Back from the Brink

Bulbul Ahmed Chowdhury knows what it's like to lose everything.

Bulbul Master knows how it is to stand at the precipice and stare into the abyss. He’s been to that dark place where all seems lost, with little left to lose. He survived.

Thanks to the great blessings of a singular friend who forced Bulbul to pull himself back; with the truly remarkable support of Dinajpur’s rural Kalikapur community who accept Bulbul while being aware of his past, the man’s life eventually returned to take on that everyday rhythm most take for granted. In such circumstances, otherwise modest achievements really shine.

Bulbul Ahmed Chowdhury, approaching fifty years old, rents a room in a house across the laneway at the back of the government high school. He pays 500 taka per month rent with 100 taka for electricity. As he never had the chance to marry, he lives alone.

Bulbul is popular with the other families in the house. They knock on his door to say hello if he’s been inside his room for too many hours. They make sure he eats with them. 

These days, Bulbul spends his time in the classroom.

In the wider community too he has respect. Many are grateful for his help given to their children as a tutor. Bulbul’s students are reputed for impressive exam results. 

“This is my family now,” he says of neighbours and the community.

Yet it’s with difficulty he pulls on his trousers every day. Since his second stroke in 2013 that simple task requires effort.

Nobody could have predicted such a life for Bulbul Master. As a young man he seemed to have the world at his feet.

The youngest of five sisters and three brothers, it’s undeniable that Bulbul’s life suffered a major setback with the early deaths of his parents. But being a landlord’s son, when assets were divided after his father passed on while Bulbul was in Class 10 he found himself proprietor of 11 acres of land. It easily generated enough income to fund his education. He lived with an older brother.

As a student of Dinajpur Government College, Bulbul was meritorious, popular and rich. He was vice-president of the student union and passed both HSC and BA commendably. Teachers and peers expected a big future; but before college was done he’d made an error of judgement.

“A friend gave me a bottle of Phensydil,” he says, “We were eight friends. We all took it just to see how it was.” Phensydil cost 28 taka in 1988.

With the invincibility young adults inevitably feel, it must’ve seemed like no big deal. “After the first one, we slept all day,” he says.

In Kalikapur, nobody dwells on Bulbul's past.

As is to be expected, the friend circle took Phensydil again after that, now and then. They experimented with marijuana and alcohol. Some never became addicted. Bulbul wasn’t so fortunate.

“I was broken hearted,” he says, “I was really devastated by the loss of my girlfriend. After taking Phensydil I could forget all the pain. I was feeling cool and calm. It wasn’t really for fun I took it. But it became difficult to control.” 

Within six months Bulbul was consuming Phensydil once a day. If he didn’t, he couldn’t function. Once he thought he should give up but found it impossible.

By the end of 1988 Bulbul had sold the first acre of land for 25,000 taka – a low price even then. These days a quarter acre might sell for 8 lacs. 

Meanwhile his required dosage rose, reaching two bottles per day, taken four times at half a bottle per dose. He was a chain marijuana smoker and usually consumed a bottle of alcohol a day.

Inevitably his family came to know. “They were angry and told me to stop,” he says, “which made me frustrated.” They saw him sleeping all day, awake all night and incessantly listening to music.  By 1994 his family no longer knew what to do. They threw him out of the house. He hardly cared. Bulbul was furious they did not mind their own business.

After two strokes, Bulbul does his best to carry on.

Even then, with income from his inheritance Bulbul wasn’t entirely destitute. But in the following years, as he continued to sell portions of land to fund his addiction, circumstances worsened. His last plot was sold in 1999.

As a consequence of his first stroke Bulbul doesn’t remember much of those years. But he started begging. People saw him roaming Dinajpur town. People saw him on his knees in the street, touching other people’s feet. Still he did not accept he had a problem.

Of course for addicts, once they’ve lost their families, there’s very little chance of ever turning lives around. 

This time however, Bulbul was lucky. There were many people in Dinajpur who knew him. Perhaps only they could properly understand the devastating loss of potential. 

