‘Heroes of Life’ – are those incredible humans who always find their way to light and love. They had known defeat, suffering, and struggles, yet they possess a beautiful story in their hearts, which is worthy to share with the world.
Sharing 10 real life stories which will definitely melt your heart
Featured first on my Facebook page: GMB Akash
During my whole life I kept my mouth shut to be a good woman. I accepted my fate and all those abuses my entire life but I never could forgive myself. I was ashamed of myself but I couldn’t tell anyone; when at the age of 4 my mother’s own brother used to touch me in bad ways. My mother believed him and even gave me to him to take care of. I couldn’t fight back when my father’s cousin raped me while coming back from school at the age of 5. Crying in pain I told my elder sister. She said, “Do not tell anyone; people will call you a bad girl!” I couldn’t tell my father that the rickshaw puller he reserved for me for my safety to take me to school put his hands in the wrong places when he helped me to get down from the rickshaw. I Told my mother about it and my mother changed the rickshaw driver but she didn’t share it with my father and told me not to share it with anyone. She said, “People will call you bad!” I never could complain to anyone when my school teacher used to touch my back. I could never forget all the abuses that happened to me. I never used to go in front of my uncles when I became a young woman ever again. I was scared of every man in my life.
Every woman dreams about their wedding and their husband. I was also not different from them. But all my dreams were crushed badly as well as all my expectations when on my wedding night I got raped again by my own drunk husband. Even I couldn’t say anything when he brought his friend to my room one night for money. During my pregnancy I used to pray to God, “Please don’t give me a girl because I know she will have to go through all these things I have been tolerating my whole life. But I became the mother of a girl 10 years ago. I never let her hide from my eyes for a minute. I took her everywhere. But I couldn’t keep my mouth shut when that night my husband brought a man into my daughter’s room. I started yelling and screaming insanely. All my anger that I had been carrying my whole life came out as my greatest strength. I couldn’t control myself and took the dagger to stab my husband and the man. They both ran away. I complained to the police and for the last year my husband has been in jail. People call me a bad woman. They say that to me because I had my husband put in jail. I don’t feel shame, rather I feel good when they call me a bad woman. It took 32 years to gather the courage to become a bad woman and shout out for my respect and my dignity._Nazma Begum
Last year I had a strange passenger in my rickshaw who was very worried about something. He was roaming around from one location to another in my rickshaw like a distraught and insane man for almost two hours. I was very afraid to ask him what the problem was that he is going through? I am a poor uneducated man and he was in a very bad mood. Finally, I discovered when he started to talk on his phone that his wife was in very critical condition in the emergency room. She needed the group type A- blood as soon as possible, otherwise it would be very difficult to save her life. After some time when he dropped his phone, with hesitation I softly asked him, “Baba, would you mind if I ask you to take my blood? I tested my blood last year for an illness and I am aware that I have the same blood type A- that you need for your wife. I am a very honest person with no bad habits and I pray 5 times a day. My only problem is that I am a poor man. Do you have problems taking the blood of a poor person and would you let me give my blood to your wife?” That man, whom I was feeling very afraid of asking a minute ago, started sobbing uncontrollably holding me closely. He hugged me so tightly that I could feel how broken he was at that moment.
I gave my blood at the emergency room and it took 2 hours for everything. But during those two hours I felt like a very special person to everyone as well as to myself; something I had never felt before. That man didn’t ask me if he could give me money because he didn’t want to buy my blood; rather he asked me if he could call me ‘Father’. I never felt so precious and valuable before that moment. Giving my blood that day changed my view of seeing my life as a poor inferior man. I don’t feel poor anymore knowing that I have the same blood to save a rich person’s life_ Abdul Razzak
I thought to kill myself several times . But when I think of my two daughters Pia and Ria, I can not do anything! I have to live for my daughters. My wife’s only dream was to educate our daughters. Both of my daughter got mentally ill after they lost their mother! Now if anything happen to me there will be nobody to take care of them!
My wife did everything for my parents .She always took good care of them . But after just four months of her death. My parents already insisting me to get married again! how can people forget their loving person so easily! How can they become so selfish! Its only four month! How this is possible to forget my wife and get married again!
Everything I do I miss her. She was very fond of me. After back from work to home, she used to be beside me all the time. She was very caring and supporting. She liked to cook food for Me and always sits beside me until I finished my food properly.
But my wife died during our 3rd child delivery time at hospital. During the delivery my wife parvin died but our son survived. When she died I was running here and there for searching blood. I even can not talk to her or see her before she has died. How unfortunate I am.
I am really unfortunate or may be I did something wrong in my life. After two months of my wife died my little son Parvej had died. We tried with our everything but could not safe him.
