The other Bengal

The other Bengal

Dilawar suddenly turned round and came more or less running back towards me and hugged me tightly with tears in his eyes, I was also crying silently that night in Dhaka. This picture of that night is permanently etched in my mind. Today even after 19 years to me it appears as though it happened only yesterday.

How I landed in Bangladesh and who is this Dilawar?

 I did not go there on a personal visit but went there with two more senior officers of BHEL to explore business opportunity. Those days I was heading Eastern Region of BHEL, out of two senior officers of BHEL one was my close friend Late Kandaswamy, he was expert in Boilers.

Our flight by Indian Airlines took less than one hour to reach Dhaka from Kolkata, by the time we were finishing our snacks the announcement was there about the plane approaching Dhaka. Those days Dhaka airport was small but we did see many domestic private airlines operating in Bangladesh, remember it was 2000 and in India private airlines were yet to take off.

After checking out through immigration and customs which happened pretty smoothly we were surrounded by touts selling Bangladesh currency. Initially we were reluctant to exchange our dollars but I did not mind taking chance with my Indian rupees which they readily exchanged at the prevailing rate then, it was one Indian rupee to 1.40  in Bangladesh Taka those days. Now of course Bangladesh money has appreciated, it is about 1.15 taka or so against Indian rupee.

We took a cab from the airport and headed for our hotel Rooposhi Bangla which is located very near to Dhaka club. After checking in we headed for the Bangladesh electricity Board office. The reception guided us to the office of the Chairman. The building walls were pasted with posters of worker’s union with their demands, it was just like our offices in Bengal those days. Seeing those posters I felt as though I was walking towards the office of Dr.Sankar Sen in New Secretariat building, a dejavu, two Bengals but the same culture of posters on the wall.

The Chairman of Bangladesh wanted BHEL’s help in running their 2x200 MW Chitagong plant, which then was run by Chinese as they only supplied that plant. We were to train Bangladesh engineers to run the plant as otherwise they were paying heavily to China to keep the plant running. There he introduced Mr.Dilawar Khan, Manager to us who was to be our guide throughout our stay.

After the meeting Dilawar took us to a restaurant near the office for lunch, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Rabindrasangeet in the restaurant. After finishing our lunch, we went out for a whirlwind tour of the city. The first thing what comes to my mind about that city then in 2000 is cycle rickshaws, the main road jammed with rickshaws. In snail pace by evening time we could reach the campus of Dhaka University. The pavements around the university was full of students sitting by the side of road, we did not go in, from outside it gave me a feeling as though I was passing by the side of Jadavpur University with those handholding students sauntering around.

Next morning Dilawar met us at Dhaka airport, we were on the way to Chitagong by Biman Bangla. After reaching Chitagong we headed for our hotel. We deposited our luggage, freshened up, piled up  in a car for the power station. The oil and gas fired power station is on the banks of Karnafuli river, it is a big river which originates from Mizoram and drains in Bay of Bengal,Chitagong  the port looked like Diamond Harbour. Dilawar informed us that the Chinese brought the power plant equipment by ships through Karnafuli river to Chitagong. During erection of the plant they were using their ship as base. Later on they built porta cabins out of the containers in which they brought power plant equipment, finally they moved in those cabins. Dilawar kept me informed about all these tit bits, me being the only Bengali in the group  he was feeling comfortable conversing with me.Slowly me and him started establishing a bond of brotherhood. He took us to the office of Chief Engineer of the plant. We were shown the plant by Chief Engineers himself with his team. We were told that the Chinese operating staff stays in those porta cabins which are not air-conditioned, during any emergency all the Chinese staff in any time of the day or night rush to the plant. We were taken to the control room which looked like army barrack. There were Chinese operators with their Bangladeshi counterpart, Bangladesh paramilitary force with rifles keeping vigil. I asked Chief engineer why there was strict security, he informed that in the past there had been attempt to sabotage, Bangladesh then was a power starved country so the vigil. We had a look at the boiler, turbine and the auxiliaries, we were familiar with those equipment as Chinese too had taken technology from Russia who were our initial technical collaborators.

After the round we had lunch in their field gust house. It was typical rice,daal, aloo bhaja, a charchari and chicken curry. I was bowled out by that chicken curry, at a later date I had requested their instrument engineer one Roy through email to send me the recipe. I got that recipe from him and circulated to my friends.

