The Lonely Soul of Takherghat
Photographs and text by SANGBIT SAMADDAR
Alone in the walks of life,
The lonely soul decides
Not to die, but to face
Life in all its hardships
The lonely soul wanders.
―Anto Thermadam
‘Lonely’ is perhaps the only adjective which can be drawn to this remote place, Takherghat, in the district of Shylet in Bangladesh. Every day, very few people cross the sand bed, a dried-up portion of a river, Jadhukata, during cold winters, near the Indian border to board boats to cross to the other side. Few of them pass their time sleeping under the sun, while others are busy collecting stone chips for trade. A place where people cannot be seen as far as a human eye can wander. But it never dies and like a struggling lamp in the wind, it finds its own solace in those people who live by it – some by resting, some by collecting stones while the rest merely leaving human footprints to cross to catch a boat. Perhaps it wanders lonely as a vagabond in an endless desert of solitude, in the pursuit of finding an oasis of life. The story will continue and the search will not end till nature decides to cover it up with water in some other season, however, only to be met by the same fate during the next winter. During that time, it will always be a desperate lonely soul, in search of breath. The lonely soul will wander again and again and again. It refuses to meet a coward’s death and rises to face the challenges thrown at it by merciless life, which is divine, in this particular case, nature.
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