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.
