On the quiet road that runs from Char Kaua ferry ghat to Laharhat launch terminal, 22 kilometers outside Barishal city, an electric rickshaw hums along with uncommon cargo: a woman driver who has decided that dignity means work, not permission.
Her name is Helena — just Helena, she says — and this is only her second day driving. “I used to be a mason’s helper,” she explains, wiping dust from the rickshaw’s worn dashboard. “That work crushed my body. Now I’m trying this.” The pay as a helper was Tk 700 a day. With the rickshaw, she rents an old battery model for a Tk 300 daily deposit (“joma”), which includes some electricity costs. After that, “Tk 200–300 remains at day’s end,” she says. “If I had my own rickshaw, I wouldn’t need to pay the deposit. I could keep my girls fed.”
Helena lives in a rented room near the ferry ghat, paying Tk 3,000 a month. She does not live with her husband — “he married many times,” she shrugs — and is raising three daughters aged 8, 12 and 14. The two eldest work as live-in domestic helpers, paid with food and clothing rather than wages; the youngest stays home. “I bought her a used smartphone for Tk 4,000 so she has something to do,” Helena says, acknowledging the compromises poverty imposes.
The route is forgiving by rural standards: a wide road with little heavy traffic, used by buses only occasionally. The rickshaw is not. “The owner wouldn’t give me a new one because I’m new,” she says, coaxing speed from the tired motor. She paid a man to teach her to drive; he also took a phone from her and then stopped answering calls. Still, passengers are getting on. Some even tip. “Do people’s comments fill my stomach?” she asks. “People’s words won’t feed me.”
Helena says male drivers don’t harass her. “They can’t talk down to me,” she says flatly, eyes on the road. What she wants now is simple: a chance to work without the penalty of daily rent. “With my own rickshaw, I could manage food and school for my daughters.”
At Laharhat terminal, she smiles when handed the fare — a little more than agreed, this time — and nudges the rickshaw back toward Char Kaua, blending into the steady stream of small craft ferrying lives across the Kirtankhola. Asked her full name, she waves it away. “Helena — that’s enough.”