The Foreign Service Journal, December 2012

34 DECEMBER 2012 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL N itun Kundu (1935-2006) was an artist, designer and sculptor whose soft way of speaking and gentle manner imme- diately impressed everyone who met him. Our paths first crossed in 1959 at the U.S. Information Service office in Embassy Dhaka (then known as Dacca), where I was a young Foreign Service officer. Kundu had just begun working for USIS, designing exhibits and graphics. His paintings consisted primarily of country land- scapes that featured rivers, boat scenes and indigenous people. Whatever he painted, he depicted scenes with an impressionistic flair. Sometimes the colors flowed over the canvas as if soaked up to create the scene. Long after my wife, Harriet, and I departed Dhaka in 1961 for our next Foreign Service posting, Kundu continued to work for USIS. Harriet and I frequently reminisced about him, wondering how he managed after we left. During that period, East Pakistan, as it was then known, began to break away from Islamabad. Fol- lowing various social and political upheavals, the country finally won its independence as Bangladesh in 1971. Throughout this chaotic decade, civil disorder was rampant throughout the region. Because Kundu was a member of the minority Hindu population in a predominantly Muslim country, we couldn’t help but wonder how he had survived those cata- strophic events—if, indeed, he had. Michael Kristula is a retired Foreign Service officer who served with the U.S. Information Agency for 30 years in Dhaka, La Paz, Cali, Bogota, Poznan, Mexico City and Washington, D.C. He received a Su- perior Honor Award for his role in establishing a worldwide television network for USIA posts. NITUN KUNDU: A SUCCESS Those of us who were touched by this great Bangladeshi artist’s personal warmth will always remember his many achievements. BY M I CHAE L KR I STULA