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| Bangladesh's 'rocket' boats: A window into a half-submerged city |
It was after sunset that the first danger appeared. Staring through his metal lens into the dark waters of Bangladesh's Old Ganga River, Captain Lutfur Rahman shouted, 'Starboard right! Brother, run the boiler room pumps!'
The boats, sailing completely without lights, only saved Kho from hitting an oncoming boat with the help of a loud horn.
Designed for destruction in the water, with a torpedo-sized steady drift, the multi-decker boat, loaded with junk, was made of loose rubber. It was a flimsy cargo ship plying between Dhaka and the Bay of Bengal.
If it had hit, it would have been a huge disaster. Yet it was no good fortune. Every night for decades, the PS Ostrich, a historic Bangladeshi paddle-wheel steamer, has managed to escape the turbulent environment without incident, as if it were a real warship. You managed to get out of the game safely.
Such prudence goes a long way in the safe operation of the boat travel system in the world's most densely populated country.
Bangladesh has 8,000 km of navigable rivers and waterways that offer a landscape that can rival the masterpieces of English romantic painter JMW Turner.
The deltas of Bangladesh are very large and complex in nature. Only such boats can be sailed in them and it is thanks to the highly disciplined sailors of seafarers like Lutfur Rehman that PS Ostrich has never been sunk or wrecked.
It is an amazing feat of nautical engineering and blind faith that the steamer completes the arduous 20-hour journey from Dhaka to the city of Muralganj in the water on the banks of the Sundarbans, the world's largest mangrove forest.
PS Ostrich can be considered as one of the most serviceable boats in the history of Bangladesh, it has the history of the region.
It is one of only four paddle wheel steamers in the country. They are named 'Rockets' because they were once the fastest boats on the water. Other paddle wheel steamers. PS Mehsud, PS Lipchand and PS Turn - are still in use but it is the Ostrich that first walks into the crowded docks of Dhaka's Sadar Ghat boat terminal with its giant Malay storybook form.
The boat, like a ship, seems to be submerged in the water to such an extent that it is only now that it is submerged and that it does not sink seems nothing short of a miracle.
This dilapidated double-decker structure, which had fallen into disrepair due to its long life, was built in 1929 at the Clyde Bank dockyard in Scotland before being used as a passenger ferry across the Bay of Bengal. . It seems to be a remnant of the East India Company's colonial era in Bengal.
Little did the Scottish shipyard workers at the time know that this boat or ship is still the main means of transport in Bangladesh 85 years later.
Although its large paddle wheels were started to be driven by a diesel engine in 1996 and its roof (of rusted tin sheets) was replaced, it is still a classic in its appearance. Comes.
Lutfur Rahman said, "It feels like traveling in an ancient world." There are newer, faster boats on the water, but life on them is not the same. Traveling on it is a different experience than any other journey.
When laden with goods - from three-piece suits and washing machines to sacks of grain and idle bicycles - the ship looks like a floating village, the kind we only see in our fairy tales or plays. I listen.
It has a capacity of 700 passengers, but during Islamic holidays like Eid, this number can increase to 3,000.
The problem for these boats, called rockets, is that Bangladesh is an economy in which water travel is key. And it needs faster, more modern boats.
There is growing competition from neighboring India and China, which are luring passengers to new operators with their shiny white, multi-huge boats and ships. The journey to the delta cities of Muralganj can be completed in half the time compared to the rocket boats, they have a better schedule and the fares are also much lower.
Due to such advantages, modern boats are also playing an important role in the development of the country. If compared to them, the rockets now look like obsolete and obsolete boats. But the fact that these old boats are remnants of history may be one of the reasons why they are still maintained and continued today.
Boats, called rockets in the modern world, are filled with a wealth of memories for Bangladeshis of all ages. Older people have been sailing on them since the Second World War, while the younger generation stand on these boats and enjoy the romance of history and the fun of adventure.
A pleasure like a trip on the Titanic
Chandan Sutsil, a journalist from a newspaper in Dhaka, said, "I used to go to Dhaka on a boat with my father, who is a doctor." This is something I will never forget. People like me value history.
"It feels like we're sailing on the Titanic." Officials also point to the rockets' record of safety and safe travel. Old Ganga, Padma and Chandpur, a city bordering the three-way confluence of the Yeghna rivers, known for major accidents involving multi-deckers and boats like ferries, has so far retained the rockets because of their safe passage.
This is something that all PS Austria passengers agree on.
Rajab Ahmed Khan, an employee of the forest department, said that he was going from Brussels to Halrahat.
"The rockets are more reliable, they have never had an accident during this time. It was built by the British while more modern boats have many problems. There is always a problem with something for him.
Contrary to common sense expectations, the trajectory of the Rockets' future may depend on the excesses and deficiencies of his momentum.
High-speed boats can only dock at large docks, and dozens of small communities will lose access to the docks if the docks are shut down.
These villages of mud huts surrounded by fruit trees and water-logged rice paddies would be deprived of the convenience of travel without the service of PS Ostrich as the rockets stop at docks made of small quays. Ensure that even people from small villages can travel by water.
Mahmoud Mehdi, a rickshaw driver who was traveling with his elderly father on a rocket from one village to another, said it was a very old facility.
"We are going only two kilometers down the river, but without the rocket, this journey would not be possible."
And for foreign travelers, the trip is a romantic window into a half-submerged world, a glimpse into the past.
It is a journey that cannot be compared to any other romantic experience. Due to the current flow of the Ani, it is quite possible to see all the waterways that lead to the great mangrove forests of the Sundarbans. which is the last sanctuary of the Royal Bengal Tiger, can be visited.
Apart from this, during the journey on these boats, one can see past flooded rivers and submerged paddy fields.
If Bangladesh is to survive on the river, a paddle wheel steamer like the PS Ostrich can survive in the future and continue to ply these waters for a long time.
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