The Legacy of Humayun Ahmed and His Enduring Connection to NDSU

During the frigid North Dakota winters, the snow would gently fall outside, blanketing the campus of North Dakota State University (NDSU) in a peaceful stillness. This experience was unfamiliar and almost otherworldly for many international students I talked to, including those from tropical countries. Yet, for someone like Humayun Ahmed, one of Bangladesh’s most revered literary figures, this snow-covered landscape became a strange but comforting backdrop for a life-changing chapter in his academic and personal journey. 

Humayun Ahmed was a popular novelist, dramatist, screenwriter, filmmaker and songwriter in Bangladesh. His connection to NDSU and Fargo can be seen as part of this larger narrative of cultural exchange. The experience of living in a vastly different environment from his homeland gave him new perspectives that enriched his writing. For NDSU and the city of Fargo, Ahmed remains a symbol of the university’s reach and the potential it offers students worldwide.

In the early 1980s, Ahmed arrived at Fargo as a graduate student at NDSU. Though Fargo was over 7,000 miles from his home in Dhaka, Bangladesh, the city became deeply connected with his identity. His reflections in his autobiography Hotel Graver Inn transformed Fargo from a remote, foreign place into one of significance for generations of Bangladeshi readers. For people like me, growing up thousands of miles away, Fargo feels oddly familiar, even intimate, because we have experienced it through Ahmed’s words long before ever setting foot here.

When I shared the news of my admission to NDSU on social media with my friends and family, I was not surprised by the response: “That’s where Humayun Ahmed studied, right?” His name is synonymous with North Dakota among many Bangladeshi readers, thanks to his evocative autobiography, Hotel Graver Inn. Through this book, readers in Bangladesh have long felt an emotional connection to Fargo and NDSU, a place that influenced Humayun Ahmed’s life profoundly and, by extension, ours.

In the 1980s, when Humayun Ahmed arrived in Fargo to pursue his PhD in Polymer Chemistry, he found himself in a world starkly different from his home. Fargo’s quiet streets and harsh winters offered a challenge not only to his body but to his spirit. He stayed in the Graver Hotel, which was used as a student dorm and situated at 123 Roberts Street. He took classes such as Quantum Mechanics (Course 529) at Dunbar Hall under Professor Mark Gordon, and he realized that NDSU and Fargo were shaping his life in ways he had never imagined. He also wrote about Toyla Klein, NDSU’s international student advisor at that time, who helped him navigate these challenges.

Ahmed captured the delicate beauty of Fargo’s winters, an experience unfamiliar to someone from the tropics. He described his initial reaction to seeing snow for the first time, invoking lines from Conrad Aiken’s poem, “Winter for a Moment Takes the Mind”:

“Winter for a moment takes the mind; the snow

Falls past the arclight; icicles guard a wall;

The wind moans through a crack in the window;

A keen sparkle of frost is on the sill…”

As an international student, Humayun Ahmed faced the same cultural and academic learning experiences and challenges many of us still navigate today. His struggle to adapt to a new culture and weather while excelling as a graduate student is a testament to his resilience. Ahmed had a teaching assistantship at NDSU, which later became a fellowship, but the journey was not easy. He struggled with homesickness, isolation, and the complexities of adapting to a completely different environment. Ahmed’s narratives voice the loneliness many international students feel, a theme that transcends decades and continents. His experience at the Beef and Bun Hotel, where he would eat and observe life, was another way Ahmed sought to understand people and places in a new country. 

Today, Humayun Ahmed’s connection to Fargo and NDSU has impacted several Bangladeshi students who choose to study here. Like many others, I learned about Fargo through Ahmed’s writings long before I applied to NDSU. His vivid portrayals of the city, quiet charm, and academic rigor influenced my decision to come here. For those of us who grew up reading his books, NDSU was not just another university; it was a place we felt we already knew and that had shaped the mind of one of our beloved literary figures.

Walking through Memorial Union, I am reminded of the footsteps Humayun Ahmed once took on these same paths. His journey from Bangladesh to Fargo echoes the experiences of many international students from Bangladesh who studied at NDSU. To this day, when we share stories about our time at NDSU, his name inevitably comes up, linking us to a shared history that spans oceans and generations.

Humayun Ahmed passed away in 2012, but his legacy thrives in Bangladesh and Fargo. Millions of Bangladeshis still read and cherish his books, and his time in Fargo remains crucial to his narrative. For the Fargo-Moorhead community and NDSU, Ahmed’s presence is a reminder of how this city became a significant part of the life of one of Bangladesh’s most beloved writers.

As I write this article from Fargo, I cannot help but feel a sense of connection to Humayun Ahmed and those international students who have come before me and those who will follow. Just as Fargo became a place of transformation for Humayun Ahmed, it continues to be a place of growth and discovery for me and many others. In every snowfall and every walk through campus, his spirit lingers, a quiet reminder that we are part of something bigger, a shared story that spans continents and generations.

By the time I leave NDSU, I will have a degree and a deep sense of history with me, one that Humayun Ahmed so eloquently shaped. For the Bangladeshi community, Fargo is more than just a city in North Dakota; it is a place that has touched the heart of one of our greatest writers and, through him, many of us.