At the Coalface

The lift shafts at Barapukuria Coal Mine.

Dhaka, Khulna, Rangpur and Barisal: Mr. Zhang likes to travel. “Bangladesh is poor,” he says, interpreted from Mandarin, “but people are very honest, especially in the northern villages.”

As a Buddhist, Mr. Zhang believes in reincarnation. According to him, everything in this life is the outcome of a previous life. Something in his previous life brought him to Bangladesh this time around.

Office buildings at the mine.

The office buildings at his workplace are white tiled on the outer walls, with blue tiled angular eaves to break the monotony of a flat roof. The driveway, like the exterior of the stairwells, is circular. There’s a garden with neatly trimmed hedges. It could be any random factory office in industrial China except it isn’t. Mr. Zhang works as an engineer at Barapukuria Coal Mine in Dinajpur’s Parbatipur, and has done for a decade.

“I mostly speak to local colleagues in English,” he says, “but with the help of books and audio material I also learnt some Bangla. In Bangla it’s interesting how when people introduce how many siblings they have they include themselves in the number.”

Garden in front of the office.

Barapukuria is run by Chinese contractors. It’s unsurprising that the canteen serves Chinese fare and that signs commonly feature Mandarin characters. What’s more interesting is the mosque built for local workers in a similarly Chinese style, with white tiles and blue trim.

“At the core,” says Mr. Zhang, “all religions are the same.”

Barapukuria offices.

The Barapukuria gateway has seen better days.

Coal mining is a risky business and Barapukuria has not been a project free of controversy. Some risks are inherent: opening a new coal face where the air may contain carbon monoxide or methane, where temperatures can be high or a sudden inrush of water may occur.

Despite planning that currently includes the services of a British consultant, Barapukuria has suffered from land subsidence affecting surrounding farmlands; locals have complained of adverse impact on the water table; and some years ago workers went on strike.

The main entrance. The mine thinks it's a tea plantation.

There was also an underground flooding disaster that has since resulted in refined safety measures, put in place one hundred metres ahead of the drilling; and a concrete wall being constructed along the northern side at significant cost, to prevent further waterlogging.

The lift shaft.

There have also been issues with compensating and relocating villagers on whose former land the mine sits; though according to management most of these issues have since been settled.

Yet Barapukuria provides over 1000 jobs at the mine and a further 300 plus for Chinese workers; and it provides much needed coal for the country, most of which is used in electricity generation at the nearby power plant. Of national significance, not only does Barapukuria restrict the need for imports but due to its low-sulphur content the local rock is less polluting in power generation than the most-common, Indian, substitute.

From the surface, the first level of the mine is 293 metres down, sitting at 260 metres below sea level. From there, 1.5 kilometres of roadway and train track tunnels slope to a final depth of 430 metres below sea level.

Father-of-two Md Atiur Rahman, 30, from Mashpur, a village one kilometre from the mine, takes the lift down into the mine every workday. He’s been with the mine for nine years. “I had no work before,” he says, “We only have one bigha of land so life was hard.”

Local miner, Md. Atiur Rahman.

Underground, Rahman is responsible for constructing the beams and legs of wood along the tunnel that provide safety support. It’s a risky position because the new sections of tunnel are often hot and hold the greatest chance of roof cave-in.

Due to the risks his wife wants him to find another job, and there was a time when Rahman was scared underground, with fears of falling in the dark. But with years of experience “there is no time for fear,” he says, and although it’s hard work the mine enables him to manage his family’s finances.

Local miners attract a monthly salary of 9000 taka with 20 kilograms of rice grain and bonuses. There are four six-hour shifts per day.

The lift into the mine.

Rahman’s colleague Kabirul Islam, 33, has been working at the mine for eight years. “I like it when we get through our work quickly,” he says. The miners are given a task for each shift and if they complete it in three to four hours rather than six they return to the surface early.

He’s not scared anymore – the fear gradually left him in his first few months. But still, when leaving home of a morning he does sometimes wonder if he will ever see it again.

In 2009 seventeen miners were trapped by a cave in and one Ranjeet Chandra Roy died. “Those working at the coalface have the biggest risk,” says Islam.

Miner Kabirul Islam, after finishing a shift underground.

Miners in the lift.

Shift over.

Coal train engine.

