Ambassador Ferdousi Shahriar: A Humble Tribute

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf is a flower;

But only so an hour.

                                       --Robert Frost

In our foreign service, there is a popular canard that, throughout your entire career, you can expect to come into close contact with at most one-third of the service members. Of the remaining two-thirds, you may incidentally bump into one-third here and there -- say, at airports while in transit, at meetings and conference venues, or at third-country postings where you might travel for work, personal, or family reasons. As for the rest, one-third may exist only alongside you on the staff roster, and you may never physically meet them throughout your entire career.

Surely, to me and most of my contemporaries in the Bangladesh Foreign Service, Ambassador Ferdousi Shahriar, who has just left us for eternity, falls into the first category of colleague. Lately, she had been serving as the Additional Foreign Secretary in charge of the Consular and Welfare Wing of the Ministry. She was also our immediate past High Commissioner to Singapore. The last time we witnessed the untimely death of a serving career diplomat was that of Ambassador Mohamed Mijarul Quayes in 2017. Incidentally, when Ambassador Quayes was the Foreign Secretary, Ferdousi Apa was the Director of the Foreign Secretary's Office.

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Addl Foreign Secretary Ferdousi Shahriar passes away

Aside from Ambassador Shahriar's distinguished accomplishments as a career diplomat, she had an outstanding academic record and a charming personality. I must admit that I was very fortunate to have her as my direct supervisor at the Americas Desk for a long period. The personality trait that made her distinctive as a diplomat was her extraordinary composure. I think very few who came into contact with her personally, professionally, or socially would disagree that she could befriend anyone easily because of her soft skills and remarkably down-to-earth approach. As her director, I enjoyed complete freedom and ample working space. I may share just one simple anecdote.

In 2019, when she was heading the Americas Desk, I, together with the then newly recruited budding diplomat Aminul (now posted at our Permanent Mission in Geneva), conceived the idea of arranging training for a few Bangladesh U-17 footballers at the prestigious Gama Football Academy in Brazil (illustrious World Cup winner Kaka is also a product of that academy). We shared our proposal with DG Ferdousi Madam, and she instantly gave it her wholehearted approval. She immediately called in the then Brazilian Ambassador to Dhaka, Joao Tabajara de Oliveira Junior, and requested, on behalf of the Government of Bangladesh, that he facilitate a training programme for the young Bangladeshi footballers at the Brazilian academy. Under Ferdousi Apa's guidance and advice, we participated in a series of coordination meetings with the Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Bangladesh Football Federation, eventually succeeding in sending four young footballers to Brazil, marking the first-ever such exposure for young Bangladeshi footballers. The following year, another group of young footballers was also sent to Brazil. I remember Ferdousi Apa was so enthusiastic about the project that, on one weekend evening, despite her personal commitments, she found the time to watch a live football match between two teams, one of which included the Bangladeshi players, at a restaurant in Gulshan.

I was at the Maritime Affairs Desk when she was Director of the Foreign Secretary's Office. At the time, we were still holding technical-level talks on maritime boundary demarcation with our neighbouring states, India and Myanmar. It was a highly technical and multi-agency task requiring repeated guidance and directives from the top leadership, including the Foreign Secretary's Office. Ferdousi Apa's ever-calm and composed manner was a tremendous advantage for us. I would say that, for young officers who, over the course of their careers, are expected to handle diverse assignments at home and abroad under considerable pressure, Ferdousi Apa offers a vivid example of how to remain composed in demanding situations. With her passing, the nation has lost a fine and talented diplomat.

Hailing from the same neighbourhood of Mirpur, I could probably share many other moments that I fondly cherish with dear Ferdousi Apa. I will conclude with just one. In 2013, during my transfer from Washington, DC, to New Delhi, my wife and I decided to spend our joining time in Rome, where, incidentally, Ferdousi Apa and Moyen Bhai, now Chief Engineer of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD), were posted. As a matter of routine, the Bangladesh Mission in Washington sent a fax to the Rome Mission informing them of our travel. Ferdousi Apa was furious upon receiving the formal message. She rang me up and severely rebuked me, asking why I had not simply called her to share my flight details and confirm that I, along with my wife and our five-year-old daughter, would be staying at her home for a week on our way to Delhi. She was just like that!

During my home leave two weeks ago, I met her for the last time at the Ministry. Unfortunately, she had been coping with a very challenging period because of her health, her child's studies, and other related family matters, which probably took a serious toll on her own health. I invited her to visit me in Jeddah so that she and her family could also perform Umrah. Neither of us knew that it was never to be.

Wherever we meet again, Madam, you have won our hearts!

The author is the Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the OIC, Jeddah