Last four month I am mentally sick but keep working for my daughter’s future. I search for my wife and son’s face everywhere. I try to get my Son’s smell every where! I cant forget his face for a second! Every night I wake up to check if my son and wife are sleeping beside me ! Then after few second Realise My son is no more! Then whole night I can not sleep anymore!
Every day after my morning prayers I pray to God “ Allah please never takeaway anybody’s son and wife before them. Its so lonely to live without people you love most” _ Pintu
We five sisters are the heart of our father. I am the third child of my father and he thought I was very useless. But I know he loves me the most because I am very fond of him. After marrying off my two elder sisters, my father only had me to rely upon for keeping his money safe, preparing betel leaf for him, giving him the towel when he goes to the shower and every other household chore. My other two sisters were very young. My father used to search for me by calling out, “Where is my tail?” This is because he thought he is the ‘body’ and I was the unbreakable useless part of him, ‘the tail’.
But I had to leave my ‘body’ one day. That day, when I went to Dhaka in search of work and money, leaving ‘my body’, I didn’t cry at all. How could I cry? My responsibility was more important to me than crying.
I remembered that oftentimes in our family home before going to sleep in our room, I used to hear my father telling my mother with his mellow voice, “I wish we had a son then he could earn money for us. I am getting older and sicker day after day. Who will take care of you all?” One night he started crying loudly and said, “My daughters have become my pain and my main burden now. How will I arrange marriages for all of them? I am a poor farmer.” That night I cried the whole night; the whole night I could not sleep. I promised myself that I will take all the responsibilities of my family. I promised I will never get married before I arrange marriages for my sisters and give a better life to my parents.
I started working at Dhaka in a factory and sent money to my father every month for my family and tried to save some money. During those years my father tried to marry me off. He used to make up various issues to call me home. Every time before going home I used to shave my head so that the groom would not like me.
I left Dhaka after 3 years and bought three milking cows with baby calves and started farming at our house. In our village no girls herded cows or goats. Everyone started talking nonsense about me but I didn’t listen to anyone. Why should I stop? I promised myself that I will prove to my father that if you give opportunities and inspiration to a daughter, she can do anything that a son can do.
In the next four years from the six cows we then had 14 cows and 4 calves. I sell milk every day and cows every year during Eid season. My two younger sisters started working with me. On my farm now 3 other girls are also working from our village.
I built a new house for my parents. I took my mother to Dhaka for her eye operation.
My father is very proud of me nowadays. He always keeps telling everybody of our village “daughters are blessings. I am fortunate I have daughters. They are mothers in your old age. If you believe in your daughters, they can do anything. You don’t always need sons for being proud and privileged but you do need a daughter like my Rotna .”- Rotna
My husband left me on a stormy night when my five-year-old autistic daughter was fighting for her life.Several times she was in pain asking, “Ma, can you do something? Ma, take away my pains.” I couldn’t do anything. I was crying loudly sitting beside her and asking my husband to please do something. My husband said he was going to bring medicine. My younger daughter started crying to go with him. He didn’t take her. He said he was coming back soon. We were waiting for him the whole night but he never returned again. I know why he left us. He couldn’t take this poverty and our sick daughters anymore. He always wanted a boy. He got lost because he wanted to. After that everybody started looking at me like the fault was mine. People were bad-mouthing me. This and the loneliness and guilt were all drowning me. I couldn’t take anything anymore either. I decided to commit suicide. That afternoon when everyone was working outside in the field I put a noose around my neck, hung it on the fan and swallowed a full packet of my daughter’s sleeping pills. I could not think of anything but to kill myself. I don’t remember how long it took me to pass out, but I do remember those last moments of my consciousness. My life was flashing before my eyes, and I started imagining he returned home bringing medicine for our sick daughter at my wake.
Suddenly the thought hit me; my autistic daughter! What will my daughters do? How will they survive without me in this cruel world? It was at that moment I realized that I wasn’t ready to leave this world like this; I couldn’t leave them like their father left us. I thought this would forever be the story of a defeated mother and a helpless woman’s life, nothing more. At that time, I started struggling to get the noose off, but by then I had lost all control. I woke up in a central hospital the next day. My neighbor said he found me senseless on my floor and I am lucky that the rope tore by itself. I really felt lucky to be alive for the first time in my life holding my daughters on my chest tightly. I do believe that God has given me a second chance do something good.
After that day I never thought about needing a man, a husband in order to survive and to take care of us. My failure became my greatest weapon after that incident. My failure allowed me to change my life and focus on the good. Now I work the whole day in the field and then at night I cook in a hotel. I take care of 3 other old women who are not blood-related but connected by fate. They were also abandoned by their families and live with me and my daughters now. My one daughter is now 8 and the other is 5 years old and goes to school. Every night 8-10 child workers who work with me in the field and who call me ‘Ma’ come to eat dinner with us with what I brought (leftover) from the restaurant where I cook.
