Tapas's noble initiative for underprivileged children
"Fifty poor, meritorious students will get three khatas (exercise books) and a pen each at this shop," reads a banner. A picture of this banner recently went viral on Facebook. The shop which is actually a bakery is in Dumuria, Khulna. Tapas Raha owns the shop and it was his initiative to help the needy students in the locality.
As we went to the bakery, Tapas was found making dough with the workers. Although he is the owner, he participates with the workers to make cakes, buiscuits and other products. The khatas and pens that are distributed among students were arranged on a table in front of the bakery.
Tapas started the initiative in January 2015. The students were given Bangla, English and Mathmatics exercise books and a pen every month. Tapas identified the needy students after discussing with the local teachers. Guardians of insolvent students too contacted him. By 2019, the items were increased while the number of beneficiaries increased from 30 to 50.
Tapas's father Shantipada Raha had to do various works for earning. Finally, he set up a small bakery in Dumuria market. The bakery was named 'Mayer Daan' (Mother's Gift) as his mother gave him the land. At the beginning, the shop only produced biscuits. To assist his father, Tapas would buy broken biscuits from other bakeries and sold them after school sitting in front of his father's shop. Things turned bad as Shantipada's partners betrayed him and he was forced to shut the shop down in 2000. The eight-member family fell in grave economic crisis and Tapas had to skip his SSC exams. He opened his father's shop and restarted his father's businesses to help his family.
Once again he started buying and selling broken biscuits. After a decade-long struggle he was finally able to run his father's bakery in full swing. Now, three of his brothers assist him in running the business.
What inspired Tapas to take this initiative? Tapas loved to study from his childhood. In the beginning of a new year, the school authorities told the students to pay for new textbooks or else they would be given old books. Tapas's father could not arrange for the money. On the book distribution day, 10/12-year-old Tapas could not pay 50 taka and ran towards home holding old books to the chest. Tapas never forgot this.
As he became solvent, he thought to do something for the underprivileged children. He considered, the assistance must not be a one-time project, but a regular one. So he preferred continuing the assistance to a small number of students to funding a large number of students only for once.
To implement his plan, young Tapas began saving his daily expenses. He spends the savings to buy khatas and pens. If any of the beneficiary students perform well in studies, he buys them school uniforms, bags and other education accessories. He also serves them his bakery's biscuits for free. He says the students become happy to receive these and get inspired to do better in studies. If his financial condition does not get worse, Tapas wants to increase the number of beneficiaries to 100.
"Everyone says my father is a good person," Tapas said, adding that it brought great joy for him. "I wish my son too can hear people say that about me".
Tapas is popular among people as they look for him when they need blood, or to shoulder bodies for cremation or for calling a doctor.
As we were talking to him, third grader Alpana Rani came to the bakery. She has been receiving khatas and pens from Tapas for the last two years. Alpana's father is a security guard of a fish enclosure.
Rickshaw-van puller Sadrul's son and nephew and niece have also been receiving these. Tapas have become a resort for Manash Boiragi, Kumaresh and Mozaffar and so on.
*This piece has been rewritten in English by Nusrat Nowrin.