10 years of our Nobel Peace Prize

Photos: courtesy

Let's consider the first paragraph a prologue.

It was October 13, 2006. I was stuck in a coaching centre, waiting for inevitable doom as a math quiz was about to take place. Just a couple of minutes before the exam, one of the clerks came to the class room and called my name. "Apurba Jahangir, your father is here to pick you up." As I was relieved to skip the exam, curiosity also rose within; I thought this must be a family emergency. Coming down the stairs, I saw my father, talking on his cell phone. He directed me to follow him. Walking through the chaos of Moghbazar, we reached our car. "What happened?" I curiously asked my mother, who was already seated inside. She answered, "Your Babuji (what we call our paternal uncle) just won the Nobel Peace Prize!"

On December 10, the Nobel Committee was to give the prize to Dr Muhammad Yunus and we got to know that we all were invited to attend the ceremony. This was news we, especially us cousins, were not expecting! I mean sure, your uncle wining the Peace Prize is one thing, but to be able to witness it live was a completely different thing to experience. 

On December 8— the day of our flight, we reached the airport around ten in the morning.The trip wasn't just in Oslo, Norway, but also included London and Paris. We were eighty people traveling, included the family of Dr Yunus, the Grameen Bank family and Nritayanchal, a dance troupe which was to perform at the ceremony. After waiting for two hours in the lounge, we were called to board the flight. Little did we know that the runway had in store yet another surprise – a Boeing 737 of Hamburg International Airline was sent for our services. This Boeing was our ride for the next couple of days of our trip and was also witness to the ultimate Bengali 'picnic' – half an hour after take off we could hear a Dhol like sound from the back of the plane alongside the words 'Sadher Lau'. My cousin Raad and I turned around and saw half of Nrityanchal and the Grameen team dancing to 'Lau dia banailam dug dugi'. A few minutes later, most of us joined in and after that, in came the captain! The weight of passengers had increased so much at the back of the plane that it was out of balance! We were soon given instructions to remain in our designated seats.

We reached Oslo after fourteen hours and were escorted to our hotel, The Radisson Blu. It amazes me now to think how Raad and I were declared room mates for the entire trip. You can guess how two twelve year olds felt having a whole room to their selves. The next day, after a generous breakfast, we were given a city tour of Oslo. This included the Ski museum and the Vikings Ship Museum among other places. The areas of Oslo were covered with a shade of blue that winter, I noticed, as our bus drove for the mountains.

It was soon December 10, the moment we had all been waiting for. The ceremony was held at the Oslo City Hall and as we arrived we saw journalists from all over the world, standing beside the red carpet. This was the first time the ceremony witnessed a delegation as big as ours. The hall was filled with people wearing Grameen Check panjabis and vests. We soon witnessed Dr Yunus and Taslima Begum (who received the prize on behalf of Grameen bank) arriving in a limousine. I still remember the speech Babuji gave that day; it was the first time the famous line "Bringing poverty to museums" was uttered. 

Oslo also gave us the famous Nobel Peace Prize Concert. Artists such as Rihanna, Lionel Richie performed, while Sharon Stone and Angelica Huston mesmerised hosted the event, mesmerizing us all.

On December 12, as we reached London, the second part of the trip began. London gave us a place to shop, eat and a city tour. The last stop was Paris, where an interesting event took place. We were supposed to be at the President's house for a photo session and schedule was pretty tight. Due to unavoidable circumstances, I missed the bus which left a few minutes before I got out of the hotel. As the bus was escorted by the police, there was no going back. Lamiya Morshed (our dear Lamiya apu) came to the rescue. She also missed the bus and we soon caught a taxi to go meet the president. Jacques Chirac, who was the then President of France, greeted us at the hall and unfortunately had to wait for us a couple of minutes—a kind of thing to boast about a little, don't you think?

Ten years have passed since the Nobel Peace Prize, yet the memories are still fresh. Dancer Rachel Perris was in our office the other day who was also a member of the dance troupe. We started reminiscing about the dinner cruise in Seine River, the out-of-balance plane and all the fun we had. After all these years, we all have been busy with our lives, but those ten days in Oslo, London and Paris remain a special memory we can share forever.