‘Our story’: A day in the life of a handwritten newspaper in Bangladesh | Media

West Sonatala, Bangladesh – An extraordinary day for Andharmanik, a small neighborhood newspaper, begins in a crowded fish market.

Strolling down the steps from the highway to the fish touchdown level in Mohipur, a city within the district of Patuakhali bordering the Bay of Bengal, the scent of salt and fish hangs heavy within the air. Subsequent to the principle touchdown platform, vibrant fishing boats, painted in light reds, blues and greens, are moored.

At this busy market in late July, bigger fishing depots and far smaller shanty-style stalls stand aspect by aspect. At one of many small, tin-roofed stalls, Hasan Parvez, 44, with black cotton trousers rolled as much as his knees, shovels ice into plastic crates piled excessive with silvery hilsa – Bangladesh’s prized nationwide fish – which is transported every day to cities together with the capital Dhaka and Barisal.

Hasan works surrounded by plastic barrels and crates glistening with the recent catch of the day, and there’s a fixed background thrum of diesel-powered trawlers buzzing as boats pull out and in of the dock.

“It’s a busy morning, and it’s a fish market with all of the chaos,” Hasan says with a smile.

He works there as a day by day wage labourer sorting, weighing and packing fish into white thermocol containers through the monsoon season. Within the dry season, he works at a close-by brick kiln, and over the winter months, round December and January, he works at a market promoting sun-dried fish referred to as “shutki”.

Hasan’s day at Mohipur market begins early – round 4am – with the fajr prayer and a cup of tea with out milk, and earns him about 600 taka ($5) per day.

At present, as typical, he’s impatient to complete as a result of, in addition to this job, which he wants to supply for his household, Hasan has one other occupation to get again to. He’s the editor-in-chief of a handwritten neighborhood newspaper known as Andharmanik (“jewel from the darkness” in Bengali, and in addition the title of the close by river), which options tales from his village of West Sonatala. He publishes it each two months from his residence within the coastal village about an hour by highway from the fish market and greater than eight hours from Dhaka.

Since Hasan and his crew of reporters don’t personal or use computer systems, the newspaper is handwritten after which photocopied. However additionally they imagine writing tales by hand, in a spot the place newspapers weren’t obtainable earlier than Andharmanik started, makes the paper really feel extra intimate and brings their neighborhood nearer collectively.

Lastly, at round 11am, when the final containers of fish have been loaded onto carts and the store flooring has been cleaned, Hasan prepares to go residence.

He hops onto a van-gari – a battery-driven, three-wheeled bicycle with a big wood platform on the rear of the automobile the place passengers sit – to get residence.

As Hasan climbs into the automobile, he explains that the three-room residence he shares along with his spouse, Salma Begum, whom he married in 2013, and three daughters, can be the editorial headquarters for Andharmanik. It’s the place he meets with the crew a few times in every publication cycle.

‘My village’

On the bumpy, damaged highway to his residence, previous paddy fields and scattered homes, a couple of two-wheelers and electrical rickshaws passing by in the other way, Hasan explains what drove him to start out a newspaper.

“I used to put in writing loads of poems in my childhood,” he says, talking loudly over the noisy van-gari engine. “Studying and writing all the time attracted me.”

He would learn works by the Indian Nobel prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and self-help books. However regardless of his love of studying and studying, he wasn’t capable of end college. When he was 14, Hasan, the eldest of two brothers and two sisters, needed to drop out to work as a day labourer to help his household. “I used to be alleged to go my secondary college certification (SSC) examination again in 1996, however I couldn’t do it due to cash issues,” he explains.

He didn’t full his SSC examination (tenth grade) till the age of 35 in 2015. Two years later, he completed highschool. In 2021, he enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts diploma at a school in Kalapara, about 10km (6.2 miles) away. Having to juggle supporting his household with the newspaper and his research, he’s simply now in his second semester. This has been an necessary journey as a result of the way forward for the newspaper hinges on it, he says.

Hasan desires to register the newspaper within the district as an official media organisation, as he believes this could assist defend it from political volatility. “For that, the foundations are that the writer needs to be a graduate,” he says.

The thought for the paper arose in June 2016 when Hasan met Rafiqul Montu, a Dhaka-based environmental journalist who was visiting the realm. Montu covers the influence of the local weather disaster in Bangladesh’s coastal areas and travels the area all year long for his work. Someday, Hasan noticed him taking photos of the Andharmanik River. Curious, he went to speak to him.

