For the Love of Language

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Weekend Independent

Friday, 17 February 2012

Author / Source : Faisal Mahmud

As the sun came out, the valleys misty, tree-clad slopes shone golden in the morning light. One man was seen at the hill-top, limbing down through a trail that appeared like a moving snake from a distance.
He stopped at the end of the path, lifted up his worn out bag over his head and carefully started to cross a narrow ‘Jiri’ (hill river) with a strong current and sharp boulders. Crossing that, he climbed another little hill on the other side to reach a pleasant plateau covered with green grass.

A small one storied bamboo-built house with red roof-top was there in the raised ground. He stood in front of the house, drew a key out from his threadbare pant’s pocket and opened its gate.

I watched the whole incident from a little distance. It was very early in the morning and the ‘para’ (hill village) named ‘Shiplampi’ where I stayed the night (On our way to Tajindong) along with my trekking group was still asleep. I had a bad night's sleep and I went out (from our night halt at village head’s house) to have some fresh air.

I didn’t know that the house with the red roof-top was a school and the man who opened its gate was its lone teacher- Maijesh Tripura.

Driven by curiosity, I went to that house. Inside it, there were 10-12 wood benches, a blackboard, a map of Bangladesh, a picture of Jesus Christ and a medium sized cross hanging on the wall.
The man-Maijesh Tripura was found kneeling in front of the cross, offering a silent prayer. I waited. Some moments later he stood up and looked at me. His cloths looked more tattered in close than it seemed from the distance. He had thin grey hair, a lean muscular body and a  smile.

‘Good morning’, he greeted me.
It was a small house amid the vast greenery of Chittagong hill tracts. The nearest place with phone network and electricity was about ten hour of trekking distance and the nearest village (Shiplampi) was inhabited by ‘Mro’ tribe, the most primitive one (both men and women are topless, a matriarchal tribe) in the country.

Yet I was greeted with that!!
Maijesh Tripura was indeed a unique person. He was originally from Sherkorpara, a village of Tripura tribe. Unlike other hill people, he wanted to do something different than ‘Jhum’ (slash and burn cultivation) or hunting.

“Early in my childhood, I went to Saikotpara (a village of Bom tribe) with my uncle. There I saw that a Christian NGO opened a school in the village. I wanted to study there but my parents didn’t allow me then as we had no relative in that village”, he told me in good Bengali, unlike other hill people.

“But by seeing the Bom people, I realized one thing then that if we- the Tripura tribe don’t learn to speak and write in Bangla like them, we can never be prosperous. Because the hill people need to communicate with ‘Bangalis’ in Bangla at the bazaar for various trade”, he said.

“So I persuaded my parents and went to the school in Saikotpara. I was taught Bengali, a little English and mathematics there. A father (priest)  at the Saikotpara School was pleased with my progress and he enrolled me at a school in Thanchi Bazaar (one of the six upazilas of Bandarban). I passed SSC (then it was called Matriculation exam) exam from there”

Maijesh Tripura told me that after passing his SSC exam, he decided to come back to Sherkorpara to establish a school. “The Karbari gave me a land; the villagers built a school house and sent their children. But the main problem that I had encountered was the lack of study materials. Most of the villagers were very poor and they could not afford books, pencils or notebooks for their children. Also textbooks were very rare even in Thanchi Bazaar”, he said.   

“I went back to Saikotpara and asked the Christian NGO to provide funding for my school. A few days later, it gave us the fund. It bought us the bench, blackboard and study materials. Now the school of Sherkotpara is a government registered primary school. It has six teachers who receive monthly pay order (MPO) from the government. The Tripura tribe is also prosperous now as many of the people from our village have various businesses in the Thanchi Bazzar”, he said.

Maijesh could have easily stayed in the school of his own village and received the MPO. But he belongs to a different school of thought. “I wanted to spread the light of education among other tribes. Especially I wanted them to learn Bengali. So I came here at Shiplampi. Mro tribe has the highest rate of illiteracy among all the tribes. I persuaded the Karbari of Shiplampi and he gave me a piece of land here. The Christian NGO built the house and bought us the study material and I started the school”, he said.

He said that he mainly teaches Bangla here. “I also teach basic English and Mathematics right after the students have learned to read and write Bangla. After studying in this school, many students go to the primary schools of the Thanchi Bazaar and some of the large villages. I don’t take any money from anybody. I came here from Sherkorpara (a four hour trekking distance) thrice a week and ran the school. I have also opened another such school in Kunchingpara of the Khumi tribe”, he said. 

It was about 8 am in the morning. Maijesh excused himself from the conversation for some time. He pulled out a bell and rang it loud for a while. “Within 10 minutes the school will start”, he said.

My friends had also waken up from their sleep. Some of them came to the school. We also needed to leave the Para and start trekking for that day to cover up the planned distance. But we waited for few more minutes to see what happened next.

In a short while, a number of little tribal children arrived and the classes began. “‘Au’ te auzogarti aslo tere. ‘Aa’ aamti ami khabo pere,”- those familiar magical sounds of learning the alphabet of our beloved language started to come out from that small school of the hilly terrain.