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While homes around him glow with electric lights, seven-year-old Nirab spends his evenings studying under a railway station lamp in northern Bangladesh, determined to overcome poverty and fulfil his dream of becoming an army officer.
Nirab and his mother, Rupsana Begum, live in a small, dimly lit room beside Nilphamari Railway Station. Their home has no reliable electricity, and the faint light of an oil lamp is often their only source of illumination. When the kerosene runs out, the young boy picks up his books and heads to Platform No. 2, where a street lamp becomes his study table.
For Nirab, the railway station is more than a place of transit—it is where he nurtures his dream of one day serving the country as an army officer and giving his mother a better life.
Life has been marked by hardship since infancy. When Nirab was just 16 months old, his father left the family after remarrying. Since then, his elder brother, 16-year-old Rifat, has been working as a construction labourer in Dhaka, and his modest earnings are the family’s only steady source of income.
His mother, who suffers from diabetes and other health complications, is unable to work regularly. The family often struggles to secure three meals a day, making fish and meat an unaffordable luxury. Despite these hardships, Nirab continues his education at a local madrasa.
“My mother suffers so much for me,” Nirab said. “I want to become an army officer when I grow up and remove all her hardships.”
His mother shares the same hope but worries about their financial limitations.
“I have many dreams for my son, but I don’t have the means to educate him properly,” Rupsana Begum said. “With the help of kind people, I am trying to keep him in school. Whether he becomes an army officer or chooses another profession, I just want him to become a good human being.”
She said his teachers have praised him as a bright student, but poverty remains the biggest obstacle to continuing his education.
Residents of the area know Nirab as a hardworking and disciplined child. They say he can be seen every evening sitting under the station’s lamp post, focused on his studies.
“We play cricket here at night, and every day we see Nirab studying under the lamp post,” said local resident Miraj Hossain. “He is much more interested in his books than in games.”
Another resident, Hossain Babu, described the family as extremely vulnerable.
“The boy is very talented, but his family is in desperate need,” he said. “His mother is fighting life’s battles alone. If affluent members of society come forward to support him, he can go a long way.”
