A stage will be set. It will be adorned with flowers. And speeches will be delivered, and certainly countless stories will be told. Writers, artists, journalists and colleagues will come together to attend an event. But this time, the man who often used to be at the centre of all the events at Channel i will be missing. Really, will he? I doubt it. Because, Ameerul bhai who worked as Head of Programme of Channel i, for so many years, seemed was never merely a person occupying a chair. He was an atmosphere, a unity and a joy. He was laughter spilling from one room into another. He was a large, generous presence who somehow made every gathering feel more alive.
A memorial meeting for Ameerul Islam will be held on 24 September. It is true that he will not walk into the room physically. Nevertheless, I feel that the room will be full of him. My first face-to-face acquaintance with Ameerul Islam occurred at Bishwo Sahitto Kendro. Around 1987, when I used to come to Dhaka from Mymensingh as a Kendro worker, we would exchange a few words. After moving to Dhaka in 1989, our paths crossed more frequently, at the Kendro and in many other places. By then, Ameerul Islam had already become a towering figure in Bengali children’s literature. Alongside Lutfor Rahman Riton and a few others of that generation, he was one of the young princes of the literary world. At that age, when I was barely out of my own childhood, I was certainly not very comfortable in their presence.
But literature was only one part of Ameerul Islam’s work. The Ameerul I came to know closely after joining Channel i in 2007 was a much larger canvas. He was a writer, editor, television personality, cultural organiser, raconteur, food lover and, surprisingly for many, a very good cook. He had a magnificent appetite for life and for people. His physical frame was imposing. But what I remember more vividly is the size of his heart. He welcomed people. Almost everyone. The familiar and the unfamiliar. The celebrated and the struggling. The old friend and the newcomer. He had an instinctive generosity that made people feel they had been expected.
And then there was food. Ameerul bhai could cook with genuine pleasure. He did not cook simply to feed people; he cooked to bring people together. A meal at his table was another form of adda, another expression of affection. He understood something very old and very human: sometimes the easiest way to tell someone you are welcome here is to put food in front of them and say, “Eat.”
That generosity ran through his life. It also ran through his literature. Ameerul’s contribution to children’s literature was enormous. His first book, Khamkheyali, appeared when he was very young and earned the Agrani Bank Children’s Literature Award. Over the years, he wrote hundreds of books across rhymes, stories, novels, poems, biographies, essays, plays, translations, and books on history, science, technology and obviously the Liberation War.
Books such as Rimjhimpur, Chhutir Dine Ekdol Pichchi, Amader Goyendagiri, Ekattorer Michhil, Mou Bhalo Theko, Shishu Sahitter Alochhaya and Shishu Sahitter Chena Ochena became part of the landscape of Bengali children’s literature.
His work was recognised with the Bangla Academy Award in 2006. But awards cannot measure the affection of generations of readers. Children do not remember a writer because of prizes. They remember because something in the writing made their world brighter. That was Ameerul’s great gift. He knew how to preserve wonder.
Perhaps, that is why he himself never seemed entirely separated from childhood. There was mischief in him, curiosity in him, an eagerness to taste, see, hear, argue, laugh and discover. And he knew people. He collected friendships the way some people collect books. There were writers, artists, journalists, television workers, cultural activists and countless ordinary people around him. His life seemed to have an ever-expanding circle. After his death, Sagar bhai (Faridur Reza Sagor) said to me, “You must have known Ameerul for many years.” I told him: “By counting the years, perhaps three and a half decades. But Ameerul bhai was such a person that he felt like an elder brother from many, many lifetimes.”
That is the truth about him. Three and a half decades is a number. Ameerul was not a number. He was a feeling. And that feeling will not lessen even after his passing on 11 September. Now comes the September 24 memorial meeting. Channel i will gather for him, but without him. Someone else will have to coordinate. Someone else will have to worry about the arrangements. Someone else will occupy the space where his laughter used to rise above the noise. And perhaps, for a moment, everyone will look towards the door. Perhaps someone will expect that familiar, unmistakable presence to appear.
He will not. That will hurt. But then someone will tell a story about him. Someone will remember one of his jokes. Someone will talk about a book. Someone will remember a meal he cooked. Someone will imitate his voice. Someone will laugh through tears. And suddenly, he will return time and again. Not  physically. But in memory.
That is the strange mercy granted to people who have lived generously. They leave behind more than books. They leave behind echoes. Ameerul Islam has left behind hundreds of books, generations of readers, a vast circle of friends, colleagues and admirers, and countless little memories scattered across the lives of people who knew him. At Channel i, he left something even more intangible. He left a way of gathering people. A way of making an occasion feel like an occasion. A way of making a stranger feel like a friend. A way of making a meal feel like fellowship. A way of making a room feel inhabited.
So, on 24 September, when we gather to remember Ameerul Islam, I do not think we will simply be mourning his absence. We will be surrounded by his presence. In the laughter. In the stories. In the books. In the food. In the friendships. In the memories. And perhaps in that sudden, inexplicable warmth that comes when someone you have lost seems, for one fleeting moment, to be standing beside you again.
Ameerul bhai, you have gone somewhere from where none of us can call you back. But you have left so much of yourself behind that the places you loved will never be empty, especially Channel I, and those who knew you will continue to love you. You will not be there on 24 September. But your presence will be felt there. And perhaps that is the most beautiful remembrance anyone can leave behind.
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The writer is Chief Executive Editor at Channel i