One day in 2006 a cultural activist and senior student from his college days, Sultan Kamal Uddin Bachhu, passed him in the street, potentially as he’d done many times before. But on that day he decided to stop, and take on the work of an angel.

Bachhu picked him off the street and sent him to rehabilitation. Bulbul was so unaware by then he could hardly object. Much of the treatment money came from Bachhu’s own pocket but he also raised funds from former classmates and well-wishers. 

“At rehab there were many addicts who were not like me. They were used to stealing and snatching. It was difficult to spend time with them. I really felt alone,” Bulbul recalls.

There were many restrictions. Each day was regimented with prayer, class and rest. It was painful even to kneel during prayer when withdrawal symptoms took over. “If you did something wrong the punishment was severe.”

Yet slowly there was progress. “After three months,” Bulbul says, “my brain started functioning. It was the first time I realised what I’d become. Finally I knew I had a big problem.”

Only after six months did Bulbul feel his addiction gone. He was cleared to leave but Bachhu insisted he stay a further three months. 

It’s very difficult to break addiction. Even with the best care few succeed. Nine months after rehabilitation Bulbul had a relapse. Fortunately Bachhu understood it on the first day Bulbul returned to drugs. He was furious – and this time, unlike with his family’s anger years before, Bulbul was receptive. “I never took drugs again,” he says.

An important part of recovery was that after his relapse, Bachhu sent Bulbul to live in a multi-faith ashram in Belbari village, away from former friends and influences. The ashram asked no questions – simply he stayed there. 

For the next three months Bacchu sent pocket money for food. It was then that Bulbul, at last, was able to start contemplating a future.

Being the son of a well-off family he felt options for basic work were closed. He didn’t feel he could run a small shop for example; besides, there was no seed money. 

By the end of 2007 he’d decided to try tuition. He went door to door. A few families agreed. “I built good relations,” he says, “They’d ask me to stay for dinner. They never asked about my addiction.”

When his students started performing well demand increased. “The community really started to look after me,” he says.

By 2010 it was no longer practical to conduct classes in private homes. He approached the high school principal for permission to use classrooms after hours. The principal agreed.

These days Bulbul has 120 students and employs a junior tutor. For the future, he hopes to build a fully-fledged coaching centre. In particular he wants to provide classes to the disadvantaged – he already teaches one class from the impoverished Harijan sweeper community without charge.

A popular tutor, Bulbul's students have a reputation for excelling.

In sharing his battle with addiction Bulbul hopes to encourage young people to have the strength of mind to avoid drugs. “If friends are taking drugs,” he says, “they need new friends. Drugs destroy families.”

To parents he says, “Try to understand your children always. Maybe they’re suffering from a romantic break-up like I was. Maybe they have some other tension that makes them especially vulnerable – and if your children are taking drugs please send them for treatment early. Never be ashamed to get help. Anger won’t work. Locking them up at home won’t work.”

Sometimes Bulbul visits Dinajpur town. His friends beyond his drug-taking circle meet him; and occasionally he sees the others with whom who tried Phensydil on the street. “I avoid them,” he says, “Some are still addicted.”



This article published in The Star Magazine, here: Back from the Brink

An Islamic Legacy of Harmony

Madrassa students outside the Nesarabadi Islamic Complex in Jhalokati.

The small eatery, Sumon Chotpoti, has no space for a kitchen. The establishment on Kalibari Road in Jhalokati occupies a ground floor room barely big enough for its few tables and chairs. That leaves proprietor Shonkor Chandra, 67, standing on the roadside of an afternoon, surrounded by his ingredients.

Chandra, a Hindu, makes up for the lack of space by being organised. Various chotpoti elements are neatly arranged in plastic bowls and baskets of purple, red and blue – chillies, boiled egg, onions. He knows the value of combination. He’s expert in entertaining his fellow townsfolk.

