Shaheen Bhai
Episode 5
Shariq Ali
Valueversity
“Enjoy the rural Bangladesh on our way to the tea gardens near Sylhet. Shaheen Bhai was a marvelous driver, no doubt.”
He was leaning against the Toyota HiAce, enjoying a cigarette. As soon as he saw us coming, he immediately dropped the cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his foot. With a bright smile, showcasing his betel-stained teeth, he first won our hearts and then promptly took the driver’s seat. We set out from Dhaka towards Srimangal, a town near Sylhet famous for its tea gardens, for a four- to five-hour road journey. Shaheen Bhai was our van driver. I had the chance to sit right next to him, while Tom, Ruth, Muneera, Ayub Ali, and Professor Salik took their seats in the back of the van. The rest of our friends boarded the other van behind us.
Our first stop was at the Acid Survivors Foundation office in Gulshan, where Nepal’s renowned plastic surgeon, Shankar Man Rai, and Bangladesh’s globally recognized epidemiologist and researcher, Dr. Mashraqi, were waiting for us. We stepped out to meet them for five or ten minutes. Although we had long been in touch with them via email and were familiar with their famed work through research journals, this was our first face-to-face meeting. We found both of them to be extremely polite, surprisingly youthful, and pleasant. It’s remarkable how close people can feel to each other in such a short time. It was a truly delightful experience.
As we were about to get back into the vans, Muneera mentioned to me that Professor Salik was an expert on this route and often traveled here. I immediately requested if we could find fresh coconut water along the way. Professor Salik happily agreed.
Soon, both vans started moving again, passing through the suburbs of the city. Compared to the main city, the traffic was somewhat lighter, but there were still plenty of rickshaws on the road. The low-hanging wires connecting the short electric poles on both sides of the road were a testament to the high population density and the government’s makeshift approach. After crossing a few small and large bridges, our vehicles exited the city limits and became part of the rural landscape.
On both sides of the road were relatively low but lush green trees, and beyond them, fields of standing crops stretched far into the distance. Occasionally, we saw male and female farmers working in the fields. Scattered across the grassy plains were small and large stagnant water ponds, some so large they resembled small lakes. Here and there, we even spotted solitary wooden boats floating. The whole scene seemed as if a poem by Tagore had come to life.
Shaheen Bhai’s smile was charming, and so was his driving. At several challenging points, his skills were on full display. His calm demeanor was likely due to the betel leaves in his mouth and his weak command of Urdu, but I managed to get some information from him. He was from Sylhet and a devotee of Hazrat Shah Jalal. He wasn’t much interested in studies, but he had successfully progressed from owning a rickshaw to a van in a short time.
After about two hours of travel, following a Bengali conversation between Professor Salik and Shaheen Bhai, we turned off the main road and entered the boundaries of a small village. The van parked at the corner of an open field behind a small shop with walls made of dry wooden sticks and a roof of dry grass. The shop was filled with green coconuts, and the shopkeeper looked as if he had just won the lottery. Nearby, in a dusty field, a group of children with varying degrees of clothing were engrossed in a game of cricket, divided into two teams… To be continued.