As they spoke, Hasan shared a few of his poems and different writings. In these, he talked about his village’s issues – just like the cyclones that afflict them or worsening local weather circumstances for farmers. No newspaper lined these tales, and with the native authorities usually sluggish to assist, individuals felt uncared for.

Montu, impressed by what he heard, inspired him to show these tales right into a newspaper.

“He needed to do one thing for his neighborhood,” Montu explains. “I advised him he might publish a newspaper and canopy native information. I mentioned he ought to deal with spreading good religion and hope in his neighborhood.”

He urged naming the paper after the river the place they spoke and taught Hasan find out how to write a narrative, craft headlines and take photographs along with his cell phone.

“Montu bhai (brother) is my ustaad (mentor),” Hasan says. “He impressed me to put in writing tales about my village and other people’s lives – each issues and options. I had by no means considered turning into a newspaper writer since I can’t afford to be one. Nevertheless it’s been six years that Andharmanik has been popping out.”

As a tribute to the working-class neighborhood of West Sonatala, the paper’s first problem was printed in 2019 on Could 1, Labour Day.

Forgotten by the world

Round midday, and below a lightweight drizzle, Hasan nears his village within the quiet countryside. Inexperienced rice fields unfold out from each side of the highway, and the timber lining it are moist from the rain.

Geese swim in a couple of ponds alongside the roadside. The van-gari bounces over the past stretch of damaged highway till it lastly runs out altogether. That is so far as the driving force can go.

From there, it’s a 10-minute stroll alongside muddy paths to succeed in Hasan’s home.

“Formally, the highway comes as much as my home,” he says, “however that is what it seems like.”

A slender strip of slushy mud is all there’s to stroll on, and the monsoon has made circumstances worse. Villagers don’t have any alternative however to stroll barefoot, holding their sneakers or sandals.

“Sporting sneakers isn’t sensible as they will get caught within the mud and trigger somebody to slide and fall,” Hasan says as he hurries to fulfill his crew, who will arrive for a 1pm assembly to debate concepts for the August version. The newspaper began with 10 contributors and has grown to a crew of 17 reporters who contribute tales and photographs voluntarily.

“In our conferences, we share story concepts, but in addition speak about our personal lives and households. Most instances my spouse provides us tea and muri (puffed rice),” he provides.

West Sonatala is residence to 618 households – largely farmers, fishermen and day by day wage labourers. Electrical energy solely arrived a couple of years in the past.

“There’s one neighborhood clinic within the village with no medical doctors. Individuals who fall sick within the village are taken to hospitals in Kalapara, a small sub-district city which is an hour-long drive,” Hasan says.

“No nationwide or regional newspapers come to the village, and most houses don’t have a TV. These with smartphones watch the information there, however the web is so patchy, even that’s tough,” he provides, gesturing at his cell phone, which exhibits no community connection.

“Our space is so distant and reduce off from fundamental info that we really feel forgotten by the mainstream world,” he says. “This sense of being left behind was what drove me to start out Andharmanik. It’s our neighborhood newspaper to inform our personal tales.”

‘A collective’

In Hasan’s lounge is a wall lined with framed newspaper clippings and some bookshelves filled with Bengali books. An extended, wood desk sits within the centre the place Hasan’s reporters collect, arriving one after the other alongside the muddy paths. Three have braved the heavy rain to make it there as we speak. Abdul Latif is the primary to reach, adopted by Russiah Begum, then Nazrul Islam Bilal. They enter the room with smiles on their faces, asking about one another’s wellbeing by saying, “Kemon asen?” (“How are you?” in Bengali).

The group is small, however various, they usually all dwell close to one another inside a cluster of villages. Abdul, 42, wearing a crisp, white checkered shirt, is an English trainer in highschool. Nazrul, 31, is an electrician. Russiah, 43, is one in every of three girls on the crew, and runs a tailoring enterprise from her residence in West Sonatala.

The 2 different members of the core crew who’ve been prevented by the rain from attending the assembly are Sahana Begum, 55, who walks with a limp in her proper leg resulting from polio. Sahana, who can be a seamstress, lives in West Sonatala and writes about girls’s points. There’s additionally 29-year-old Ashish Garami, the one Hindu member of the crew. He belongs to a minority group in Bangladesh, which lately has reportedly faced discrimination.

Different contributors work as e-rickshaw drivers and farmers, whereas some are unemployed.

