& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Poor yet resilient
People in our country are really very, very poor! We have been learning from textbooks, hearing from others since childhood that "Bangladesh is a poor and overpopulated country". We are hearing these from far, but we don't see the actual situation and hazards from a close distance. Thus we can't realise anything. You won't understand until or unless you see their sorrow.
People in Bangladesh not only live hand to mouth, sometimes they also starve. There are people who come to towns from the villages with the hope of a better life. Floods and rivers take away their firms, homes from them. So they come to Dhaka.
But here they create problems for others. For being uneducated they don't get good jobs.
Many of them don't get any job at all. Women try to get household jobs. Men pull rickshaws and the children and elderly people become beggars.
So their main problem of food is not being solved. They remain poor. In most cases
they say they lived a better life in villages.
The problem doesn't end there. They are living below standard lives on roadside "Bastis" or rail stations or on the road dividers or under trees. They don't have good food, water and hygienic toilets.
They are being a source of environment pollution. We see that the posh residential and restricted areas like Gulshan are also not safe from such pollution.
The grassroots level poverty cannot be eliminated so easily, as it is a perennial problem. But we can try. I think the population problem could be controlled with both the help of people and the government. General people don't need Doctorate Degrees to realise the disadvantages of over population. The effective and intense use of mass media can be useful here. The young people should be encouraged to have selfemployment. We need to build more and more industries for employment generation. Shopping malls and wastage of electricity won't help. The number of shopping
centres is getting larger than mills and industries in Bangladesh and that seems anomalous to me.
The light of hope is that people of Bangladesh are not that pessimistic. Rather, most of them are enthusiastic and optimistic.
Recently I went to Cox's Bazar. I saw a poor and crippled man pulling rickshaw with the help of his one leg. He has only one leg still he is doing such a risky job instead of begging. We were amazed and asked him why he is doing such a risky job since it requires a lot of energy and he might face a terrible accident any time. And you know what he said? He said that begging is one thing he will never do in his life no matter even if he dies. He said he has a dream and that is very soon he would open a Jhinuk stall. And to fulfil his dream he is saving money. This man might be crippled, but his dream is not.
I hope one day the whole Bangladesh will follow his example.
CantaraWali Ruhi
Dhaka University