The best comes out when man faces the worst

To say he has a heart of gold would be a gross understatement. Well, gold may be a precious metal and its reserves may be quite helpful to size up and stabilise a nation's economy, yet it pales before a pure soul for the purity of spirit that seems to flow like heavenly blessings. On Thursday, the sky emptied itself as it hardly ever did in ages on this part of the planet we lovingly call Bangladesh. The test of a pure heart takes place at a time of great trial and tribulation. On Thursday night, I was lucky to come across one such heaven-sent soul in the shape of a CNG-run auto driver. My worst ever nightmarish commuting experience in more than five decades in this city could have left me completely exhausted, frustrated and out of sorts but for the God-sent driver of the vehicle I hired to return to my residence.
Surely, the unmitigated sufferings of people including four deaths due to electrocution in this capital give its inhabitants every reason to curse the untimely heavy rains and the honchos who made the tall claim that the city would no longer be waterlogged. Commuters returning home from office or from any other place they had earlier gone on other business errands found roads, streets and alleys unreliable right from the evening of Thursday till well past midnight. Those were veritable canals and dangers lurking from both overhead electric cables and unseen underfoot crevices, open manholes or cracked drains. If the occasional lightning amid the rains coming in buckets struck terror in the bosom of commuters, the gaping holes of Dhaka roads can as well be death traps at the time those get flooded knee-deep and waist-deep.
I was one of the many commuters who had been left stranded on the flooded Road 27, Dhanmondi because the rising water caused the auto-rickshaw's engine go to sleep. What choice does a septuagenarian have when the vehicle gets so stuck on a knee-to-waist-deep flooded road? The unrelenting downpour showed no sign of fizzling out let alone coming to an end. Many ominous thoughts crossed my mind. But the auto driver appeared to be my saviour. Well he could have told me to get down but no he was not like the run-of-the-mill driver.
Right from the time he volunteered to step down with his umbrella to look for a bus counter on Panthapath on the Kalabagan side, where from I had to collect the ticket for a journey out of Dhaka on Satrurday, I knew he was made of different materials. What he did when the engine failed to start was amazing. I just kept sitting and the man started pulling the auto through the water. He had no way to use the umbrella while he was pulling the vehicle. Completely drenched, the man did not utter even a single word of irritation. He pulled the vehicle up to a spot opposite to the Aarong outlet in Lalmatia. There was not much water on the side of the median strip where he stationed the auto. Several times did he try to start the engine but it refused to comply.
At last he gave up the hope and got down to look for a rickshaw for me. By this time it was 10:30 p.m. We started from Purana Paltan at quarter past seven in the evening. Luckily he could manage a rickshaw and I paid him more than what he demanded at the time of hiring his service. Yet I felt it was not enough reward for such a noble soul. I took the rickshaw ride but was thinking how will he return to old Dhaka where he resides? When asked, the man told that after the water that entered could be emptied, the engine would start. I could not be assured. I prayed for him. How caring he was, even when I was boarding the rickshaw which was brought alongside the auto door, he shaded me from rains with his umbrella. I felt bad when I realised I should have asked for his cell number. It only occurred when I had crossed the Asad Gate and I still cannot pardon me for not having the presentiment to ask for his mobile phone number when we parted.
On my way home I saw more miseries people suffered. Water found its way into several residential homes on Tajmahal Road. This is a city that is proving unliveable on several counts. But what is of immediate concern is the uncertainty and danger that lurks from unsuspecting corners. Surely, situations like this do not quite go with the capital of a country soon to earn the middle-income status --- one that will also aspires to be a 'smart Bangladesh'.