Life led by his heart

Abdul Hamid's life started to go downhill 15 years ago.

Sitting on a separated rickshaw seat near his rickshaw garage on Dhakeshwari Road in the capital, the septuagenarian man recalled the darkest period of his life when all his four children, one by one, started to part with him, eventually estranging him from his wife as well.

"None of them seemed to have realised that I had a heart too," he said. "All they cared about was money."

"And one day, I felt that I had nothing to take pride in. I am talking about something that grows from love, care and patience, something that inspires you at the same time."

That very moment, an interesting idea struck him. He decided to drive all his depression away using a bicycle he had bought for Tk 600 five years earlier, as an escape route. 

To help his cause, he started to decorate and take care of it with all his heart.

"Love makes all the difference, and for me it came in the form of cup-shaped brass bells," said the man in a white genji and striped lungi.

"Brass is durable, never goes rusty, and keeps shining like gold as long as someone is there to polish it," explained an excited Hamid.

A total of 57 such cups -- each weighing over 400gm -- have been used to adorn the bicycle, which has been painted in red, grey, black and blue to give a look that would contrast with the golden-looking cups.

Atop some cups, there are brass cones and other decorative items such as

sail-boat model.

So far, this unique hobby has cost him Tk 17,500 but the pleasure and compliments he has received are priceless, Hamid said with glittering eyes.

He recalled one of such compliments came from an owner of a motorcycle.

"Nobody bothers to look at my Tk 2.10 lakh motorcycle. But your bicycle steals peoples' attention," Hamid quoted the man as saying. 

Such feeling of having something so unique inspired him to move forward in life, leaving all his pain behind, he claimed.

Apart from his style of beating the odds, there is a major reason why he has earned respect of people around him.

He has set an example of becoming solvent through nothing but hard work.

But his journey was not smooth.

When he was just 10, his stepmother forced him to board a Dhaka-bound train in Thakurgaon. Working as an assistant to cooks at different city restaurants for the next two years, he became a rickshaw-puller later.

He drove rented rickshaws on Dhaka streets for half a decade afterwards.

But interestingly, within three years of his marriage, he bought three rickshaws with the money he saved. He had bought 27 rickshaws by the time he was the father of four. He opened the garage soon after.

To travel between his home and garage, he bought the bicycle 20 years ago, when his business was at its peak.

He said all his hard work paid off as most of his children are now doing well. His eldest son, Abdul Alim, 31, runs a rent-a-car business, with three cars of his own.

Hamid considered his second son, Alam Hossain, 29, a rickshaw puller, a "looser and drug addict".

However, his third son, Mohammad Raju, 27, owns a mini-truck. And Hamid's only daughter is married to a Bangladeshi expatriate working in Malaysia.

Though not divorced, he has been estranged from his wife for the last three years.

Today, he owns six rickshaws.

"I refuse to receive even a nickel from them. I am happy with what I have got," said Hamid.

An important lesson Hamid claimed to have learned from life is greed has opened up the society to corruption, envy and hatred while bonds between human beings made on values have become weaker.

Hamid is happy that greed failed to motivate him.

"It's because I don't forget to love and care. That is something what is retaining the strength and beauty of my bicycle as well," said the man who had two of his upper teeth missing. Otherwise, he seems absolutely fit even in this age.

"Everything, including the condition of this country, would have been different if we could stay away from greed. The country would have been like my beautiful bicycle," he said.