Unlike chotpoti, society is made of people and flavoured by ideas rather than tamarind and spices. While Chandra might not find room for a kitchen he is lucky. In Jhalokati’s society there is no shortage of space. Contemporary Jhalokati District is one of the most communally harmonious in the country – and local people deservedly take pride from that.

Shonkor Chandra, of Sumon Chotpoti on Kalibari Road, Jhalokati

“We just took tea together,” says Muslim Anisur Rahman, proprietor of Siam Motors, referring to a Hindu friend. “We are neighbours. We live in one place. We are often guests at Hindu weddings. There’s no disturbance in Jhalokati.”

“There are no problems here,” agrees Hindu Nirmal Mandal, 50, who’s been running the Sun Studio photography store for 25 years.

“We are not Hindus and Muslims,” says Chandra, “but people. You do your religion and I do mine. What does it matter? Jhalokati is a bit good in this way.”

While a connoisseur might detect the various elements in Chandra’s chotpoti, the factors which produce an enlightened Jhalokati are not so obvious. Yet on the wall of Sumon Chotpoti are a number of small stickers that hold a clue to at least part of the reason.

On them is written, “Oh Muslim boys, in which hadith have you found that your prestige will decline if you work?” It is to be assumed that for Chandra the mantra for constructive activity applies in equal measure to those of other faiths – yet more telling is that those are the words of the late Islamic theologian Maulana Md. Azizur Rahman Nesarabadi.

Regarded as a saint and commonly referred to as Quaid Saheb Hujur, his shrine is at the expansive Nesarabadi Islamic Complex by the Bashanda River not far from town. His son Md Khalilur Rahman Nesarabadi is the current Principal of the large madrassa there and responsible for the more than forty organisations under the Nesarabadi umbrella.

The Nesarabadi Islamic Complex in Jhalokati.

“He was the mirror of Islam,” says his son, “He believed Islam was not only for Muslims but for everybody.” Indeed, Quaid Saheb Hujur’s contribution to Jhalokati is well-regarded by all religious communities. Both Mandal and Chandra have visited his shrine – Chandra is a regular.

Born in 1911, by all accounts Quaid Saheb Hujur lived a simple life. According to his son, he believed it sinful to save money and never had a bank account or his own home. Khalilur remembers on one occasion when his family was in a particularly bad financial state, his father received cheques for substantial amounts from the Islamic Foundation of Bangladesh as proceeds from books he had written. The son took the cheques to his father hoping it could alleviate the family’s difficulties.

“My life is for Allah,” Quaid Saheb Hujur told him, “My writing is not for earning money. This money is for the welfare of the people.”

Quaid Saheb Hujur believed in an Islam of leading by example and constructive engagement. In 1960 he founded an institution to provide mediation for villagers when the nearest court was in Barisal. He pursued an interest in allopathic treatment, encouraging locals to understand the properties of plants and cultivate those with health benefits. Even today at the madrassa complex the tea served is sourced from joshanda, the mehendi plant, which is thought to be healthy.

Returning from class at the madrassa.

True Muslims serve humanity..

Madrassa students also need technical education.

He founded numerous educational institutions and was instrumental in introducing technical education alongside religious instruction at madrassas. After all, practical skills could only enhance religious knowledge in providing the student with a better opportunity to engage with society on its own terms. He also believed in the rights of women to be educated, and the Nesarabadi complex includes a women’s madrassa.

“We Muslims have forgotten that serving fellow humans is one of the cardinal principles of our religion,” Quaid Sahed Hujur is reported to have said, “In order to become true Muslims we must serve humanity.”

The madrassa grounds

Believing it to be Islam’s work, Quaid Saheb Hujur organised an anti-corruption committee and participated in many anti-corruption processions over the years. According to his son, he was once detained for his efforts. At a rally he had called out dishonest officials by name, which had forced them through shame to return ill-gotten sums.

