Fun and learn

Aminul Haque

Not a single moment is wasted inside the Bhitarband Shishu Park in Kurigram’s Nageshwari upazila.

While visitors can enjoy park amenities such as a swing, a slide, merry-go-rounds and a boat ride, they can also acquire knowledge about trees, flowers, birds, animals, great personalities, scientific inventions and many more.

The park, located on about 30 decimals of land of the two-acre Bhitarband Union Parishad (UP) Complex, has been decorated with varieties of flowering plants and fruit trees and sculptures of birds, animals, and national symbols.

Each plant and sculpture, carries a plaque with its English, Bangla and scientific name and its origin.

Even the walls, surrounding the park, have painted pictures of freedom fighters, politicians and litterateurs along with their short biographies.

Portions of the walls display basic and pictorial information on scientific inventions like the motorcar and airplane. There is even a poster showing the currencies of different countries.

“Young people, who are going abroad will be able to get acquainted to the money of different countries,” said the park’s creator Aminul Haque Khandaker, chairman of Bhitarband UP.

Aminul established this park in 2016 in front of the Union Health and Family Welfare Centre for children whose mothers come to the centre for health advice and medicine.

“Sitting in my office across the health centre, I used to watch the children cry, wail and raise havoc, while their mothers would wait for medicine,” Aminul remembered.

He wanted to do something to keep these underprivileged children engaged in some sort of entertainment while their mothers remain busy at the centre.

Thus, he filled up the ditch in front of the centre, and installed a swing, a slide and a spinner using his own money.

Consequently, the children, accompanying the mothers, started playing happily in the health centre premises while their mothers completed their visit, he said.

“When I saw how the children would laugh, and the mothers would hug and kiss their kids upon their return, I felt really good and decided to expand the park,” related Aminul.

However, he wanted the children to learn while having fun.

Spending Tk 20 lakh, half out of his own pocket and half from multiple donations, Aminul commissioned sculptures of animals and birds, had the walls painted with informative pictures, planted trees, and erected other structures and facilities.

He said, one individual donated Tk 20,000 and various species of bird that has been kept inside a netted shed along with a small aquarium of colourful fish.

Visiting the park last month, this correspondent saw that most of the young visitors of the park gathered around the bird shed to look that the colourful cockatoos and parrots, and an adjacent cage with a monkey inside.

The UP chairman also acknowledged locals’ help to build the park. Many of them worked for free, he said.

There is also a concrete shed for visitors to sit down and cool themselves. Similar cement umbrella-sheds have been installed on one side of a road along a pond, which is part of the endowed property of Bhitarband zamindar. The four-acre property lies next to the UP complex.

Chairman Aminul also has provided a battery-powered boat, shaped like a peacock, naming it ‘Pangkhiraj Boat’. Visitors to the park can take one to two rounds free boat ride around the 1.5-acre pond.

An eighth grader of Noonkhawa High School under Ghogadaho union, Harun-Or-Rashid, claimed that Bhitarband Shishu Park is the only park of its kind in this area.

“I visit the park once or twice every month and enjoy the amenities including the boat. Some of us, students, requested the chairman to expand its space with more items,” he said.

Another visitor Rafiqul Islam, 62, said, “Many of the visual displays are educational even for the elderly.”

In his opinion, the children’s park has become a recreational spot for people of all ages.

Around 2,000 visitors, including children and their guardians, come to visit the park every day, claimed a vendor who sells snacks near the park gate.

Some small stationery and snack shops have also been set up by locals inside the complex, he said.

UP Chairman Aminul said he personally spends about Tk 1,500 to Tk 2,000 each month to run the park.

Yet, he dreams of setting up a museum-cum-library in a 200-year-old tin-roofed house with eight rooms, the only remaining edifice from Bhitarband zamindar’s era.

Currently, the structure is used as union parishad’s office. One room is used as a library with a collection of 7,000 books, informed Aminul.

“Once the new UP building is handed over to me in about six months, I will repair the Zamindar Bari’s building following its original design and set up a museum-cum-library there,” wished the chairman.