The man who wanted to help

An intercity train similar to the one travelling between Dhaka and Chittagong

She shook him vigorously. Yet there was no response. The young man, about the age of 25, lay on the floor of the Chittagong bound third class compartment. She now turned to half a dozen fellow passengers in the dirty compartment for help. None but a middle-aged man came forward.
“What’s happened to him?” he enquired.
“I don’t know,” replied the woman tensely, “My son was fine few minutes ago, he suddenly collapsed on the floor.” She now desperately pushed the motionless body. “Baba wake up! Wake up my life,” she cried in exasperation.
The man reached out for the pulse. After a few seconds he announced he could not properly feel the pulse. The woman burst into wailing again. “Oh no, what will happen to me, how I can survive without my son,” she said as she kept slapping her head with both hands.
The local train blew the powerful whistle and sped up. The compartment swung from side to side with creaking noises from all directions. Young boys hawking peanuts and spicy puffed rice gathered around the fallen man.
The woman’s wailing was buried under the screeching noise of the moving train. The whistle blew again.
“Next is Akhaura” said a hawker to the middle aged man, “you can take him to the hospital there.”
The man looked anxious. This was not his business. Or was it? He was heading for Chittagong on his own job. He asked the woman to get off at Akhaoura and seek help.
“We are so poor and helpless and I do not know anything anywhere,” said the woman in tears clinging to her son.
“Where are you from?”
“We are from Feni, my son works in a garment factory in Dhaka,” she replied in distress.
“Do you have the address of the garment factory or any relatives?” asked the man.
The woman slipped her hand into the trouser pocket of the young man and drew an identity card and gave it to the man.
The young man’s name was Amzad Hossain, a machine operator at Flora Apparels in Dhaka’s Gazipur area.
The man phoned up the office over his cell phone.
“We have 500 workers,” replied a man of the Flora Apparels, “for any help the person or his relative has to come and talk to the boss,” said the man and hung up the phone.
The train now entered the Akhaoura station. The middle aged man got hold of a railway police constable and sought his help. The two men took out the body and carefully placed it on the platform.
“Can you organise to take him to the hospital?” he asked the constable.
“Yes, but you have to come with me to our station first,” said the constable firmly, without showing any urgency.
“But why?”
“Because the man is dead, we need to ask you a few questions,” replied the constable waving to his colleagues nearby to join him.
The middle-aged man looked very worried. “Look I was trying to help this old woman, I am on my way to Chittagong.”
Curious onlookers crowded the scene. The man turned to the wailing mother for respite from the spiralling situation. In total grief, she ignored his pleas.
The station master blew his whistle to announce the imminent departure of the train.
“I have my bag inside the compartment!” the man told the constables.
“Ok go and get it, you are not going on this train.”
The man pleaded hard. “Look, this man may not be dead after all, take him to the hospital first, I have to go to Chittagong.”
“Do what we say,” the constable grabbed the man’s hand as if he has found a suspect.
A sturdy constable escorted the man into the compartment and soon both emerged from it with the bag. The train started to move out of the station.
“What is your name? Where do you come from?” asked a constable.
“My name is Joynal Hossain, I come from Dhaka’s Keraniganj area where I run a small business of fuel wood,” replied the man. “I am going to Chittagong to buy some merchandise,” he replied, now visibly alarmed at the situation.
By now, the constables summoned a rickshaw van on the platform. Amzad Hossain was carefully placed on the van where his mother sat in despair placing his head on her lap. The party that included three policemen started for the hospital.
An unknown fear gripped Joynal as he walked along a constable few paces behind the van.
“So you are going to buy fuel wood?” the constable with a large pot belly asked him in a friendly manner. “Yes, yes sir,” replied Joynal.
“How much have you got on you?” asked the constable.
Joynal turned pale. That was the last thing he wanted to hear. For years he so painstakingly saved up the money. His wife and three children had warned him before he set out with his capital of Tk. 1 lakh, which he sewed up in his underpants.
“Listen, I am a very small shop keeper, so I do not have much money,” replied Joynal, avoiding a direct answer.
The cunning constable did not budge from his stance. “Yes, but how much do you have on you?” he said. Joynal acted as if he hadn’t heard.
As the party proceeded towards the hospital with the woman still wailing by her son, the constable walking with Joynal called one of his colleagues and took him aside. Joynal could not hear what they said. But he sensed trouble.
“You go with my colleague to the police station,” said the other constable, looking at Joynal. “You need not come to the hospital.”
Joynal and the fat constable separated from the party and headed for the police station. Joynal had to decide. He could sense the bad intentions. He cursed himself for telling why he was going to Chittagong. He had to do something quick. As thoughts rushed through Joynul’s head, the constable asked him to wait in front of a tea stall. Joynul waited. The constable entered the stall and asked for a paan.
Just then suddenly Joynul started to run with all his strength. He did not know where he was going. Akhaura was not known to him. He had to get out of here. He looked back in fear but the pot-bellied constable was nowhere to be seen. Passers by looked at him strangely but he kept running. After about ten minutes he came to a big intersection with buses parked on both sides. He was not even bothered to look back now.
Almost out of breath, he approached a departing bus and asked where it was going. “Dhaka ….. Dhaka…..Dhaka….Dhaka direct,” replied the lanky helper. Not wasting a second Joynul boarded the bus. His Chittagong chapter was closed for this time.
Joynul was intrigued. When he narrated the story to his family back home, they insisted on knowing what happened to Amzad. Joynul phoned up Flora Apparels, the only link he had was on his mobile phone memory of the dialled number.
After he gave the person details about Amzad, the man on the other end at Flora agreed to help him with information. “Amzad is on annual leave since Saturday,” said the man. “He has a history of epileptic fits and today he phoned us up for help from Akhaura, where he said a man robbed him and his mother of all they possessed.” “But who are you? Why are you looking for him?” asked the Flora man. Joynul hung up the phone without a reply and went mum.
By Morshed Ali Khan

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Posted by Reportsbd on Apr 16 2015. Filed under Home Slide, National. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry