‘Our story’: A day in the life of a handwritten newspaper in Bangladesh

West Sonatala, Bangladesh – An mean time for Andharmanik, a tiny assemblage newspaper, begins successful a crowded food market.

Walking down the steps from the roadworthy to the food landing constituent successful Mohipur, a municipality successful the territory of Patuakhali bordering the Bay of Bengal, the odor of brackish and food hangs dense successful the air. Next to the main landing platform, colourful sportfishing boats, painted successful faded reds, blues and greens, are moored.

At this engaged marketplace successful precocious July, larger sportfishing depots and overmuch smaller shanty-style stalls basal broadside by side. At 1 of the small, tin-roofed stalls, Hasan Parvez, 44, with achromatic fabric trousers rolled up to his knees, shovels crystal into integrative crates piled precocious with silvery hilsa – Bangladesh’s prized nationalist food – which is transported each time to cities including the superior Dhaka and Barisal.

Hasan works surrounded by integrative barrels and crates glistening with the caller drawback of the day, and determination is simply a changeless inheritance thrum of diesel-powered trawlers humming arsenic boats propulsion successful and retired of the dock.

“It’s a engaged morning, and it is simply a food marketplace with each the chaos,” Hasan says with a smile.

He works determination arsenic a regular wage labourer sorting, weighing and packing food into achromatic thermocol boxes during the monsoon season. In the adust season, helium works astatine a adjacent ceramic kiln, and implicit the wintertime months, astir December and January, helium works astatine a marketplace selling sun-dried food known arsenic “shutki”.

Hasan’s time astatine Mohipur marketplace starts aboriginal – astir 4am – with the fajr supplication and a cupful of beverage without milk, and earns him astir 600 taka ($5) per day.

Today, arsenic usual, helium is impatient to decorativeness because, too this job, which helium needs to supply for his family, Hasan has different concern to get backmost to. He is the editor-in-chief of a handwritten assemblage paper called Andharmanik (“jewel from the darkness” successful Bengali, and besides the sanction of the adjacent river), which features stories from his colony of West Sonatala. He publishes it each 2 months from his location successful the coastal colony astir an hr by roadworthy from the food marketplace and much than 8 hours from Dhaka.

Since Hasan and his squad of reporters don’t ain oregon usage computers, the paper is handwritten and past photocopied. But they besides judge penning stories by hand, successful a spot wherever newspapers weren’t disposable earlier Andharmanik began, makes the insubstantial consciousness much intimate and brings their assemblage person together.

Finally, astatine astir 11am, erstwhile the past boxes of food person been loaded onto carts and the store level has been cleaned, Hasan prepares to caput home.

He hops onto a van-gari – a battery-driven, three-wheeled bicycle with a ample woody level astatine the rear of the conveyance wherever passengers beryllium – to get home.

As Hasan climbs into the vehicle, helium explains that the three-room location helium shares with his wife, Salma Begum, whom helium joined successful 2013, and 3 daughters, is besides the editorial office for Andharmanik. It is wherever helium meets with the squad erstwhile oregon doubly successful each work cycle.

Hasan delivers a paper to a chap villager [Diwash Gahatraj/Al Jazeera]

‘My village’

On the bumpy, breached roadworthy to his home, past paddy fields and scattered houses, a fewer two-wheelers and electrical rickshaws passing by successful the other direction, Hasan explains what drove him to commencement a newspaper.

“I utilized to constitute a batch of poems successful my childhood,” helium says, speaking loudly implicit the noisy van-gari engine. “Reading and penning ever attracted me.”

He would work works by the Indian Nobel prize-winning poet, Rabindranath Tagore, and self-help books. But contempt his emotion of speechmaking and learning, helium wasn’t capable to decorativeness school. When helium was 14, Hasan, the eldest of 2 brothers and 2 sisters, had to driblet retired to enactment arsenic a time labourer to enactment his family. “I was expected to walk my secondary schoolhouse certification (SSC) exam backmost successful 1996, but I couldn’t bash it due to the fact that of wealth problems,” helium explains.

He didn’t implicit his SSC introspection (10th grade) until the property of 35 successful 2015. Two years later, helium finished precocious school. In 2021, helium enrolled successful a Bachelor of Arts grade astatine a assemblage successful Kalapara, astir 10km (6.2 miles) away. Having to juggle supporting his household with the paper and his studies, helium is conscionable present successful his 2nd semester. This has been an important travel due to the fact that the aboriginal of the paper hinges connected it, helium says.

Hasan wants to registry the paper successful the territory arsenic an authoritative media organisation, arsenic helium believes this would assistance support it from governmental volatility. “For that, the rules are that the steadfast has to beryllium a graduate,” helium says.

The thought for the insubstantial arose successful June 2016 erstwhile Hasan met Rafiqul Montu, a Dhaka-based biology writer who was visiting the area. Montu covers the interaction of the clime situation successful Bangladesh’s coastal areas and travels the portion passim the twelvemonth for his work. One day, Hasan saw him taking pictures of the Andharmanik River. Curious, helium went to speech to him.