A great admirer of Rabindranath Tagore and a reader of Swami Vivekananda, Quaid Saheb Hujur was not averse to visiting Hindu religious ceremonies. After all, how could one hope to be of assistance to broader humanity if one does not engage with it? It is documented that he once went to listen to kirtan chanting in the bhakti tradition, performed by a group of kirtankars. After that experience Quaid Saheb Hujur said, “All religions say the same things.”

Visiting a kirtan was not a challenge to his Islamic faith but rather an expression of it.

Md Khalilur Rahman Nesarabadi, son of the late Qayed Saheb Hujur.

During the 1971 Liberation War it is recorded that some Hindus approached Quaid Saheb Hujur seeking to convert to Islam. Their decision was driven by fear, thinking they might be saved from the Pakistani Army. He discouraged them, saying, “The Pakistani Army is killing Muslims as well. Life and death are in God’s hands.” For Quaid Saheb Hujur, conversion motivated by fear was not a proper endeavour.

He believed that for the betterment of Bangladesh good people of all religions should stand united against dictatorship and corruption, and rise above religious difference for peace and unity. That is the legacy he left for Jhalokati.

Unsurprisingly for a saint, there are miracles ascribed to his life, which are naturally difficult to verify. Similarly it reads as somewhat out of character that he took a stand against atheists – though it might do to remember that until the most recent years the term was not politicized in Bangladesh in the way it is today, and to him, it might’ve been more of a synonym for immorality and lack of principle.

The madrassa grounds.

In any case, one does not need to be a Muslim or agree with all aspects of his beliefs to find within his teachings compassion and understanding. The Islam that Quaid Saheb Hujur taught is a faith of the ‘middle path’ with no place for either slackness or extremism.

In Jhalokati, the legacy of Quaid Saheb Hujur continues to be both significant and significantly positive. While a society is made of people, ideas create the flavour. And leadership matters.

Asked what his father would have done if he had lived to see these troubling recent days of Hindu homes being burnt and temples desecrated in several other districts of the country, his son says, “He would have gone to those districts straight away and tried to convince the Muslim communities that it is wrong. Islam does not believe in destruction but in good behaviour and harmony.”

For Shonkor Chandra it might be even simpler. He knows the value of combination. He knows that anyone favouring communalism could never enjoy the diversity of chotpoti. They’d be left, perhaps, to chew on onions. And he could certainly contemplate such things of an afternoon by the roadside, before the customers arrive, in a peaceful district like Jhalokati, in a society that’s not lacking in space.

Quaid Saheb Hujur's shrine is simple and decorated with plants.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: An Islamic Legacy of Harmony

*information sourced from interview and various Nesarabadi Islamic Complex publications.

When Given the Chance

Alhaj M A Sobahan Howlader and Begum Rabeya Sobahan in the garden of their home in Kathalia Union, Jhalokati.

With no more fuss than the lengthening evening shadows in the leafy yard outside, long-time teacher Begum Rabeya Sobahan, 57, steps into the cool veranda room and sits in the arm chair beside the inner door. There’s no doubt she’s been listening. The subject of conversation is Mariam Jerin Mouri.

Her face lit by caring, Rabeya settles comfortably into reminiscence. When Mouri learnt to swim, they put two coconuts into the pond with the young girl for added buoyancy, as is not uncommon in Bangladesh. Unfortunately each coconut gradually went its own way, as coconuts tend to do. Mouri’s arms stretched ever wider and she was frightened. “She cried out so loudly,” says Rabeya smiling, “The whole neighbourhood came running! She can really yell!”

The simple anecdote and the heartfelt way Rabeya tells it is the sort of thing one could hear from many a mother in many a household – except that Mouri isn’t her daughter.

Mouri first came to the Sobahans’ house in Paschim Aura village of Kathalia Union, Jhalokati, when she was eight years old to help with the housework. Mouri’s family from adjacent Binapani village was poor. Her father toiled with day labour or in a local mill while her mother occasionally worked as a maid.

Her parents didn’t wish to send her but with difficulty to provide even food for their three daughters and two sons there didn’t seem to be an option. Mouri, the youngest daughter, was sent for a one-week trial.

