Village Boy to Accidental Soldier

By any reasonable measure, Rashed Chowdhury grew up too fast. At age 12, the young boy came to accept that he would be on his own for life. Raised by a strict and tightfisted father, Rashed walked barefoot miles to school, frequently donning the same attire he had worn yesterday, last week, and the month before. Nor was he ever fortunate enough to receive a complete set of textbooks. Even his paternal love for him was in short supply. Abandoned by his family, he had no money even to take a bus ride to college. "I will chart my future without support from him," Rashed vowed, hinting at his father. One such walk landed him in the military quite by accident when he noticed young men in a crowd jockeying to enroll in the military and soon became one. His mother? Rashed felt sorry that she, too, "quietly tolerated, if not suffered," under his father's dominance. To him, his mother was the epitome of love, forever concerned for her son's well-being, even when he grew up. She clearly adored him in a manner that few children ever experienced. To her and to the family, Rashed was special. That perhaps makes Village Boy to Accidental Soldier so iconic a personal tale. Here we meet a boy who, despite insurmountable odds, was determined to make it on his own and proved he could. Here we see a soldier who developed an intense affiliation with his community that propelled him to a death-defying defection from the army he once swore to serve, so that he might join fellow fighters to liberate Bangladesh. Here we encounter the family that was not responsive to his childhood needs, yet, in his turn, he nurtured it to prosperity.