As they spoke, Hasan shared immoderate of his poems and different writings. In those, helium talked astir his village’s problems – similar the cyclones that afflict them oregon worsening clime conditions for farmers. No paper covered these stories, and with the section authorities often dilatory to help, radical felt neglected.

Montu, impressed by what helium heard, encouraged him to crook these stories into a newspaper.

“He wanted to bash thing for his community,” Montu explains. “I told him helium could people a paper and screen section news. I said helium should absorption connected spreading bully religion and anticipation successful his community.”

He suggested naming the insubstantial aft the stream wherever they spoke and taught Hasan however to constitute a story, trade headlines and instrumentality photos with his mobile phone.

“Montu bhai (brother) is my ustaad (mentor),” Hasan says. “He inspired maine to constitute stories astir my colony and people’s lives – some problems and solutions. I had ne'er thought of becoming a paper steadfast since I can’t spend to beryllium one. But it’s been six years that Andharmanik has been coming out.”

As a tribute to the working-class assemblage of West Sonatala, the paper’s archetypal contented was published successful 2019 connected May 1, Labour Day.

A presumption of West Sonatala [Diwash Gahatraj/Al Jazeera]

Forgotten by the world

Around noon, and nether a airy drizzle, Hasan nears his colony successful the quiescent countryside. Green atom fields dispersed retired from some sides of the road, and the trees lining it are bedewed from the rain.

Ducks aquatics successful a fewer ponds on the roadside. The van-gari bounces implicit the past agelong of breached roadworthy until it yet runs retired altogether. This is arsenic acold arsenic the operator tin go.

From there, it is simply a 10-minute locomotion on muddy paths to scope Hasan’s house.

“Officially, the roadworthy comes up to my house,” helium says, “but this is what it looks like.”

A constrictive portion of slushy mud is each determination is to locomotion on, and the monsoon has made conditions worse. Villagers person nary prime but to locomotion barefoot, holding their shoes oregon sandals.

“Wearing shoes isn’t applicable arsenic they tin get stuck successful the mud and origin idiosyncratic to gaffe and fall,” Hasan says arsenic helium hurries to conscionable his team, who volition get for a 1pm gathering to sermon ideas for the August edition. The paper started with 10 contributors and has grown to a squad of 17 reporters who lend stories and photos voluntarily.

“In our meetings, we stock communicative ideas, but besides speech astir our ain lives and families. Most times my woman gives america beverage and muri (puffed rice),” helium adds.

West Sonatala is location to 618 families – mostly farmers, fishermen and regular wage labourers. Electricity lone arrived a fewer years ago.

“There’s 1 assemblage session successful the colony with nary doctors. People who autumn sick successful the colony are taken to hospitals successful Kalapara, a tiny sub-district municipality which is an hour-long drive,” Hasan says.

“No nationalist oregon determination newspapers travel to the village, and astir homes don’t person a TV. Those with smartphones ticker the quality there, but the net is truthful patchy, adjacent that’s difficult,” helium adds, gesturing astatine his mobile phone, which shows nary web connection.

“Our country is truthful distant and chopped disconnected from basal accusation that we consciousness forgotten by the mainstream world,” helium says. “This feeling of being near down was what drove maine to commencement Andharmanik. It’s our assemblage paper to archer our ain stories.”

Russiah Begum, 43, is 1 of 3 women connected the newspaper’s squad [Diwash Gahatraj/Al Jazeera]

‘A collective’

In Hasan’s surviving country is simply a partition covered with framed paper clippings and a fewer bookshelves packed with Bengali books. A long, woody array sits successful the centre wherever Hasan’s reporters gather, arriving 1 by 1 on the muddy paths. Three person braved the dense rainfall to marque it determination today. Abdul Latif is the archetypal to arrive, followed by Russiah Begum, past Nazrul Islam Bilal. They participate the country with smiles connected their faces, asking astir each other’s wellbeing by saying, “Kemon asen?” (“How are you?” successful Bengali).

The radical is small, but diverse, and they each unrecorded adjacent each different wrong a clump of villages. Abdul, 42, dressed successful a crisp, achromatic checkered shirt, is an English teacher successful precocious school. Nazrul, 31, is an electrician. Russiah, 43, is 1 of 3 women connected the team, and runs a tailoring concern from her location successful West Sonatala.

Russiah arrives astatine Hasan’s location for an editorial meeting [Diwash Gahatraj/Al Jazeera]

The 2 different members of the halfway squad who person been prevented by the rainfall from attending the gathering are Sahana Begum, 55, who walks with a limp successful her close limb owed to polio. Sahana, who is besides a seamstress, lives successful West Sonatala and writes astir women’s issues. There is besides 29-year-old Ashish Garami, the lone Hindu subordinate of the team. He belongs to a number radical successful Bangladesh, which successful caller years has reportedly faced discrimination.

Other contributors enactment arsenic e-rickshaw drivers and farmers, portion immoderate are unemployed.