Miners at the end of a shift.

Miners pose for the camera.

About cooperating with his Chinese colleagues, Islam says local miners have learnt to understand some Mandarin. “Kem cha means ‘train’,” says Islam. The word for train in Mandarin is actually ‘hǔo chē’ but in a tunnel with the sounds of a coal mine going on and a train quite possibly approaching at the time of use, ‘kem cha’ undoubtedly suffices.

Mr. Li, 'Om', looking busy while we chat.

Like Mr. Zhang and most Chinese miners, Mr. Li, locally called by the nickname ‘Om,’ is from the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province. For five years he’s worked at Barapukuria and in very basic Bangla and English he praises the skill of some of the managers.

But he misses his native cuisine. “Some of the Chinese food here is good,” he says, “but the variety is limited.” To supplement, miners have taken to growing Chinese vegetables on land beside their quarters. As can be expected, Mr. Li misses his one-year-old daughter and family who he sees only on visits home every six months.

Life at Barapukuria is strenuous and not without risk. Yet despite the hardships Bangladeshi and Chinese miners manage to cooperate in bringing the underground wealth of Bangladesh to the surface and into use. “External forces are not issues,” says Mr. Zhang. “What matters is internal attitude, which can turn any challenge into an opportunity and bring good fortune. Good deeds make for happy endings.”

With thanks to Ms. Olivia Qu for interpreting from Mandarin.

Bangladeshi miners at Barapukuria.

Barapukuria landscape.

 

Chinese miners at Barapukuria.

 

Mine landscape.

As the canteen (not pictured above) serves Chinese fare...

 

...sometimes the Bangladeshi office staff prefer the tea shop. And who could blame them?

Coal Street

Coal Street, Barapukuria Coal Mine, Parbatipur, Dinajpur.

Coconuts, jackfruit, fish, papaya and rice… there’s generosity to its geography. Bangladesh has a landscape that perpetually gives.

It’s the morning and I’m sitting in Saju’s living room. It’s not his Dinajpur Town residence but the old cottage in a row of old cottages at Phulbari’s Barapukuria Coal Mine: the place he calls home on workdays.

The housing strip is called the old staff barracks. It currently houses various employees unable to be accommodated elsewhere. Forty-three-year-old Md Shajiul Islam, Saju Bhai, is the mine’s assistant manager in the mechanical sector. He’s been working there for just short of eleven years.

The minor concrete laneway features cute front gardens of vines and fruit trees – papayas and mangoes – but the street has no name. Unimaginatively I’m calling it Coal Street.

Inside, from the thought-about check curtains, the spotless cane sofa set, the general order, you can tell Saju’s wife has been there. But she’s not there now – she’s in town. Breakfast is done and I’m sitting alone. Saju’s gone off somewhere, promising to be back soon.

It’s strange to be in Saju Bhai’s living room. For one thing there’s a guest house at Barapukuria, where the mine managers suggested I should stay. Foreigners usually do. There’s a club, a large pond and long tree-lined driveways – Barapukuria has those British-style trappings almost as though wishing it were a tea plantation.

But it’s better to stay in Coal Street. It’s more personal, more real.

The simple life in Coal Street.

It’s also strange to be there because I only met Saju a few days earlier. It was largely coincidental. Like many in Dinajpur I’d taken to spending at least a part of each evening at the enormous Boro Math – the colonial-era field not dissimilar to Kolkata’s Maidan. The Math is the town’s pride and wholly suitable for adda, the art of chatting.

Funnily enough we’d just been talking about how I might visit the mine when Saju arrived. It was Friday. He was home. Everything settled automatically and immediately, with no more effort than a ripened coconut falling. Hospitality is a second gravitational force in Bangladesh.

Unusually, as it happened I wasn’t at a total loss as to visiting the mine. A friend in Dhaka had seen on Facebook that I was in Dinajpur. He had a friend working at the mine – they’d once done a short IT course together and in Bangladesh any engagement that gets beyond a “hello, hi” holds significant risk, like a monsoon raincloud heavy and ready to burst, of becoming the start of a long friendship. My friend thought to ring me so I could meet his friend. It was only a matter of digging out the guy’s number.

I’d considered waiting but it all proved unnecessary and when I mentioned my friend’s friend’s name – Kamol Mollick, Saju said he was his next-door-neighbour.

