr. F. R. Khan, a Bengali-American architect who designed the Sears Tower in Chicago. Shamsul Bari became its secretary general. He published the first issue of the Bangladesh Newsletter. I took it over from him and published the newsletter regularly from my Nashville apartment at 500 Paragon Mills Road. My apartment became a communication center. The phone rang off the hook with calls from all over North America and the United Kingdom. All Bengalis wanted daily updates on the war.
    Through the efforts of the Bengalis in Washington, the Bangladesh Information Center was also set up to do the lobbying in the House and the Senate. I took on the responsibility of running the information center for its initial period and then went on the road to organize teach-in workshops on university campuses all over the United States.
    During the next nine months we drew a very clear picture of the future Bangladesh. We wanted to uphold democracy. We wanted to ensure the people's right to a free and fair election and to a life devoid of poverty. We dreamed of happiness and prosperity for all citizens and a nation that would stand with dignity among all other nations in the world.
    On December 16, 1971, Bangladesh won its war of independence. The war had taken a heavy toll. Three million Bangladeshis had been killed and 10 million had left the country in search of safety in neighboring India. Millions more were the victims of rape and other atrocities committed by the Pakistani army. By the time the war was over, Bangladesh was a devastated country. The economy was shattered. Millions of people needed to be rehabilitated.
    I knew that I had to return home and participate in the work of nation building. I thought I owed it to myself.

CHAPTER THREE
     

Back in Chittagong
     
    On my return to Bangladesh in 1972, I was offered a fancy title and appointed to the government's Planning Commission. My job was a bore. I had nothing to do all day but read newspapers. After repeated protests to the chief of the Planning Commission, Nurul Islam, I resigned to become head of the Economics Department at Chittagong University.
    Chittagong University is located twenty miles east of the city of Chittagong on 1,900 acres of barren hills. Built in the mid-1960s from designs by a leading architect of Bangladesh, the university looks impressive. The buildings are constructed entirely of exposed red brick with open corridors and expansive rooms. But although pleasing to the eye, these modern buildings are not at all utilitarian. When I arrived, for instance, there was a huge office for the head of each department, but no office space for the rest of the teachers. One of the first things I did as head of Economics was to convert my office into a common room for my colleagues. Strangely enough, this made the