“I was 12 years old when I got married to him. I still remember. He came with a horse cart to marry me. No one got married in my entire village with horse cart. I was so happy and proud! My husband paid 10 taka at that time for it. He could have bought a very big paddy field with that money.

After our wedding my husband used to call me ‘Ranga Bou’ which means ‘beautiful wife’. He said I was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his whole life. But my husband had such dark skin colour that the village people always made jokes about him. They used to tell him he was like “a black stone wearing a pearl necklace.” But my husband never minded; he seemed happy and smiled when people told that joke! He always said to me, “See how beautiful you are.”

For the last 75 years we have been together. Two years ago, I went to see my elder son and his family. I left my husband with my younger son and his family. My daughter-in-law said he used to call out every 10 minutes, “where is my Ranga Bou! Has she called? When she is coming back?”

He becomes crazy without me. We have never been separated in our entire married life. We wake up together and pray our morning prayers together. He cannot eat if I don’t cook the meal with my own hands! But when we sit down to eat he gives me the biggest piece of the fish.

If I ever got mad at him and stopped talking to him, he always sat beside me and never moved to anywhere else until I smiled at him. If I disappeared for a few minutes from his sight, he used to look for me everywhere and started callingH, “where is my Ranga Bou?” I can never go anywhere because of him.

Maybe we will not see each other much longer. We are almost near our last age! I don’t want to go before him. He will become crazy without me. He will look for his Ranga Bou everywhere! My wish is for God to take me after him.”

– Mosir Uddin Sarder (105) and his Ranga Bou 87

Story By – GMB Akash