Bangladesh is diverse and chaotic but somehow among the huge randomness of 160 million it’s often there’s some sort of contact or connection waiting nearby. It’s difficult to comprehend entirely how it works but there’s always that innate village-ness proximity lurking.

Saju Bhai.

Sitting in Saju’s living room I’m contemplating the previous evening – a small, strange thing in particular – a mobile phone charger. Off his own bat, Saju thought to enquire if my phone needed charging. When I said maybe it did, he sought the specific charger to fit. Someone on Coal Street had the right one.

It’s such a small thing but the charger seemed symbolic: the living room snacks before the dinner in the coal canteen (with apologies that Saju’s wife wasn’t there to provide a home-cooked main meal); the checking every detail for sleeping in the guest room – extra blanket on the side in case of cold snap, internet access… electronic repellent or mosquito net?

Bengali hospitality, is it culturally-genetically coded? There’s a genuine happiness from another’s happiness and comfort from the comfort of others. I’m wishing I could be more like that. I know for a fact I’d never think to ask a guest if their phone was alright.

I suppose I grew up in Australia. Much of Australia is ruggedly beautiful – there is hospitality too but it’s different. It arises more infrequently, less expectedly, from a harsh geography.

In between thoughts, a middle-aged woman with a round face and rounder body, in a pleasant green sari, wanders in off the street through the open door leading to the garage. I wait for her to say something but she doesn’t. She crosses the small living room right in front of me. I wonder if she’s a burglar. I wonder if I should disturb her at all, if, in Bangladesh, even a burglar might not expect to feel welcome.

Australian thinking cap on: it’s strange. Bangladeshi thinking cap on: it is as it is… and I’m smiling a Bangladeshi smile at the thought.

I’m slightly pleased when I see her open the fridge door. It’s surely not usual for thieves to primarily target refrigerated foodstuffs no matter what the cultural context. She seems to be loading various vegetables in her arms. She’s taking the lids off plastic containers in the freezer that might contain fish or meat.

I wait to see what happens next.

Arms fully loaded she turns back toward me and as she finally starts to speak I notice a few teeth missing. “Is your home far?” she says.

By this stage I’m almost certain she’s no criminal. What I don’t yet comprehend is that she’s cooking my lunch. She looks after Coal Street when wives are away. She leaves as unceremoniously as she entered.

Koi fish, shing fish, chengra fish, tiger fish, a not-sure-of-the-name fish and turtles… Kamol’s house next door features an aquarium and when I met him on the previous evening there was some talk of its inhabitants. He’s thirty-five, an assistant manager, electrical sector who was also batching that day – his wife on a home visit to Khulna. His twin girls normally tear around the little street, so I’m told. Coal Street must have been missing their noise.

Friend of friend equals friend… Friend of neighbour equals friend… I was doubly qualified and it was no small feat to persuade Kamol not to make tea. In any case, word had travelled Coal Street and there needed to be a visit across the road to Sattendra Barman’s house – he is also an assistant manager.

Friend of neighbour equals friend… Friend of friend of neighbour equals friend… With his wife at home, all hope of not having tea was lost.

She was once supposed to study in Australia but at the last minute she couldn’t go. It might have been good for her career but I wonder if it wasn’t a happy twist of fate.

I know, yes I know… Australia is the dream country, I hear it often. Yet it can only be from taking the little things – the important things – for granted; from assuming it all just continues on the other side of an ocean. Life in Bangladesh can be a struggle, of course… but Coal Street… who is it that would need to leave that? Big house, flashy car… what I’ve never properly understood: Why?

Later that morning I visit the mine. There are known-people to wave hello to as I do the rounds.

And afterwards there’s feedback from Mr Mollick via my friend in Dhaka. “I only wish I could have done more for him.” I should have let him make the tea.

Could the Bangladesh government perchance, or the Barapukuria Coal Mining Company perhaps, not send some foreign aid to Australia to teach Bangladeshi hospitality methods? I wonder. Feeling guilty: at my place will have to do better than coffee and biscuits… will need to think about other people’s mobile phone batteries.

Coconuts, jackfruit, fish, papaya and rice… sorry for distractions… I’m supposed to be writing about coal…

The distraction of Coal Street.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Coal Street