Heroes for our times

Philanthropy is not quite dead. Rickshaw puller Joynal Abedin and his wife Lal Banu have shown, in an enlightening way, that even the poor can come to the assistance of the poor. In the twenty five years since his father died from lack of proper medical treatment, Abedin has struggled body and soul (and so has Lal Banu) to come to the aid of those he did not want to wither away like his father. Scraping together the money they have earned, he from pulling rickshaws and she from working in a clinic, they have set up a small charitable hospital and a free coaching centre in their village Hashadia of Paranganj union in Mymensingh. Little wonder then that Joynal Abedin has been dubbed Shada Moner Manush (man of the mind). Little wonder again that individuals and organizations, deeply appreciative of his efforts, have in their own ways come forward to help sustain his projects.
What Abedin and Lal Banu have accomplished, despite their grinding poverty, should be putting many of us, not least the well off, to embarrassment. Yes, philanthropy may not be dead but it is not quite alive either. Time was when the more privileged sections of society set up, quietly and unobtrusively, charitable institutions that were to become part of social history of Bangladesh. Ironically, with incomes rising and business personalities and organizations thriving in a free market economy, little effort has been made to emulate the social visionaries of the past. For all of us, Joynal Abedin and Lal Banu are a wake-up call, a reminder that all of us have a responsibility to assist one another, to be around one another in times of need. Every society is a network of interconnecting goals serving the national objective of building a liberal, exploitation-free and humane socio-cultural matrix.
Joynal Abedin and Lal Banu are heroes in our times. They remind us of what we can do, or should have done, as responsible components of the social structure.