AN OBVIOUS FACT remains so much legible on our faces during the event, faces bearing a distinctive mark that was engraved on our seemingly endless smiles and vigor - as Asbabul Hidaya, the 31st Assembly is the first of our assemblies.

We can’t exactly tell whether those excited smiles and anticipating looks were normal phenomena every time the event arrives but we can say, in our case at least, the suspense was way much more intense. From the preparation to the culmination of the event – which was a celebration brought by the greater celebration – it created in us a series of connected and successive surprises which in its consequence generated a new form of adventure; a rare opportunity to know or meet good and big people from the organization, to set foot on different shore and watch and learn from the elders whose mere presence we could hardly regard but in admiration, to see RC in its fullest and true skin, and to finally feel the essence of being one of the RC family, all are deeply penetrative to the bones. It was not just a mere event committed for strict social obligation and to keep the blood of the organization runs through all its branches and veins… it was like some ritual in its effect, a sort of ancient ceremony of reconnection and sustenance, of union and unison, combined with a thanksgiving expressed in a bountiful feast. It sounded too much, but in venting the whole atmosphere of that particular night, I think I have done a little justice, if not a good one.

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I intend not only to be brief but direct to the point in the narratives of my journey back to a place in time where I lay dead in my mother?s arm and beyond...

I was born on the 6th of Ramadan 1952 to a middle class family at a time when birth control was never heard of and the simple ability to read and write was considered a good education. My father whose face I have no recollection of, must have been a great guy. We had a big house, a lumber yard and a share in a big rice mill. I am the 12th in a family of 13 but more than half of my siblings died in infancy and early childhood. I grew up with four of my surviving brothers and our dearest mother. My father died when I was barely a year old, our youngest being just a week old. I was sickly as an infant (so my mother told me) with my inconsolable infantile screams keeping everyone on their toes at night especially my father. I must have died or almost died at the age of about 3 months so my mother said. My father went to the market and bought a white cloth for my burial shroud but I wriggled back to life before they could wrap me in it. It was my first close call.

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It was due to my personal experiences even at an early age that paranormal phenomenon became one of my fascinations in life. I never imagine though that I will witness another one so bizarre; so unbelievably freaky and yet so touching that regardless of how sceptic one could get...this is one proof that there is something inside in us all; call it spirit if you will that are truly immortals. This is a true story of love, death and friendship. This is the truth stranger than fiction with real names...real people.

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