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Download PDF “Bhaiya [brother] I’ll die. You try to live. Please don’t let go of the bamboo pole. Tell mom to pray for me and you also pray for me,” these were the last words of a young man to his eldest brother before being washed away by a heavy tidal wave in the Bay of Bengal in the fateful evening of November 14, when Cyclone Sidr hit the country’s coastal areas with its deadly wrath.
Mohammad Nazrul Islam, 20, survived the cyclone but his brother Mohammad Abul Kalam, 15 could not. Hailing from Shekherkhil under Bashkhali upazila in Chittagong, they went fishing for a fish trader deep in the Bay of Bengal, a week after the Eid-ul-Fitr, to work their way out of a loan of Tk 45,000 they had taken from Rashid Miah for their sister Taslima’s wedding.
“Before our fishing boat sank deep in the bay, the two of us had promised to each other that we would be together no matter what,” Nazrul Islam told The Daily Star at Maron Char next to the Sundarbans. “But as my younger brother was not physically as strong as I, the waves washed him away. I tried to catch him but failed. Including me there were 26 fishermen on the boat, but I don’t know what happened to them,” he added.
Nazrul had floated in the bay for three days before a fishing boat rescued him and dropped him at Maron Char a week ago, where he told the harrowing story to The Daily Star.
“In that dreadful night I saw enormous waves and a heavy storm in the bay that I had never seen before in my 12-year fishing career. When my brother got washed away I tried my best to maintain my grip on a 20 feet bamboo pole to stay alive. I can’t remember anything else… When I woke up I saw the morning light appearing on the horizon and the bay was calm.”
“After floating for three days I lost almost all my strength as there was nothing to eat or drink except sea water. I was thinking I might also die like my brother. I was waiting for death to come. That’s all in the bay before I was picked up by a fishing boat. The fishermen on the boat loosened my grip on the bamboo pole, brought me back to my senses, and gave me food.”
“When I was dropped at the char, I saw there was nothing left except only two or three fishermen. There was no food there. I used to sleep inside a damaged boat. One day a helicopter dropped some relief materials that saved my life. I could have died from hunger if I would not get the food relief. Later an old man gave me 50 taka, some clothes and food,” said Nazrul.
This correspondent took the young man to Mongla where Upazila Nirbahi Officer Syed Mehedy Hasan gave Nazrul Tk 700 to return home. Last night grief stricken Nazrul started his journey towards his village from Dhaka wondering what he will tell his aging mother and his sister.
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