A father's helping hand

“Let's stop here,” Taijul tells his father. The rickshaw-van comes to a stop. The 10-year-old gets off and starts collecting scarps from street corners.

It's late; almost two in the night.

His father, Sirajul Islam, waits for him patiently while Taijul Islam continues the collection. Once he is finished, they would head out to another destination.

Theirs is a father-son team.

The son collects metal scraps, plastic bottles and papers from the streets of Dhaka and the father pulls the rickshaw-van. These are then sold at scrap shops in Hazaribagh.

For them, the day begins at 9:00pm. And every night, the two roam around the city on their rented rickshaw-van looking for discarded items, to support their six-member family.

This correspondent caught up with the duo at Purba Razabazar around 2:00am last week.

Taijul was gathering scattered scrap items from the corner of a road and makeshift shops and putting those inside a large bag on top of a rickshaw-van. His father was sitting on the van, waiting for his son to finish.

“We continue with the collection throughout the night,” said Sirajul Islam. The 55-year-old said he needs his son's help due to his physical disability.

Taijul is the eldest among his four children.

“We mostly cover Rayer Bazar, Mohammadpur, Lalmatia, Dhanmondi, Sukrabad, Razabazar, Indira Road, Manik Mia Avenue and Shyamoli areas,” he added.

He said he has been doing this for the last five years.

“Before, I used to pull rickshaw to support my family. Even with my meagre income, I hoped to send Taijul to school but my back pain forced me to think otherwise,” he added. “With the pain, I could not pull the rickshaw properly.”

“What choice do I have?” he asked. “If I hadn't involved him, all of us would have starved.” Sirajul said they earn around Tk 400 to Tk 700 per night.

Meanwhile, Taijul was busy gathering plastic bottles from a bin.

Sirajul stared at him for a while and added, “He [Taijul] was born 21 years after my marriage. I didn't want this life for him.”

“I wanted him to go to school… to become educated… but due to my disability, Taijul cannot…,” he could not finish the sentence.

He regained his composure and continued, “Even if I could find an evening school near our home on Aziz Khan Road at Rayer Bazar, it would be hard for my son to attend school as he works throughout the night and sleeps almost the entire day.”

Taijul, by the time, finished gathering scraps and came in front of the van. “By the time we finish, it's almost 6:00am. I feel very tired once I return home. I usually go straight to

bed,” he told this correspondent.

Though he is only 10, and education still remains a distant dream for him, life has taught him some valuable lessons too.

“I have to help my father support our family. My mother and younger siblings depend on me,” said the resolute boy.

He stayed silent for a few seconds. “At times, I do miss playing with my friends… And yes, I also dream of going to school someday,” said Taijul.

With that, the father-son team got on the rickshaw-van and rode into the night.