Mangal Abash: Nothing ‘mangal’ about it

The name of the house is "Mangal Abash" (home of good omens).

However, for the 150 students living there at present, there's nothing auspicious about it.

Mangal Abash is currently the only residential hall of Kabi Nazrul Government College, one of the oldest educational institutions in the capital. It is a two-storied building located in Mohini Mohan Das Lane at Farashganj.

Different books on Dhaka informs that the house belonged to Zamindar Jatindra Kumar Saha who left the area during the 1947 partition and settled in Kolkata.

The palace was left behind, abandoned. Its deeds and official papers were lost in transition.

Documents and historical sources find that government institutions and cultural clubs have used the building at different times. The building has been used as a dormitory of Kabi Nazrul College since before the 1971 Liberation War.

Later the building was named after Shamsul Alam, a student of this college who embraced martyrdom in the Liberation War.

Over the years, the building has become dilapidated.

Visiting the dormitory recently, this correspondent saw that the plaster is falling apart due to lack of maintenance. A dark and haunted aura looms inside the building, even during the day.

This correspondent wanted to visit the rooms where students stayed but was not allowed to do so by the dormitory authorities.

Students complained that there's no provision for clean or fresh water. And thus, they are constantly suffering from various water-borne diseases.

There's also no sanitary toilets. The ones available are barely usable. Students still have to bathe with water from a well situated inside.

Although the hostel has a dining facility, it has been closed for nearly three years due to a lack of cook. As a result, students have to eat outside.

All in all, there's no end to the students' sufferings.

Rabiul Islam, a resident student, said, "I've stayed in this hostel for the past four years. We've had to suffer from the beginning and conditions have hardly improved."

Ali, another student, said for the last four years, they've appealed to the principal several times to solve the various problems of the hostel, but the college authorities haven't solved them.

"We have only one demand from the college administration -- the hostel's problems should be resolved as soon as possible," he said.

Contacted, Prof Amena Begum, principal of Kabi Nazrul Government College, said, "We're going to renovate the hostel through the Education Engineering Department. They will visit the hostel next week."

"There's no specific information on how many students are staying there. The hostel students  filed a petition seeking solutions to various problems. We'll do whatever is necessary to facilitate their accommodation. Besides, we will also make arrangements to repair it, keeping its tradition," she added.