We were back at Chief engineer’s office and tried to know their depth of knowledge. They showed us the history cards and logs. Our visit was for 2 days so we took leave of them and promised to come the next day. Next day I sat with maintenance chief and Kandaswamy sat with operation chief to guide them in running the plant, we found out that though there were provision for auto controls but the Chinese had not commissioned those and in the process the Chinese were operating the systems manually which was very tedious and that was one of the reasons why Bangladeshi engineers could not pick up, of course language was another major issue. I told Dilawar aside unofficially that Bangladesh can’t afford us because by that time I had found out the per diem rate per person of Chinese engineers, which was one third of our rate. The economy would not work. He informed the chief engineer same thing, the Chief engineer started pleading with me if somehow we could get involve for the transition. Dilawar too requested me to consider sending some expert for a short stint.

On the way back to our hotel I enquired from Dilawar about micro financing company of Grameen Bank. He informed that the bank preferred to give loan to ladies, the village ladies had formed cooperative for garment stitching in villages. There were more than 8 lakhs ladies involved in the garment industry those days in 2000 and now of course it has become a phenomenon. Those days the mobile was yet to penetrate, the ladies communicated through a novel system of mobile using signaling wires of the railways. Then at the station there would be a transmitter covering a radius of 50 kms or so, thus all the villages along the railway line was covered bt that hybrid mobile network, one American company has helped Bangladesh to develop that system. All these were enabled by the Grameen Bank of Md.Yunus. He was revered by everyone with whomsoever I talked in Bangladesh. Those days’ Malaysian companies were building the roads, the long distance modern buses with hydraulic landing and boarding system were supplied by them. I was pretty impressed by the greeneries around, it appeared as though whole earth is wrapped in green blanket, it was just green everywhere with occasional ponds.

Next day we boarded Biman Bangla International coming from middle east heading for Dhaka. It was full of Bangladsehi labours returning home. I was sitting by the side of one such labour and next to me was Dilawar. I asked the labour what he did in middle east. He informed me that he was a date picker and got 11,000 taka per month, food and lodging born by his Mudir (the sheikh). I noticed often those labours would get up and look through the window to see their home country. There was a sustained excitement of returning home after a stay of might be 2 years or so, found them pretty demanding too. The airhostesses were at their wits end handling the half literate crowd. Those labours loudly shouted,”’ Bangladesh runs with the money what we send home so you better take care of us!’’

I was amused and asked Dilawar about his opinion on this foreign exchange repatriation, he admitted that those fellows were right as Bangladesh’s major foreign exchange earning was through the repatriation of wages of their labour working in foreign land. The fellow sitting next to me requested me to help him to fill up us disembarkation form, I readily agreed, by the time I was finishing his a few more forms were held in front of me. I did not mind filling those forms, I was rather enjoying that, I was coming to know so many personal details and was trying to imagine their huts in villages of Bangladesh. Dilawar too was busy in filling the forms and sometimes he would nudge me with his elbow when he would come across some funny sounding name. Our camaraderie matured during that flight from Chitagong to Dhaka.

We came out of Dhaka airport, me Dilawar and Kandaswamy. Before going to the hotel I requested Dilawar to take us to a market so that I could purchase a Bangladeshi saree for my wife. He took us to New Market of Dhaka, yes there is New Market there too! He warned me not to purchase any T shirt as mostly those are from India then in 2000, now of course foreign brand rejects are readily available there. I purchased a Dhakai saree.

After finishing marketing we proceeded to drop Dilawar, it was the last night in Dhaka. In those 4 days Dilawar had become a very close friends, we exchanged many personal information. He asked the car to stop by the side of the road after a few minutes. He got down from the front seat, I got out from the rear seat to shake hand and bid good bye. Next day morning we were leaving for Kolkata, so it was final good bye.

After shaking hand, he started walking with his suitcase, then suddenly he turned back and came rushing to me. We hugged emotionally with tears in our eyes.

I know a Bangladeshi engineer Khaiz Ahmed who would often come to my office. His company was working with Bangladesh Board, I have enquired about Dilawar from him. He informed me that Dilawar rose to become GM and now he was retired.

We did not send any expert to Bangladesh but our interaction resulted in getting a job at Baghabari.

After that visit of Bangladesh I visited Bangladesh again for work in 2013, well that is another story.