Story related to Dr. Sack (Md. Sirajul Islam Molla)

In late 1985 when I was a new fellow at LSD, Dr. Sack first brought some Osborne personal computers for the secretaries working at LSD. I was fortunate enough to get one for me. I was working as an assistant to Mrs. Saleha Chowdhury and also was assigned to support Dr. Zia Uddin Ahmed, Dr. K.A. Monsur and Dr. Mahbubur Rahman. Mrs. Chowdhury was the secretary to Dr. Sack.
 
I was so delighted and enthralled to have computer at the time when many of our colleagues at ICDDR,B did not have it. Only CIS and some other few areas have some IBM computers. The Osborne computers had only two drives – A and B. Programme disk was put into drive A and data disk into drive B. It had only a few KB space in both the drives. So we had to use lot of disks for storing data. It had a very little screen for which Dr. Sack arranged for us to procure some black and white Philips brand televisions. We were more than happy then and thanked Dr. Sack for his farsightedness in introducing us in the world of computers.
 
However, we did not have printers for all of us. Only Mrs. Chowdhury had a Juki printer and all of us including Dr. Sack had to depend on to Mrs. Chowdhury for printing of our data files. She printed the data file at her convenient time. The most interesting thing was none of us but Dr. and Jean Sack were allowed to enter Mrs. Chowdhury’s room. She said her computer and printer were very sensitive and they only knew her and Sacks couple, they could not tolerate others. One day she directly asked me not enter her room. I was shocked and curious to know the mysterious characters of her computer and printer. On a convenient day, I asked Dr. Sack about the mysterious behaviour of Mrs. Chowdhury’s computer/printer and Dr. Sack replied to me with a big smile. My curiosity then increased many folds and I was looking for an opportunity to enter Mrs. Chowdhury’s room and use her computer. The opportunity came one day when Mrs. Chowdhury went for lunch. I not only entered her room, I used her computer and printed a file from one of my data disks. When Mrs. Chowdhury came back from lunch I smiled at her and said, “Apa your computer and printer allowed me not only in your room but to have printed my data file.” She was a bit angry at me and said , “Siraj, don’t use my computer and printer without my permission.” I said, “Alright Apa, I will follow your instructions.”
 
Hey guys, maybe it is not quite related to Dr. Sack and you are not getting interest in it. OK, then listen to another story.
 
After had attended the office one morning we heard that Dr. Sack lost his wallet from his office. As usual it was reported to the General Services Unit and the big bosses including Commander (retd) Mia came to Dr. Sack’s office to investigate the matter. Mr. Mia interrogated me if I had seen anyone entering Dr. Sack’s office or not. I said, “No”, “I have just come to the office and I have not seen anybody other than Dr. Sack and Mrs. Chowdhury there”. Then they went back and started searching the wallet and the thief. They found the wallet sometime at noon on the tin-shed roof of the present Procurement Office, but without the money into it. The most interesting thing you know is my ignorance about the meaning of wallet. I thought it was something like a handbag, but only then I knew it as a moneybag when secretly consulted with a dictionary. The incident made me so panicky that I could not concentrate my work for quite sometime fearing that Dr. Sack, Mrs. Chowdhury and others might have doubted me as I was working very closely with them and was very young to earn faith of them by then. I was calling the name of Allah and saying prayer so that the thief was caught. Unfortunately the thief was never caught, but I was able to overcome the panicky situation over time and earned the faiths of not only Dr. Sack and Mrs. Chowdhury, but also Jean Sack who gave me a gift before their departure. It was a handmade tea-mug made of clay. I preserved it for a long time, but not forever. It does not matter. The love and affection that I had received from Dr. and Mrs. Jean Sack during my affiliation with them then and the recent days particularly when I was with ER&ID Office will make me remember them forever.
 
I wish them all the best in their lives.
 
Md. Sirajul Islam Molla
Coordination Manager, HISD
and an Environmentalist