At Kakonhat railway station in Bholahat, Chapainawabganj, an old man waits for a train with a cloth bag holding a few children’s books. He is Abdur Rashid Pramanik, and he has spent 48 years carrying books on his shoulder — on trains, in markets, on launches, along roadsides — selling them to survive.
He once had a family, a home, and the strength to work. Now he has none of those things. His body is riddled with disease. He cannot afford medicine. He wears a soiled lungi and shirt.
On a good day, he sells enough books to earn 20 to 30 taka after covering his costs. When he falls sick, his income stops and he lies wherever he can find a spot.
Asked about his life, Rashid could not speak at first, tears rolling from behind his glasses. Then he began to talk.
“I had a settled household once. I couldn’t study much because of poverty. To support the family, I started buying and selling children’s books 48 years ago — on trains, in bazaars, at stations, on the road, on launches. The income was decent back then,” he said.
“But as the years passed, hardship surrounded me from every side. My wife died 10 years ago. My son and daughter work in garment factories, but they don’t give me a single taka even in hard times. I have no home to live in. I’ve been staying at Kakonhat bazaar for three months.”
He said he previously lived in Rajshahi. He has no phone. Asked why he never changed professions, he said: “I love children. I came into this work so small children could grow up reading interesting books and see the light of education. But now modern books have replaced mine, and no one wants them anymore.”
“I have become a living corpse,” he said. “There is no one in the world to look after me.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report