For 42 Years, a boatman has carried students across the river for free

At first light, the engine coughs into motion as Kamalesh settles at one end of the boat, an oar in his hands.

He is 52 now, his back slightly bent with age. But on the short crossing from Sutarchapar Ghat to Niguari Bazar Ghat in Mymensingh, he still works the oar when the current demands it, adjusting the boat’s course while the engine rattles behind him.

Most mornings, the passengers are students.

More than 50 may crowd aboard at a time, holding notebooks and schoolbags as they make their way to Niguari Saidur Rahman High School, Niguari Government Primary School and Captain (Retd) Gias Uddin Ahmed College.

When the boat reaches the opposite bank, the students step off and hurry toward class. Villagers hand over the five-taka fare.The students do not.

Kamalesh has been carrying them without charge for roughly 42 years.

It is not a charitable program. There is no trust, donor or local government subsidy behind it. It is simply a rule handed down through his family, whose members have worked this crossing for generations.

“My father and grandfathers carried schoolchildren across at this ghat,” Kamalesh told Daily Waadaa. “They never charged them. Neither do I.”

Several hundred students use the crossing each day. Many come from Olli, Talli, Patlashi, Sutarchapar, Bhushbhushia, Sadhuya and other nearby villages, according to teachers and students at the local schools.

Jannatul Ferdous, a teacher at Niguari Saidur Rahman High School, estimated that close to 1,000 students from surrounding villages attend schools and colleges around Niguari Bazar, on the other side of the river.

For many, the boat is part of the school commute.

A rule passed down with the oar

The crossing sits near the meeting point of three rivers — the Kali Banar, Sutia and Dhamka — an area locally known as Trimohoni.

Kamalesh grew up nearby, in Nandia Sangun village in Sreepur Upazila. Ferrying passengers has long been his family’s occupation.

His father, Dinesh Chandra Majhi, operated a boat here. So did his grandfather, Umesh Chandra Majhi. Kamalesh traces the profession farther back to an ancestor, Bihari Majhi.

He was 10 when his father first put an oar in his hands and began teaching him how to run the ferry.

“Without the ferry, we have no income,” Kamalesh recalled his father telling him.

But his father also gave him another instruction: schoolchildren were not to be charged.

Kamalesh said the practice had begun after schools were established at Niguari Bazar and had already become a family custom by the time he started working on the river.

He kept it.

The fare has changed over the decades. It was once 10 paisa, then 15 paisa, then four annas. Today, an adult passenger pays five taka.

Students still pay nothing.

Israt Jahan and Mostak Ahmed, both tenth-grade students at Niguari Saidur Rahman High School, said roughly 500 students travel each day to the three main educational institutions at Niguari Bazar.

On Kamalesh’s boat, they said, the fare is never collected from them.

His example has spread. SM Shawkat Ali, head teacher of the high school, said other boatmen at the ghat have also begun carrying students for free.

A livelihood that barely pays

The practice is striking partly because Kamalesh has little financial room of his own.

His boat supports a six-member household. On a typical day, he earns about 300 to 400 taka before fuel, maintenance and other costs.

Two of his four sons work as labourers. His two daughters are married. He said he sold much of what he once owned to cover household expenses and the costs of their marriages.

He has no land of his own and no permanent homestead. His family lives in a house built on someone else’s property.

Still, he has never considered charging students.

Professor Sohel Mazhar, a resident of Niguari village and a teacher at Barmi College in Sreepur, told Waadaa that the practice has endured across at least three generations of Kamalesh’s family.

Humayun, a local businessman, said the contrast is what stands out: a man with very little continues to give up part of his daily earnings.

Kamalesh does not know how many students he has carried over the years. The number almost certainly runs into the thousands.

Some of them are now teachers, businesspeople and salaried workers. Many no longer live in the villages where they grew up.

Kamalesh remains at the crossing.

By late afternoon, he is back on the water, moving between the ghats as passengers come and go. Some hand him five taka. Some do not. Students continue to board without reaching for money.

“Everyone who crosses through the ghats of Trimohoni’s three rivers knows me,” he said. “I have carried thousands and thousands of students across without taking a single taka.”

Then he added: “Everyone respects me. Everyone loves me. I have everything. What more do I need?”

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