Cha KonnyaPatakuri · 17 April 2024
If you visit Sreemangal, you'll almost certainly stop at the Cha Konnya, the tea-girl sculpture. It's one of the most photographed spots in Moulvibazar. You take your picture, and you move on.
I did the same for years. Then one day I realized I had no idea how it came to be there. Who thought of it? Who built it? Why that spot? When I asked around, nobody else really knew either.
A few months earlier I'd made a video on Boddhobhumi '71, our Liberation War memorial, and people at home and abroad had watched it. That told me something: people care about these stories when someone takes the time to tell them. So the Cha Konnya was next.
The sculpture stands at Satgaon Tea Estate. I went there and met two people who knew the story first-hand: the estate's manager, Muhammad Rafiqul Islam, and the man who made the sculpture happen, Muhammad Mafizul Islam, a former Deputy Commissioner of Moulvibazar and former Senior Secretary at the Ministry of Commerce. They walked me through all of it, on camera.
“Our sculpture is almost 14 years old, and in all that time I never saw anyone take an interest in its history. Al Ikram Noyon is the first to gather that history and present it to the younger generation, so now everyone can learn how the sculpture came to be here.”
Fourteen years, and no one had asked. Hearing that told me the video was worth making.
“When I heard Al Ikram Noyon was making a documentary about the sculpture, I was delighted. It felt like my effort to build it had truly paid off. Now at least everyone can know how this work of art came to stand here. My heartfelt thanks to him.”
So next time you're standing in front of the Cha Konnya with your phone out, you'll know the story behind it too.
