Art for a living
Despite the heat of the midday autumn sun, a small crowd gathered in front of the first gate of a government college in Chandpur town's Nazirpara. People, old and young, were surrounding and intently watching a physically disabled boy, squatting on the ground.
Peering through the crowd, an amazing scene came into view. The boy, with no wrists or fingers, was bending over pieces of paper, fervently drawing flowers, flags and birds, adding patches of colours to them. He was quite unmindful of the crowd around him, as also of the small sum of money some of them left him in appreciation for his talent and effort.
His name is Russell. Aged 17, he was maimed in an accident 10 years ago. But he has chosen the path of drawing pictures for a living instead of begging, a livelihood choice for most physically disabled people who come from poor families.
Russell is third among the seven children of Babu Fakir and Renu Begum, who migrated to Dhaka in search of a living in the early 1990s from their village home in Barisal and settled in a slum by the Malibagh railway track in the capital.
Like most slum-kids growing up near railway tracks, he would roam around freely jumping in and out of running trains, travelling from one station to another. One fateful day, this very game proved almost fatal when he slipped from a train's roof in Kamalapur Railway Station.
"We had no trace of him for a whole month and six days, until a man contacted us and told us that he was recovering at the Pangu Hospital," recalled Renu, as Russell sat silently on the plywood floor of a 20-by-10 feet shanty.
By the time his parents found him, Russell's right arm was amputated a little below the elbow and the left arm a little below the armpit, and the left foot was gone too.
Russell, however, got the opportunity to continue his education, even though his formal schooling stopped. He began going to Shishu Neer, a school run by a local NGO for underprivileged children.
"His two sisters were our students, so when he came with them to our school some time in 2007, our principal decided to treat him as a special student," said Hasina Haque or Russell's Moni Apa, who taught him to draw.
"He had difficulty remembering things and we did not want to pressure him on that, because he had 32 stitches on his head," she said. "But I noticed that he liked to draw pictures, so I taught him to hold pencils with the amputated limbs so that at least he would be occupied during the school hours."
But Hasina began to notice a change in the boy as he grew up. He started to skip his classes more and more. "He would not come to school for months and when I asked his parents they would say he went to their village in Barisal."
But it was not Barisal he had gone to.
He wanted to be useful to his family which was comprised of 11 members -- his father, mother, second brother and his wife with their four-month old baby, his three sisters and youngest brother -- all of whom lived inside the one room shanty in the congested slum built over a swamp, atop a bamboo platform.
"I used to work as a domestic help but after falling on a bathroom floor, I broke my back and I cannot do any heavy work anymore," said Renu adding how her family's income mainly depended on his husband and their eldest son.
Her husband Babu Fakir sells betel leaf near Mouchak market, earning Tk 150-200 daily while her eldest son, who works at a hotel, contributes Tk 1000 per month.
"The second son, a van driver, does not make enough money to make any contribution to the family expenditure," said Renu adding the other children go to school.
When Russell was asked about what gave him the idea of using his drawing skills to make a living, he looked down and remained quiet. His mother answered instead.
"He told me he couldn't beg. He feels shy to ask people for money. So he thought of making use of his talent."
Interestingly, Russell never got to make a living in Dhaka. Asked how he ended up in Chandpur, he maintained silence letting his mother answer. "He was taken there by a man. He usually went out and came back to the house as he wished," she said.
Her mother said he "earns about Tk 200-300 per day" from drawing pictures by the roadside.
"People who are amazed at his talent give him whatever they please," said Renu.
But drawing such beautiful pictures with one's stumps must put a lot of stress on his body. When the conversation came to this point, he finally broke his silence.
"Yes, it aches a lot especially when the pencils are short," he said. Russell uses ink pens, crayons and wood colour pencils to draw and colour pictures.
The only time he smiled was when asked what else he would like to draw. "I want to draw village sceneries, boats in the river and people's faces. But I cannot. I wish someone would teach me how to."
But silence returned to his face as this correspondent asked him about his dream or plan for the future.
Comments