Let me tell a small story — the story of my big brother, Mostafa Al Mahmud.
I was in intermediate college then. It was 2007. I was studying at home. My big brother had come from China. He came and asked me, "Momin, tell me how a solar cell, solar electricity, works."
I had just studied the PN junction. I told him: a solar cell is made of P-type and N-type semiconductor. When light falls on the N-type, an electron jumps and goes to the empty space near the P-type. This is how electricity flows.
I don't remember what he did with that after.
In 2008 I saw he had started a huge solar company called Allied Solar. Office in Tejgaon. I had never seen so many solar panels together in my life. He knew that solar, renewable energy, is the future. When ordinary people of Bangladesh did not even know what solar was, he had already started a solar business.
However far I have come in life, it is because of this big brother. He not only sent me to study Electrical Engineering in America — he set all seven of us brothers and sisters, and our relatives, on our feet. With the condition we were in, we were not supposed to come this far. Allah did it, through my big brother.
The leader of our family is my big brother, and it is under his leadership that we are this far today. I wanted to start making electric cars in 2016. My big brother said no then. In 2022, when I talked about it again, he gave the green signal. And I jumped in. He knew renewable energy and electric cars are the future. A far-seeing man like him is rare.
Now let me talk about his solar work. I was the Director and CTO of my brother's solar company, G-Tech Solar, for a long time.
The suffering of the people of Mainna Char in Islampur, Jamalpur, who had no electricity, troubled him. He had a very good relationship with IDCOL. With G-Tech's technical support and Bashir bhai's Western Engineering's financial support, a mini-grid was built. Solar gave electricity to all 14,000 homes of the whole char.
Sorry, the story got a little long.
A mini-grid is a small project. When I was at G-Tech Solar in 2016, almost 500 megawatts of solar was in the pipeline. After a long six years, the megawatt solar projects are starting to come into the pipeline.
In Madarganj, Jamalpur, 200 megawatts is being built; in my sister's home in Dimla, Nilphamari, 100 megawatts; in Gaibandha too. My brother is the initiator of many such megawatt-range projects.
I am very close to my big brother. When the two of us start talking, nothing is left out — philosophy, spirituality, science, politics. I know his dreams too, and many have come true.
Now let me tell you about his biggest project. Our village home is in Guthail, Islampur, Jamalpur.
Including my grandfather's house, the river has broken and taken away our home seven times. Love and anger toward the river is not unusual in our blood.
Not long ago, our grandfather's whole union, Belgacha, was lost into the river. Before that, a big part of my maternal grandfather's union, Chinaduli, went into the river.
When a person's home goes into the river, the pain — you cannot make anyone understand it unless it happens to them.
By count, all our land, my grandfathers' land, is in the river. All together it must be 100 bighas.
What hurts most is to see that where the river broke, a char rises again the next year. Then why did so many people have to be made destitute?
(The rest of this story was in the comments of the original post.)