“We work as a collective. Our newspaper focuses on native information, neighborhood occasions, and what occurs in West Sonatala and generally close by villages,” says Abdul, who joined Andharmanik in 2021. “On this version, I’m going to put in writing concerning the dangerous highway circumstances,” he provides. “I’ll present how individuals are struggling due to it through the monsoon.”

The college the place he teaches is three kilometres (1.9 miles) from his residence, and he has to cross the Andharmanik River by boat every day to succeed in it.

“Disaster is the rationale Andharmanik is printed. The best way Hasan identified the issues of our village by means of his writings impressed me to affix the crew,” he says.

‘One thing stunning occurred’

Russiah has been with Hasan’s crew for the reason that starting. She explains that she completed tenth grade earlier than marrying a farmer from the village. To assist help her household, she began a tailoring enterprise, which turned a window into the village’s hidden struggles. “When girls come to me to sew their garments, they open their hearts,” she says. “I hear about issues that by no means make it to the skin world – particularly the ache that ladies and kids carry in silence.”

Certainly one of her tales was a few lady named Abejaan Begum from Rehmatpur village, a couple of kilometres from West Sonatala. Abejaan had misplaced her home to devastating floods in 2023 and had been compelled to decamp to a makeshift hut manufactured from plastic sheets.

“My story was shared by Hasan on his Fb web page,” Begum says. “Then one thing stunning occurred – assist began pouring in from Bangladeshis residing overseas. In whole, she obtained 60,000 taka ($420) to construct a brand new home and purchase a couple of goats.” At present, Abejaan resides with dignity once more in a three-room home, Russiah says.

Their tales have helped others. For one version, Hasan wrote a poem a few baby in his village named Rubina who lived in a damaged mud hut along with her grandmother and mom, who had psychological well being issues and was saved in chains. As a result of they had been so poor, Rubina was compelled to beg for meals. After Hasan printed the poem, it was broadly learn and caught the eye of native authorities officers, who determined to provide Rubina and her household some land and a home.

Hasan and his crew usually deal with tales about how individuals are affected by the local weather disaster. The coastal areas of Bangladesh are significantly weak to flooding, heatwaves, rising sea ranges and saltwater intrusion. Bilal owns a small rice discipline, and he feels related to different farmers within the space, significantly as he sees his harvest get smaller yearly as a result of erratic rainfall.

“Within the subsequent problem, I’ll write concerning the struggles of native day labourers through the monsoon,” he says.

Hasan’s reporters submit their tales on sheets from notebooks. “Our contributors ship me their tales in handwritten notes. I make the ultimate determination on what goes within the paper and edit the language,” he says. He then writes out the tales with a fountain pen on A3-size paper and has these photocopied at a replica store in Kalapara.

Every newspaper is 4 pages lengthy and certain collectively utilizing vibrant plastic tape. Hasan makes 300 copies – every of which prices him roughly 10 taka ($0.08) to publish. The method is labour-intensive and the ultimate handwriting, printing and binding takes a few week.

As soon as printed, Hasan and his crew distribute the paper in West Sonatala and the close by villages of Tungibari, Chandpara, Rehmatpur and Fatehpur. They don’t have any newspaper stall or subscription system, relying solely on native demand. They provide it away totally free or, the place they will, promote it at price. “Persons are poor in our village, so it’s largely given free. Truthfully, I don’t make any cash out of it. This isn’t my aim,” Hasan says.

A loyal reader

Azizur Rehman Khan, 84, a resident of West Sonatala, is without doubt one of the newspaper’s most loyal readers and Hasan’s neighbour. He has learn each problem for the previous two years and fortunately pays for every problem, which is delivered to him personally by Hasan.

“I’ve seen Parvez since his childhood days,” Azizur says. “I like his ardour and motivation to inform tales of happiness and unhappiness of our villagers. When the remainder of the world forgot us, it’s Andharmanik that shares our story to the world.”

The previous tax officer says he understands the monetary insecurity that Hasan shoulders in an effort to publish the newspaper. Nonetheless, he provides, “I pray to Allah that there can be a day when all the pieces will fall into place and this paper can be printed fortnightly.”

Khan lives a few kilometres from the Andharmanik River. He explains the that means behind the title, which comes from two Bengali phrases – “andhar” that means darkish and “manik” that means jewel.

Searching on the darkish, rain-heavy sky past the doorway of his home, he quietly provides, “Hasan is our ‘Andharmanik’ – the shining jewel in our darkness.”