Every person has a story behind their changing but not everyone’s story is beautiful. Mine is ugly but I believe everything happens for something good. He wanted to get lost. I let him. I have no complaints so I Don’t search for his address anymore._Asma Begum
The first time my parents went with a marriage proposal to the home of my future wife, she refused our proposal after she learned that my name is Kala Chan (black moon). My mother liked her so much that I had to go myself to the bride’s home straightway to prove that I am not as black as indicated by my name.
When, I went to their home for our first meeting, she started asking me many questions. How many trees did we have at our home? Would I plant two or three trees every year in our village? Would I take her to the river for swimming every day? Would I feed poor hungry people if she wants to feed them every day? All these were her conditions to marry her.
I was just astonished and simply looked at her. She was so beautiful that I could not utter a single word and I just nodded my head.
One night while we were coming back from an invitation from another village, three bad men stopped us and took all of our money and all of the jewelry she was wearing. But suddenly when one of them grabbed my shirt to search for money, my wife became so angry that she started slapping that man and started shouting, “Why are you touching my husband? How dare you? I gave you everything! Why are you humiliating my husband?”
Seeing the situation, one of the men became very angry and lifted up his lamp to the face of my wife. Suddenly his anger melted like ice. He asked, “Are you the woman of the Mia Bari who feeds all the beggars? I went several times with my mother to eat from your house.”
They returned everything and gave us protection until we arrived home.
For the last 80 years we have been planting trees in our village and for the last 80 years she has been feeding poor people every single day. Furthermore, for the last 80 years we were never separated even for one day. She became my everything. Every day I fall for her beauty. I fall for her positivity and her goodness. These 80 years of life have been far more beautiful than I expected._ kala Chan (100)
During our whole marriage, we always wanted a boy. We have three daughters. We gave up hope for a son or for any other children because of our age. But in our old age God give us a son as a gift. I was very ashamed and at the same time very happy when he was born. His sisters gave him his name “Rajkumar” because of his beauty. He is very much younger compared to my age. People used to make fun of me when I used to take him with me to the market calling out, “Why do you bring your grandson with you?” He became my cane in my old age. He was everywhere helping me with my work. I used to look at him surprisingly and used to pray for him to God to please protect him from bad eyes.
He wanted to go to Dhaka to work four years with his friends. I was not agreeing with my wife. I asked her why he needs to go to Dhaka to work when we have everything! But his mother gave the permission and that permission brought tragedy into our lives.
When he called me ‘abba’(father) when returning home after only one year, I couldn’t recognize my ‘Prince’. I was astonished as if looking at a stranger. He was looking very ill and unhealthy! I started crying holding him and yelling to my wife that I don’t need money. I will not let him work anymore.
Like thousands of uneducated parents, I also knew almost nothing about drug use, needles, phensedyl, a codeine medicine, nor addiction. I realized the truth when he started stealing and selling everything we have. He started stealing from our neighbors and everywhere. I thought marrying him off would make everything normal. But nothing worked. We lost our respect, our peace, and our wealth. We lost everything for him. We couldn’t sleep at night. One night he hit me and hit his mother to take money. He was out of control for everything. I tried to control him with my love and anger. But there’s no such thing as control when it comes to addiction. And it takes only one person’s addiction to destroy a whole family. We became more and more worried because he was dying every day. After three years of staying in the village he was just getting worse and he also became the father of a newborn son.
In the middle of one night last year he came into my room. I was very scared seeing him in my room. But in a very mild voice, holding my hand he said; “Abba, please help me; please save my life. My newborn son called me ‘abba’ tonight for the first time.” When my son looks at me he doesn’t see a junkie, he sees his father,He holds my fingers tightly and pleads, “Abba, I want to live!”
‘Robi’, my cow, is like another son to me. He has been helping with my farming for the last 4 years. I never wanted to sell him. I don’t know how I will sell this “second son” for saving the life of my other son. I Have not eaten anything since yesterday morning. Whenever I think about selling Robi, I can’t hold back my tears! But I have no other option to save my ill child. I have nothing left for my son’s treatments anymore. I came here to sell my last bit of wealth to continue my son’s treatments. And I want to make it possible for him to be with me during the next Eid Celebration and not in his grave. I want to bring him back from death. I can’t let my child die in front of my eyes! _Fotik Bepari
No one thought my daughter could survive. I conceived after ten years of our marriage. When my daughter was born three months earlier than my delivery date, she was very premature. Everyone wanted to take her from me in the village. They told me that I should not get attached to my baby. They warned me that it will cause me severe heartbreak. I screamed at my people and my husband asked them to leave us alone. He told me that he would take us anywhere to save our child. I know from my heart that I could never lose her. No one knew that I got her in my dream; she was inside of me many years ago even before she existed. She was not new to me. I saw her face and felt I knew my child; there can be no other face but her’s. We arrived in the city. For six months my husband and I did not sleep. We did not close our eyes. My daughter was not able to breathe properly and I kept her in my lap all night long. My husband sold his rickshaw for us. Whenever her condition got worse, I held my baby to my chest and whispered in her ears not to leave me. I told her how many years I waited for her. I told her how much we loved her, how much we needed her in our lives. My husband was always silent. But he looked at her wide face and called her Moon. I told him it’s a girl so it’s better to call her Moonlight. And our love survived. Now my daughter is five years old. I can remember how I prayed to God to let my child stay with me and to take away everything else I had. I have got my daughter; her smile is enough to keep my world alive.
