Bhairab can be a good escape from the busy life of Dhaka. Catch the train and go through the green barren lands in a two hour journey.
To put the place in the frame of imagination, you can could have a gigantic bridge connecting the two biggest divisions of Bangladesh, the great river Meghna by which life and soul at Bhairab revolves, and the Ashuganj fertilizer factory. The trio could symbolize the serenity, national communication and industrialization of a small economy.
As you walk through streets of Bhairab the strong river breeze is replaced with pungent smell of every raw product imaginable. The serenity of the river is absent and people are rushing everywhere on another work day. The architecture of a large portion of all the buildings has a flavor of the British colonial rule, the new ones assure that those times are past.
One of the many old structures still standing by the streets of Bhairab. This particular one is a music school still active.
There are a lot of people who work as laborers in different warehouse businesses. There are many family owned warehouse businesses that dominates the local trade. It’s a somewhat richer sub community in an overall low income community and there is mutual consent between these families. You have to use a payslips for regular shoppings, but not all can use it. A group of closely related families owning business there have a way to maintain all the shoppings without regular money transaction. The market seem to have a harmony as similar business functions together in an area, for example the fish warehouses, vegetable warehouses and wood warehouses are located in separate roads within the marketplace. Nonetheless, Bhairab remains an everyday story of grassroot people, as a single entity shaping the economy of Bangladesh and owing to its huge importance, needs proper attention from the government to make rapid technological progress. It can be seenas one of the vantage points to affect a promising economy, along with other similar areas of Bangladesh. It can also be an ideal case study for researchers. Bangladesh has lost 18000 km of river routes in the past four decades. The rivers must be saved to keep the agriculture centered economy alive.
Outside the small town are acres of land that has immense scope for agricultural use. A notable spot is the war memorial, a mass grave of martyred freedom fighters of The War of Liberation. The area adjacent to neighbour upzilla Ashuganj is known for serving as the 11th sector during the war in 1971.
Century old statue of Hindu goddess Kali.
Towards the river, however, remains the main attraction – the nucleus of Bhairab, the force that keeps transcending lives in nature’s own mysterious way. In the dark hours sometimes, if you listen closely, you can hear folk songs that echoes from the other side of Meghna.
