A fisherman left with half a face after being attacked by a tiger is now desperate for surgery because he is worried it will stop his daughter finding a husband. Hashmot Ali, 40, was attacked while fishing in the dangerous mangrove forests of southern Bangladesh and has lived with the horrible disfigurement ever since. He has been shunned and humiliated by his society in the Sundarbans forest, unable to attend public ceremony or mix with other villagers. However, it is the desperate hope to find a good groom for his daughter that has motivated him to try and get help, after 20 years of dealing with daily humiliation. His worry is fueled by the fact that the superstitious society shuns ‘tiger widows’ – women who have lost their husband’s to common wild animal attacks. Mr Ali lives in a region where people live off the forest, usually as fisherman, honey collectors – who smoke hives wearing virtually no protection from stings – or wood collectors. While they are in the forest, their wives are expected to conduct rituals at home to ensure their husbands are safe. If they lose their husbands to a wild animal, they are ostracised and oppressed as they are blamed for bringing the family bad luck. Mr Ali started his life as a Fisherman, following in the footsteps of his father, but also used to hunt honey and collect wood. He sometimes went into the forest for weeks at a time and aged 20, he joined a group of fisherman for a trip. One night he was sleeping with his colleagues in a boat inside the forest canal after the long fishing day and a tiger attacked him in the middle of the night. The big cat ripped half of his face off with a single strike of its claw while his fellow fisherman desperately tried to scare the tiger off as he screamed in agony. He was in such extreme pain that he did not even know that a tiger was there, reeling in shock and unable to see in the dark and having lost one eye. The tiger tried to pull him over the side of the boat but his colleagues started hitting the side of the boat with the paddle and managed to scare it away. They had to row for six long hours in order to get Mr Ali back to a village, and he was then driven to hospital. By then it was too late to give him proper treatment and all doctors could do was stop the bleeding and bandage up his face. Despite the terrifying experience that left him horribly disfigured, he eventually went back to work in the forest, unable to find any other kind of work. Since then, he has married and had children and now sells fish in the village, covering his face with a handkerchief. He now wants to have plastic surgery but it is totally unaffordable on his modest income so he is appealing for outside help.
Associated Newspapers Limited