Days of yore: Ferdausi Majumdar

Born on June 18, 1943 in Barisal, Ferdausi Majumdar was 11th among her parents' (Khan Bahadur Abdul Halim Chowdhury and Umme Kabir Afia) 14 offspring.
“I was very fond of sports and games as a child. Skipping, badminton, shatchara, danguli, chhu-buli, marble…you name it. Once I passed out after scoring 966 in a skipping challenge; I received a crystal bowl as the prize for winning. Till class nine, I was into sports,” she said.
Her first school was 'Nari Shikkha Mondir' in Tikatuli, Dhaka. “I can still recall that moment when, during my admission test, I tried to copy maths answers from one of my cousins; I was bad in maths. But when she didn't allow me to copy, I started crying and complained to the teacher on duty that my cousin wasn't letting me copy answers from her test. That still makes me laugh,” she reminisced.
“I was in that school up to class seven. There were many trees in the school. In class five, during recess, our teachers napped in the classroom and we played paanchguti. One day I fell with the blackboard on a girl called Chhaya. Chhaya was taken to a doctor immediately and everyone was giving me looks. I started crying.”
Ferdausi's mother told her that the family was afraid they'd lose her forever when she was only one and half year old. “I had a bout of bacillary dysentery. Apparently my vision was fading and blood pressure went down. When all treatments failed, everyone was losing hope. Finally, with the help of a kabiraj (medicine man), I apparently recovered,” the veteran actress said.
She also remembers her father wrote down her and her siblings' birthdays with the specific times of birth and zodiacs.
“My childhood was a happy time. Reminiscing that certainly cheers me up,” Ferdausi said.