– Asma with her daughter Chadni (5)
No, no, I am not an angry person and I was never an angry man in my entire life. I was a very romantic husband to my wife as she was very caring to me. But you know, three years ago a little mistake made me unpredictably angry which took 30 years of our married life away from me. That day for a silly reason, I became angry with my wife and had a big fight with her. That anger and that fight changed my life from Heaven to Hell. That day I shouted in anger ‘divorce’ to her three times and we got divorced because of my anger and one silly word. My wife cried silently and said nothing to me.
That night she left our house silently without my knowing it so I could not stop her. How can one word destroy my 30 years of a love life? My 30 years of family life? I don’t understand how a husband could become suddenly an unknown person to his wife for a silly word? She left me taking my sons and went to our daughter’s house in Dhaka and started working in a factory. I was so helpless and confused after that incident, I didn’t understand what to do! I tried to contact her but failed and she never contacted me. I used to call my daughter every day to learn news about her, but she never wanted to talk to me. I missed her and couldn’t stop myself from going to Dhaka after 2 years in order to meet her. But she wouldn’t let me enter into my daughter’s house. She threatened my daughter and told her that if I enter her house she will leave the house. I stayed with my nephew and continued to try to manage the situation. I used to stand in front of her workplace every morning when she came to work till evening when she left. After one year of waiting in the gate of her workplace finally I could manage to talk with her. I took her back to my home last month and we remarried. Now our house became Heaven again. My village people make fun of us calling us ‘Laila Mojnu’. I laugh. I don’t get angry at them anymore because I promised my wife that I will never get angry in my life ever again_ Kuddus Mia
The day when I first broke her marriage proposal, she had come to me with two sweets in a plastic bag. She was only 12 years old so I had to break her marriage proposal as my responsibility.
But I never knew my responsibility would ever become my only duty for the next 10 years. That one sweet gesture made me do that. I fell in love with her. Tirelessly I have completed my duty to break her marriage proposal. Her father was a land owner and I was an orphan with a small paternal house on an abandoned land. But seeing me determined and doing my job with patience for a decade, my father-in-law agreed to let her marry me. I am not sorry because I rendered my father-in-law helpless in dealing with his daughter’s desire; I am not at all. I learned from one of my friends that in love, everything is fair!
I was workless when I married my princess. But it was always very hard for me to go away from her to work. It was easier for me to be hungry than to leave her alone. But I had to make the hard decision to come here to work for us. I just never could see her living in hardship. Every time I took farewell from her for going somewhere, I used to return home many times, changing the ticket’s date on the late night. Several nights I bought tickets to go for work but at the last moment I changed the ticket. It was always hard to go away from her. Returning home from the middle of the road was a very normal scene for me and to always find her waiting for me with warm rice because she also knew that I Could not go anywhere leaving her alone. It’s kind of impossible to make you understand that tender love I feel inside in my heart.
It is very hard to live without her. I feel sick and breathless when she is not in front of me. Life is difficult but God is kind enough that he gave me the chance to take her with me to work. I brought her here with me facing a lot of hardship. We have been working here for the last 5 years; we carry stones.
It will sound funny but it’s true. When she stays close to me I can work double and earn double. I feel stronger, alive and energetic when she is with me. When I see a single smile on her face everything seems okay. For the last year we have been selling eggs after work in the evening for a little extra money.
I am waiting for her arrival from our village every day now. She went there last month to prepare rooms for 5 families. Those families lost their houses and everything in the river erosion last year and took shelter in our place. Her parents are among them and are now living in our small hut. So we were planning to make rooms for them with our savings and last year we have been gathering money for making shelter for all of them. This whole month I am feeling lifeless without her but happy for our good deeds. Everyone used to say, “Love runs through the windows in poverty, but I think, “if the love is real than poverty runs through the windows!’’_ Mokter Ali
GMB AKASH 
I just love this series of ‘Heroes of life’… Waiting for this amazing book Badly… Best wishes 😊
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exceotional Akash 🙂
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Beautiful stories
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So inspiring. I always look forward to your stories.
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Just discovered your blog and photos and am blown away . . . especially Asma Begum . . . cannot stop looking at it. Thank you for your teaching.
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