Every person has a story to tell. This is the story of a Bangladeshi who was born one cold December morning in the village of Lostimanika in East Pakistan and went on to traverse the world during the next sixty plus years. It is a story of growing up in the peaceful Hindu-Muslim community of Narayanganj, of a Muslim boy being educated in Catholic schools, and of leaving home to study in the West when he was merely seventeen. That started a fifty-year journey from his homeland to his present home in Canada. Through it all, he lived and worked in six continents and experienced the beauty and diversity as well as the complexities and hardships faced by peoples worldwide.
This book is a personal story, a collection of snippets from his eventful journey through life. The author shares many delightful anecdotes, the scary moments that spelt danger, and his occasional brush with death. It is also a story of visits to many historical, cultural, and religious sites, and of learning about man's contribution to humanity. The author has worked with many governments, civil society organizations, academics, the military, and the media under challenging circumstances and often in hazardous environments. It is in the end a story of surmounting all obstacles and of having lived a full and happy life.
About the Author: Shaukat Hassan is an academic by training who has a rich repertoire of teaching, research, and developmental work. His nearly forty years of work demonstrates his passion and commitment to improve the lives of peoples, especially of women, youth, and the marginalized. He started his career working on South Asian development, environment, and security issues. This was followed by broader international work in analytical and strategic environments in six continents (Australia, Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, and North America), including attempts at peaceful resolution of conflicts in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
After immigrating to Canada thirty years ago, he became the Canadian International Development Agency's policy lead on governance and anticorruption. He served in many Canadian delegations to international bodies such as the OECD DAC, UNODC, EITI, GOPAC, TI, the Utstein Group, and the World Bank. In between, he has taught at a number of universities in Bangladesh and the United States including serving as chairman of academic departments in North South University, Bangladesh; as the head of several research institutes; and as an international consultant for DfID and USAID for projects in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, Paraguay, and Ukraine. He is currently an internationally recognized expert on good governance and anticorruption issues.
He is the author of scores of articles on international relations and security issues in refereed journals and of a coedited book on Bangladesh foreign policy.
He holds a PhD in international relations from Australia and MA in international relations and a BS in political science from the United States. He is a citizen of Bangladesh and Canada, and he and his wife live in Ottawa.
