Some recognition at last, but not enough

Hearing his name called out, Sinial Da paused chopping wood at the sawmill at Nilphamari's Domar upazila town and squinted at the direction of the caller around 10:30am yesterday.

He looked, with cataracts in his eyes, at this correspondent briefly, a frown creasing his eyebrows. Then he resumed his relentless chopping action.

Nripendra Nath Roy does not have time for distractions from the serious, bone-jarring business of earning for the six mouths he has to feed.

For the valiant 70-year-old freedom fighter who is however not recognised as one because of a clerical error, each minute wasted on distractions is a minute less to spend on earning for his family.

Almost 50 years ago in mid-December 1971, the then 20-year-old freedom fighter of sector-6 and was one of the victors who entered the Nilphamari district town (then sub-division) after defeating the Pakistani occupation army.

After repeated requests, Nripendra Nath Roy alias Sinial rested his axe and approached this correspondent, grumbling about how much work he had left to do that day and that his livelihood depended on it.

He sat on a log and accepted the March 22 copy of The Daily Star, opened to page 5. Upon seeing the content -- his own form frozen in the motion of swinging down the very axe he had put down moments earlier -- his weathered face finally cracked into a smile.

Even though he can read very little English, he examined his picture very keenly and the story beneath it titled "Freedom fighter toils away without recognition".

He examined the page from different angles and drops of perspiration from his forehead fell on the paper.

When this correspondent got up to leave after spending an hour with the freedom fighter, a still beaming Sinial Da offered some tea which was respectfully declined.

He wanted to offer thanks, but the gratitude in his eyes carried more meaning than words could convey.

Due to a clerical error during the process of issuing his national identity card in 2008, the life of this freedom fighter was plunged into darkness.

Not only was his date of birth given incorrectly as 1960 instead of 1951, his nick name Sinial was inscribed in the ID card instead of his full name.

From 2008 to 2015, this old veteran moved from door to door of different government offices to correct the error but his efforts were in vain, depriving him of government recognition.