By the time Saleemul Huq had reached university he had lived in more cities than most people manage in a lifetime. Born in Karachi Pakistan, his father was a diplomat moving frequently, and Saleemul moved with him. At the age of one he moved to Bonn Germany, he went to school in Jakarta, Indonesia; attended high school in Nairobi, Kenya; and then went to university in London. Later he would settle in Dhaka, Bangladesh where he still lives for much of the year.