Priyonmoyee will no longer brighten up her home

The two-storey house adjacent to the Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway near Jaina Bazar under Gazipur’s Sreepur upazila where Priyonmoyee Tamara used to live has been lifeless for the last seven days. The house, however, was full of life just a few days ago with the antics of the three-year-old keeping everyone on their toes. Despite the fact that the house is full of relatives now, Priyonmoyee’s absence is heavy on everyone’s hearts including even unrelated locals. There is no way to bring back the life that once pervaded the household with a cheerful atmosphere, as Priyonmoyee and her father Faruq Hossain priok are both never to return. The child returned to Bangladesh on Monday in a coffin, having lost her life a week earlier in the crash of US-Bangla Airlines Flight BS211 in Nepal. Chhobi Begum has been working in this house as a household help for over four years. Mentioning innumerable cherished memories with the child, she tearfully related how the little girl could not wait to get on the plane – even getting up at the crack of dawn to be on time. “Even though she would always throw tantrums when being given a bath, that day she was unusually calm when her grandmother bathed and dressed her because she wanted to get on the plane as soon as possible,” continued a grief-stricken Chhobi.

Relatives and well-wishers gather at Faruq Hossain Priok's parents' house to pay their last respects to him and his daughter PriyonmoyeeTamarra on Monday, March 18, 2018 Raihanul Islam Akand/Dhaka Tribune“She was the life of this house and was crazy about her father and grandmother. She would complain to her grandmother whenever her mother scolded her. She would play with me all over the house and everyone enjoyed watching her shenanigans,” she said. On March 12, the US-Bangla Airlines aircraft crashed and burst into flames at Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan International Airport, killing 49, including Priyonmoyee and her father Priok, out of 71 people of board. Priok's wife Almun Nahar Annie survived along with his cousin Mehedi Hasan and Mehedi's wife Saiyada Kamurnnahar Shwarna. Mehedi had managed to pull Annie and Shwarna out of the plane's burning wreckage, but Priok died while trying to save his daughter. Annie, Mehedi and Shwarna returned to Dhaka on Saturday. All of them are currently undergoing treatment at Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

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A week on, the bodies of Priok and Priyonmoyee have finally reached home. Family members said they will be buried near their home on Tuesday after two namaz-e-janazas - the first at 9am at Sripur Abdu Auwal Degree College grounds and the second at 11am at the Madbor Bari field in Jaina Bazar. Tamarra’s grandmother Firoza Begum is shell-shocked with grief after losing her son and granddaughter on the same day. She repeatedly asks people to bring them back in exchange for anything they can take from her while the family members remain at a loss of words to console her. Her brother Tofazzal Hossain said: “Five years ago, Firoza’s husband passed away from cancer, leaving her in a broken state. Later, Priyonmoyee’s birth brought the light of life back to the home – only for it to be tragically extinguished just three years later. “Priyonmoyee used to liven up the house like nothing else. Whenever we visited, she would run to greet us and recite poems for us. It is heartbreaking that such a delightful soul has been taken from us at such an early age,” he said while fighting back tears.