“When Mouri came,” says Rabeya’s 66-year-old husband Alhaj M.A. Sobahan Howlader, proudly, “she tried to read anything she came across around the house.” Perhaps Mouri was fortunate to have found herself in a household of teachers.

“I asked if she wanted to study,” Sobahan continues.

Eight-year-old Mouri said that if she had the chance she would. It was a simple response but a big decision for one so young – a decision that would alter her life’s course.

“My parents did not want me to stay with them,” Mouri says of the discussion when the initial week was up. “I took the decision. I was young but I could understand if I stayed with my own family I wouldn’t have the chance to study. I wanted to be a doctor.”

Sobahan Master had her admitted into Class 2 at Kathalia Model Primary School just one week before the second semester exam. Her initial result placed her second in the class. “I was really moved,” says Sobahan, touching his heart.

He bought books and stationery and encouraged Mouri, who was able to achieve first place in the final exam that year.

“One day Mouri cooked several kinds of pitha sweetbread,” remembers Sobahan, “I asked how she learnt to do that and why she made them.”

“It’s for you,” Mouri told him.

She continued to complete all her household chores along with her study, and found it especially difficult during harvest time when mornings were dedicated to collecting and drying paddy, and processing rice.

School was a lonely place for Mouri, who thought to hide her identity as a house help. She wasn’t able to meet any of her classmates outside class or visit their homes; and when visitors came to the Sobahans’, Mouri tried to stay out of sight. But the Sobahans’, including their son and daughter, were always kind, says Mouri; and Sobahan Master continually encouraged her.

In Class 5 Mouri achieved a government scholarship for extraordinary merit, a feat repeated in Class 8. By then she was enrolled in Kathalia Pilot Girls’ High School where both the Sobahans taught. Mouri achieved a Golden GPA 5 in the science stream for her Secondary School Certificate.

“I don’t understand much about education,” says Mouri’s mother Sohura Begum, “When I heard of her Golden GPA result I did not know what it meant, but I could understand when it was explained she had the best result in the area. I cried with happiness.”

Nonetheless her parents on several occasions tried to persuade Mouri to stay with them and not return to the Sobahans’ house, and when she was in Class 9 they thought to marry her off. It took a visit by Sobahan Master and some stern words to convince them otherwise.

“One day my wife absent-mindedly left her gold chain in the house,” remembers Sobahan, “and as soon as I arrived home Mouri gave it to me. I really understood how honest and sincere she was.”

“He loves her very much,” adds Rabeya Sobahan, beaming.

By the time of college, Mouri had the idea to study in Barisal or Dhaka out of concern that in Kathalia her opportunity to pursue science would be limited. But unfortunately due to a lack of finance it wasn’t possible. Instead she enrolled in Kathalia College where she found herself a little bored but still attained a GPA 5 in her Higher School Certificate.

Mouri then attended coaching for the university entrance exams but to her great disappointment was unable to secure a place in medicine. She didn’t give up, enrolling instead in a Bachelor of Science in Nursing at Sher-e-Bangla Medical College in Barisal, where, still shy among her peers and as determined as ever to pursue her education, she studies today.

“All credit goes to Kalu,” says Mouri of her achievements, referring to Sobahan Master, “There were even times when he washed clothes so that I could study. In the future I would like to study a higher degree abroad and then give service to my country.”

Mouri’s family is likewise proud, now managing to raise most of the finances to support her ongoing study in Barisal themselves.

“She is the only family member to have had this opportunity,” says her mother Sohura, “It was beyond my imagination she could reach this position.” Asked if Mouri should study abroad, Sohura says, “That would be nice.”

By way of advice to other employers of young girls doing housework Mouri says, “Give a little chance for their studies and their future. With a chance they may flourish. We are human too.”

“When Mouri came,” says Alhaj M.A. Sobahan Howlader, proudly, “she tried to read anything she came across around the house.”

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: When Given the Chance