“We enactment arsenic a collective. Our paper focuses connected section news, assemblage events, and what happens successful West Sonatala and sometimes adjacent villages,” says Abdul, who joined Andharmanik successful 2021. “In this edition, I americium going to constitute astir the atrocious roadworthy conditions,” helium adds. “I’ll amusement however radical are suffering due to the fact that of it during the monsoon.”

The schoolhouse wherever helium teaches is 3 kilometres (1.9 miles) from his home, and helium has to transverse the Andharmanik River by vessel each time to scope it.

“Crisis is the crushed Andharmanik is published. The mode Hasan pointed retired the problems of our colony done his writings inspired maine to articulation the team,” helium says.

Hasan looks astatine copies of the May contented [Diwash Gahatraj/Al Jazeera]

‘Something beauteous happened’

Russiah has been with Hasan’s squad since the beginning. She explains that she finished 10th people earlier marrying a husbandman from the village. To assistance enactment her family, she started a tailoring business, which became a model into the village’s hidden struggles. “When women travel to maine to stitch their clothes, they unfastened their hearts,” she says. “I perceive astir problems that ne'er marque it to the extracurricular satellite – particularly the symptom that women and children transportation successful silence.”

One of her stories was astir a pistillate named Abejaan Begum from Rehmatpur village, a fewer kilometres from West Sonatala. Abejaan had mislaid her location to devastating floods successful 2023 and had been forced to decamp to a makeshift hut made of integrative sheets.

“My communicative was shared by Hasan connected his Facebook page,” Begum says. “Then thing beauteous happened – assistance started pouring successful from Bangladeshis surviving abroad. In total, she received 60,000 taka ($420) to physique a caller location and bargain a fewer goats.” Today, Abejaan is surviving with dignity again successful a three-room house, Russiah says.

Their stories person helped others. For 1 edition, Hasan wrote a poem astir a kid successful his colony named Rubina who lived successful a breached mud hut with her grandma and mother, who had intelligence wellness problems and was kept successful chains. Because they were truthful poor, Rubina was forced to beg for food. After Hasan published the poem, it was wide work and caught the attraction of section authorities officials, who decided to springiness Rubina and her household immoderate onshore and a house.

Hasan and his squad often absorption connected stories astir however radical are affected by the clime crisis. The coastal areas of Bangladesh are peculiarly susceptible to flooding, heatwaves, rising oversea levels and saltwater intrusion. Bilal owns a tiny atom field, and helium feels connected to different farmers successful the area, peculiarly arsenic helium sees his harvest get smaller each twelvemonth owed to the erratic rainfall.

“In the adjacent issue, I’ll constitute astir the struggles of section time labourers during the monsoon,” helium says.

Hasan’s reporters taxable their stories connected sheets from notebooks. “Our contributors nonstop maine their stories successful handwritten notes. I marque the last determination connected what goes successful the insubstantial and edit the language,” helium says. He past writes retired the stories with a fountain pen connected A3-size insubstantial and has these photocopied astatine a transcript store successful Kalapara.

Each paper is 4 pages agelong and bound unneurotic utilizing colourful integrative tape. Hasan makes 300 copies – each of which costs him astir 10 taka ($0.08) to publish. The process is labour-intensive and the last handwriting, printing and binding takes astir a week.

Once published, Hasan and his squad administer the insubstantial successful West Sonatala and the adjacent villages of Tungibari, Chandpara, Rehmatpur and Fatehpur. They person nary paper stall oregon subscription system, relying solely connected section demand. They springiness it distant for escaped or, wherever they can, merchantability it astatine cost. “People are mediocre successful our village, truthful it’s mostly fixed free. Honestly, I don’t marque immoderate wealth retired of it. This is not my goal,” Hasan says.

Azizur Rehman, 84, has work each contented for the past 2 years [Diwash Gahatraj/Al Jazeera]

A loyal reader

Azizur Rehman Khan, 84, a nonmigratory of West Sonatala, is 1 of the newspaper’s astir loyal readers and Hasan’s neighbour. He has work each contented for the past 2 years and happily pays for each issue, which is delivered to him personally by Hasan.

“I person seen Parvez since his puerility days,” Azizur says. “I emotion his passionateness and information to archer stories of happiness and sadness of our villagers. When the remainder of the satellite forgot us, it is Andharmanik that shares our communicative to the world.”

The erstwhile taxation serviceman says helium understands the fiscal insecurity that Hasan shoulders successful bid to people the newspaper. However, helium adds, “I commune to Allah that determination volition beryllium a time erstwhile everything volition autumn into spot and this insubstantial volition beryllium published fortnightly.”

Khan lives a mates of kilometres from the Andharmanik River. He explains the meaning down the name, which comes from 2 Bengali words – “andhar” meaning acheronian and “manik” meaning jewel.

Looking retired astatine the dark, rain-heavy entity beyond the doorway of his house, helium softly adds, “Hasan is our ‘Andharmanik’ – the shining jewel successful our darkness.”