‘I want to go back to my mother'

Worried, nine-year-old Ismail spends most of his day sitting on a bed at the neurosurgery department of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

At times, he walks around the ward. Watching him wandering aimlessly, some of the relatives of the patients offer him food, which he takes but not without thanking them for their kindness.

Ismail was admitted to the hospital after falling down from a train in Gazipur on October 15.

Though he has recovered from the injury he received in the head, it did little to ease his worries. He is worried that he would be released from the hospital soon.

Ismail Jabiullah Labbaik, son of Billal Hossain, a rickshaw-puller in Mymensingh, wants to go back to his mother but he cannot remember the exact address. “My father died a few years back... I used to live with my mother and stepfather in Haluaghat of Mymensingh. He used to scold me often.”

Ismail was narrating his story to this correspondent yesterday at room 204 of the neurosurgery department.

He said he fled home last Ramadan by boarding a Dhaka-bound train. Since then, he had been surviving as a ragpicker and staying in the Kamalapur Railway Station area along with other children.

On October 15, along with three friends, he boarded a train to go to the airport. They missed the station and reached Gazipur as they were playing amongst themselves. At one point, one of his friends accidentally pushed Ismail and he fell off the train.

 “Two boys brought Ismail to the hospital in a senseless state. He had no guardian with him. I had to admit him to the hospital,” Md Shaheen, a ward boy at the DMCH, told The Daily Star.

Isma Azam Zico, registrar at the neurosurgery ward, said, “For around 15 days, Ismail remained senseless. Some of the bones of his head were broken and we had to conduct two surgeries on him.” As no one took his responsibilities, the hospital authorities and the doctors bore his medical expenses.

When asked, he said they would not discharge Ismail alone. “If we can't find his guardians, we will seek help from the hospital's social welfare department and hand him over to them.”

Meanwhile, the worried nine-year-old continues to miss his mother. “I want to go back to my mother. All I know that she lives in Haluaghat of Mymensingh,” he said.