This Murshidabad Nawab rode a unique chariot on Eid — a bed on wheels
Times of India | 3 April 2025
12 Behrampore: Nawab Sheikh spent more than a year and Rs 2 lakh to set his grand social media project in motion, literally. The project runs on four wheels, has steering, brakes and rearview mirrors, but offers the most relaxing seat a driver can even dream of — a bed, complete with mattress, pillows and a colourful bedsheet. As the 27-year-old Murshidabad man's "bed car" rolled onto the streets on Eid, it did bring him a lot of fame. However, fame has its cons. Thanks to a traffic snarl on the Raninagar-Domkal state highway, the bed-on-wheels was taken off the road by cops. And then he ran into a copyright dispute.
By then, the video of Nawab driving the "bed" had gone viral on social media and as many as 2.4 crore people had viewed it.
A late social media entrant, Nawab had hoped to make an immediate impact. The Domkal resident, who drives a school van and earns a mere Rs 9,000 per month, sold off his wife Meher Naear's jewellery to build his dream car. "It took one and a half years to make this car. I had only one mission: to become viral. I spent more than Rs 2 lakh to buy raw material like steering, brakes, wheels, the body of a small car, engine and fuel tank from a workshop, and then got a carpenter to make a 5×7 bed that could be fitted on the body. It was completed about one week before Eid, and I took my bed/car on the road on the festival day."
As a crowd gathered to see Nawab apparently chilling on the bed as the car rolled on the streets, cops from Raninagar PS had to stop him and told him to stay off the main roads.
This wasn't the end of Nawab's problems. "A Bangladeshi channel downloaded my video and reported my account. Facebook has blocked my account. The page claims the innovation was made by Bangladeshi youths... I can't fight them, but if govt helps me, I can bring out more such innovative projects," said the father-of-one.
Meher, however, is very proud of her husband. "He was so happy after the bed-car was made. But now, he is in shock... the Bangladeshi channel uploaded his video and claimed copyright eight hours after he took it out on to the streets."