Moved by sister’s loss, cabby turns dream into reality

Shubhadeep Choudhury in Kolkata

As a rule, passengers do not like it when a cab driver asks for money in excess of the fare. Sohidul Laskar, who drives an old-fashioned yellow Ambassador taxi in Kolkata, is an exception. Passengers willingly pay him more, sometimes a lot more. A passenger gave him Rs 25000 — her first salary — so touched she was when she heard Soidul’s story and how he had turned his personal tragedy into a resolve to build something to prevent a similar catastrophe from striking others.

Sohidul(44), who lives in a village near Baruipur (South 24 Parganas) in West Bengal, has four brothers. He had a sister too. Marufa was the youngest. “She was full of life. We could never suspect she had a heart problem,” says Sohidul. One day in 2004, when Marufa first complained of chest pain, their father did what most villagers in his circumstances would do. He went to the nearest chemist’s shop, told the person selling medicines there about Marufa’s problem and made Marufa take medicines given by the chemist. When Marufa became very sick, Sohidul took her to Kolkata but failed to get her admitted to any hospital. Marufa was barely 15 when she died on Dec 31, 2004. Sohidul, eldest of the siblings, was consumed by grief. After about a year or so, Sohidul thought of building a hospital. He wanted do something so that others like Marufa do not face the same fate. The nearest hospital is 11 km away from the village. 

But how could he build a hospital? How could he raise money? Sohidul started asking for donations from people he was encountering in the course of his work: the passengers. 

“I started sharing the story of my plan of building a hospital with sympathetic passengers, and many of them voluntarily donated”, Sohidul says, adding that he even accepts small donations of Rs 100. “Hundred rupees can get me 10 bricks,” he says.

Sohidul sold three Ambassadors taxis he had. In 2007 he bought two-bighas (about one-fourth of an acre) with the money he got by selling the cars. His wife Samima sold her gold ornaments and handed the money to her husband so that he could give shape to his dream.

“I discussed my plan with my wife right at the outset. Without her support it would have been difficult for me to do anything”, Sohidul says.

Simultaneously Sohidul, who now drives a taxi belonging to another person, has been raising money from people hiring his car. So far he has raised Rs 36 lakh and has invested the money in setting up a building for the hospital. The building is expected to be completed by sometime next year following which facilities will start in the hospital to be run by the foundation he has set up in the name of his sister. Sohidul is closely associated with the NGO “Bachbo” and through the NGO he has made arrangement with eight doctors who have agreed to offer voluntary service at the hospital.

“Our village is remote. We will make arrangement for picking the doctors from the Baruipur railway station and dropping them there again. The doctors will not charge us for their service”, says Sohidul.

The hospital had a trial run on Feb 17. Five doctors — a general physician, a paediatrician, an ophthalmologist, a dentist and a gynaecologist — were present in the hospital and they treated 286 patients. Though the hospital is not going to be a charitable venture, medicines worth Rs 1.5 lakh were distributed that day to the patients free of cost. The chief guest was Srishti, the young engineer who had donated her first salary to the hospital.