When she died from a lingering cancer battle, I was not prepared. I mean there are so many who have it and we have lost many close and loved ones to its deadly embrace but in the end, cancer's triumph is in its endless ability to shock us when it strikes its final blow and someone dies.

How final is it to say "she is dead". Very, I am afraid. And that's what I felt when I heard the news. It came through social media, picked up from somebody's FB post. It couldn't be more anonymous and that is why it is so painful. They were words of the announcement of death hanging in the digital air like a black cape of mourning and grief.

I tried to come to terms with the immediate shock which had become physically painful. But there was no other way, no means to communicate with others except through the same transparent social media sky. I posted the news and at least thought others would know.

It was a slightly older news going by the digital clock. But I began to receive calls, sharing shock and grief. It lasted long into the night as brown leaves waiting to be shaken to the ground looked at the leaves that had already fallen. Our words carried the weight of a shared past for the dead shares no future.

I admit. I accept, I shall move on.

Bichitra days

I had first met her in the mid-70s but didn't get to know her well till later that decade when she joined the weekly Bichitra, a regular haunt of mine since the early 70s, soon after the war ended. It was a place where the young, "modern", lefty types of the pro-Bangladesh variety congregated under the active, indulgent and benign eyes of its Editor Shahadat Chowdhury.

He himself was a freedom fighter from Sector 2 under Khaled Mosharraf. Many others came from the same camp including Dr. Zafarullah Chowdhury. In many ways Bichitra did much more than any others to establish the goals and ideas of Zafarullah bhai at a popular level.

His notion of "Gono Shahstho" - People's Health- was conceived in 1971 and they were spread to a wider audience through Bichitra's pages. He set up an advertising company and a bulletin on the theme and Urmi apa was part of that. In so many ways, she carried that spirit of the 70s, now looking back, the most productive, socially active decade of Bangladesh's history.

Even as she took care of her home life, she carved a niche as a media trainer, writer and activist while raising a child as a single mother. Soon she was also noticed as a journalist of high caliber and the offer from the BBC, London came.

She was very suited to the job as she had the voice, had experience in radio broadcasting and knew the innards of Bangladesh courtesy her Bichitra days.

Urmi apa was excited at the prospect of moving to London, a wider world of broadcast media but she was very morose at the prospect of leaving her friends, home and memories behind in Bangladesh and living in London. I remember her awfully sad face as she struggled with bouts of near grief and excitement, even relief at the same time. Her son would be able to get a great education there so it's with a huge mix of emotions that she left for London and entered into a truly new beginning.

Her London days

When I met her in London in 1991 at the BBC Bangla service office, I met a new Urmi apa, a dazzlingly happy, bright and shining apa. The reason was of course simple - Sagar da. She had met and married the gentleman broadcaster from Kolkata and was settling into a new life there. I was on my way to the US and ended up as their houseguest. It was a lovely time for all of us. Her life had truly changed.

She later left the BBC and joined the UK local government and was planning to settle permanently there but "Bengal" called and she moved to Kolkata with Sagar da to live out their retirement life. She would often visit Dhaka particularly in February for the Ekushey book fair. We often met at parties thrown by old BBC and Bichitra colleagues. And then one day when cancer struck she became more fragile. She was still active on Facebook but one day she was there no more leaving only memories behind.

And FB is full of memorial posts. Farewell Urmi apa, till we meet again and laugh together like life doesn't matter anymore.

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Urmi Rahman was a Bangladeshi journalist and author. After working for several years at various newspapers and magazines in Bangladesh, she was awarded a UNESCO Fellowship to Michigan State University and to the Press Foundation of Asia in Manila, Philippines.

In 1985 she joined the Bengali Section of BBC World Service in London as a producer-broadcaster and remained with them for eight years, before leaving to work in local government in London.

Urmi Rahman published a number of books, both fiction and non-fiction, and translated several books from English to Bengali. She later moved to Kolkata with her Indian husband, and regularly contributed to newspapers and journals in both Kolkata and Dhaka.

She has a number of publications to her credit, which include books, both fiction and non-fiction, short story collections, children's story books and other books on different topics. These include, a title on Bengalis living in Britain (Bilete Bangalee: Shongram O Shafolyer Kahini), feminism in the West (Pashchatye Nari Andolon) and on war crimes in different countries (Juddhaporadh Deshe Deshe). Her latest book was based on interviews of distinguished personalities from Bangladesh and West Bengal (Atmokothone Shamay O Srijon Kotha). She has translated some books from English to Bengali, one of them is the translation of A Question of Women's Liberation by American feminist-anthropologist Evelyn Reed (Narimuktir Proshne). One of her short stories was adapted for a TV drama that was telecast on a popular Bangladeshi television channel.

She also wrote B is for Bangladesh, a pictorial children's book published by Frances-Lincoln and Culture Smart! Bangladesh.