Hakkatha Desk: Mosharrof Hossain Khan Chowdhury is one of the 10-15 thousand UBER drivers in New York. He was born in Brahmanparaupazila of Comilla district. While talking to him on the third day of the New Year, he was in a hurry to go out with his car. His 29 years of American life has been spent on different roads in New York.

In the year 2014, Brahmanpara’sMosharrof Hossain Khan Chowdhury Degree College in Comilla was ranked among the top 20 colleges under the board. Therefore, there arose a demand for starting graduate courses in the college. The government gave attention to implementing that demand. Now, there are ten undergraduate courses in this college. It has been renamed Mosharrof Hossain Khan Chowdhury University College.

Though Mosharrof Hossain is a taxi driver by profession, he does other works too. But whatever he does, he has one objective, to arrange some extra money after fulfilling all his needs in New York City. He spends this money to run ten organizations in Bangladesh. Five of these are educational institutes located at Comilla, his birthplace.

Mosharrof Hossain said, “My devotion to educational institution has come from my family teaching. My grandfather established a school. Student of that school is now the principal of Victoria College. Many others are established in other prestigious sectors. I believe that one day students of schools and colleges would lead this country.”

He was a student of class five when his father died. Due to poverty, he could not continue his study. But Mosharrof Hossain’s dream was to take his father’s and grandfather’s dream forward. His father established a school in Rangamati, but could not make in his area. For this reason, with the help of villagers, he has set up all his educational institutions in his own region.

For the sake of livelihood, he first moved to Qatar, a country in the Middle East. Later in 1989, he moved to New York. In that year, in his own initiative and finance, he first established Abdur Razzak Khan Chowdhury High School in his own village. Then he gradually established seven more organizations. Among them, Mosharrof Hossain Khan Chowdhury University College has around 4000 students. Abdul Matin Khasru, the Minister of Law and Justice, helped him get his institutions MPO enlisted. For this reason, Mosharrof Hossain established a women’s college, which has 500 female students, in the name of the former Minister of Law and Justice. Besides, the number of students at Abdur Razzak Khan Chowdhury High School is around 1000. Other institutes established by him are Mumu-Rohan Child Pre Cadet, Asheda-Jobeda Madrasa, Mosharrof Hossain Khan Chowdhury Foundation and Brahmanpara Diabetic Hospital.

He got more support from his wife in his own journey. Mosharrof Hossain believes he could do so many things because of her inspiration. He said, ‘If I wanted I could have brought my wife and children over here. But if I did, my dream would have been disrupted. Life is very difficult here. I can work here continuously because my family is not here. So, I can save some extra money and send it over to my country.’

He does not want to stop here. Mosharrof Hossain wants to do more work. That is why, he did not even buy a house and car in America. His two children are studying in Dhaka. He spends a lot of money to run his family in Dhaka. He is still in New York to provide for them. He is thinking of returning to his country permanently after completing all his works.

At present, his educational organizations are getting teachers’ payroll and other government facilities for being MPO enlisted. But before that, he never thought of taking donation or financial help from anybody. He said, ‘Still I do not take donation. Because someone might say that he or she will give $200, but to collect that amount takes a lot of time which I cannot afford. I would rather work a bit harder so that I do not need to take any donation from anyone.’