‘Couldn’t leave him’, aide recalls Language Movement veteran Ahmed Rafiq’s last, solitary years

Veteran Language Movement activist and researcher Ahmed Rafiq had been unable to live a normal life for nearly three of his final years. With fading eyesight and declining mobility, the 96-year-old had to lean on others for support in his final chapter -- among them was Abul Kalam, who had stood by him for more than three decades. Like a shadow, Kalam stayed with Rafiq through days and nights, attending to his every need. At times, he even assisted with his writing. From him, a picture emerges of the twilight years of a man once fiercely active in intellectual and cultural movements, but who spent his last days in solitude. “I’d been with him for 36 years,” said Kalam. “He...