The Rocket Steamers majestically floating down the rivers Padma, Meghna, Jamuna, Sitalakhya and Buriganga, were things of beauty right out of the fairy tales. The village folks on the two sides of the mighty rivers of Bengal watched with wondrous eyes those swan-like boats with two monstrous wheels going miles after miles chugging and hooting ever so merrily. A journey by river in one such steamer to Barisal or Khulna from Dhaka’s Sadarghat or Naryanganj was considered the journey of a lifetime. In the late 30s and 40s, luxurious rocket steamer service used to connect Dhaka with Kolkata.
The beautiful vessels with State-of-the Art décor were used for romantic escapades by the elites during the British era. English officers of the Raj and merchants and their wives, local big businessmen and their family members and the Nawabs and their wives used to go on picnics on these boats from Dhaka to Chandpur or Barisal and return by night. There are stories that English sahibs and memsahibs used to organise great balls and tea parties on the spacious upstairs decks as cool breeze ruffled their silk gowns and played with their carefully brushed hair. It must have been quite a sight in those placid days.
These magnificent paddle boats of the yester-years were built in the 1930s and used to run up and down the mighty rivers of present-day Bangladesh up to as late as 1995. There were 6 of them in the fleet named Ostrich, Mahsud, Turn, Lepcha and MV Shela. Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation (BIWTC) used to operate these luxury vessels.
This writer had had the opportunity to travel by these boats to Barisal and Khulna several times since the early ‘60s till 1995 for the last time. Each time the journey seemed like a dream come true. But there were some differences that I noticed. In the ‘60s the boats used to run on coal power. There were 4 huge pistons that supplied power to the paddles to make them turn. As we used to stand behind the fence, hot steam from the valves used to hit us with every turn of the huge pistons, all the wide-eyed children would run far away. Our parents would keep watchful eyes on us from nearby.
Come lunch time, we used to run upstairs to the dining room and wait for some delicious food. Many years later when I travelled as an adult, I could truly relish the food that was not only delicious but felt out of this world. The magic of eating freshly cooked food on a boat is outwardly indeed.
My last journey to Khulna was by a rocket steamer named M.V. Masud in 1995. I noticed that the pistons have been replaced by huge diesel engines that are run on diesel fuel. This time, I sat on a deck chair in the front deck the whole night to enjoy the cool breeze and watch the moon disappear just before dawn.
BIWTC is contemplating putting the rocket steamers into tourism service. If these are properly repaired and can offer good food, I think many of us senior citizens would like to go on a journey once for the last time and write home all about the memory. Well, until then.
