On the bus, and in Bogra
I always enjoy a good bus ride. It’s a nice opportunity to peacefully (if not at break-neck speed) observe life taking place in the world beyond the typically dirty window. My journey from Dinajpur to Bogra was no exception.
It is rice planting time. Men carve into the thick yellow-green fur of rice seedlings, making small bundles that will be transferred to larger paddies or sold in the market. The seedlings left behind form a map of newly shaped islands floating in a sea of mud. Paddies are flooded with water and seedlings plunged into the mud in neat, evenly-spaced rows by a line o
f hands that work simultaneously. In contrast to the solid sea of deep green that forms once the rice matures, the planting season (which happens 3-4 times a year I’m told) paints the landscape with dots of pale, unassuming greens that allow a better appreciation of the beautiful patchwork of paddies, the patterns formed by the rows of seedlings and the blue of the sky mirrored in the water.
In contrast to the trip up to Dinajpur, which was enshrouded in fog the entire time, the trip down on the bus was bathed in wintry afternoon sunlight.
This made observing the villages and freshly planted fields of rice even more beautiful. In addition, this time of year sees the odd crop of mustard seed bloom its radiant yellow flowers, a pleasant contrast the standard greens and browns.
I arrived in Bogra feeling refreshed, thankfully, because I would soon have my patience tested as never before. After being dropped on the side of the highway into a mass of rickshaws and men hanging about, I called my friend David, who I had come to Bogra to visit, to tell him where I was. He suggested I get a rickshaw to Shatmata, the centre of town and a fail-proof place for his cook to find me, as David was still busy in the office and unable to meet me. I happily hopped on a rickshaw and trundled off through the busy streets of Bogra. Shatmata, a large traffic circle, is a place of comings and goings, meaning there are a lot of people around, but I figured it implausible that Paritash, the cook, would not spot me. After all, I was the only white face around.
As I waited, f
or what turned out to be an hour, convincing myself periodically that that guy over there staring at me must be Paritash, then later realizing that that guy over there was staring at me simply because I was stare-worthy, a crowd slowly started to form. It actually took longer than I expected, but as soon as someone with a little English under his belt worked up the courage to ask me what country I was from, an instant audience appeared. Before long, the audience numbered about 200 people – men - who stood in a circle around me, staring. Every once in a while a few people would leave and others would take their place. Those who spoke English took it upon themselves to explain the complex phenomenon of people staring at me, to which I played dumb and nodded my head as if it had never happened before. And, of course, everybody asked questions. At first, I entertained their repetitive inquiries about my country, my work, my inexplicable appearance in Bogra, my marital status, my age, etc. But I soon grew tired of spewing these statistics over again to newcomers, so I started asking the veterans of the group, those who had been observing me from the beginning, to answer the questions for me.
Newcomer: “Madam, don’t mind: your country?”
Me (to Veteran): “What is my country?”
Veteran (to Newcomer): “Canada”
Me: “Very good! Canada, yes”
Everybody: [Hysterical laughter]
It turns out I can be pretty entertaining when I want to. Between this trick, using every Bangla word in my vocabulary, pronouncing that I don’t have a husband because I don’t need one and flapping my hands frantically at the swarm of mosquitoes that descended at dusk, the crowd was more than pleased. In fact, few of them even noticed that I was committing the two cardinal sins of a guest in Bangladesh: not sitting and not taking tea. By far the most frequently used word in the Bangla language is boshun, which means sit, and it usually takes but a second for someone to appear with a chair and demand that you boshun in it so that they can then offer you cha, tea. Fortunately, I and my 200 new friends were having too much fun to worry about such formalities.
Inevitably, however, some boro lok (literally ‘big person’) always comes around, usually in the form of an arrogant middle aged man with a job that makes him think he is much more important than he is, and shoos everyone away. He smacks the kids on the side of the head for being pests and yells at the adults to get lost. He then lectures the foreigner that for their own safety they should not be standing in such a big crowd of ‘illiterate’ people, when the foreigner actually thinks that everyone was being very pleasant and well behaved. In my case, two boro lok came along after about 40 minutes of entertainment and succeeded in pushing the crowd back a couple of metres. Even stranger than the feeling of being squeezed into a crowd of people is the feeling of standing in the middle of a circle of people being forced to stand two metres away. Now instead of staring and talking, there was just staring. It didn’t last long though; nobody can keep a Bangladeshi from invading the personal space of a Bideshi for any significant amount of time.
Eventually, David arrived (the cook was apparently waiting in the wrong place) and rescued the damsel in distress, much to the disappointment of her admirers. We had a lovely dinner and then I was up again at 5:30 the next morning to catch a bus to Dhaka.
I particularly enjoy experiencing a place in the early morning. The air has a feeling of anticipation to it, and the scenes that play out are different, calm, preparatory to the commotion that will ensue as the day closes in. It is a quiet time when fewer things are happening, making them easier to observe. Men kneeling towards Mecca in mosques, breakfast stalls lighting their stoves, day labourers heading towards the fields on bicycle or by foot.
As the bus made its way towards Dhaka, I admired the early morning silho
uettes reflected in the rice paddies and all the goings-on of a February morning. Eventually, the sun rose, round and red, a teep on the forehead of the sky.
While all this was very lovely indeed, I was unfortunately simultaneously engaged in a very important and very uncomfortable lesson: no matter what kind of rush you are in to get somewhere, no matter how happy you are to find a bus company you recognize in an unfamiliar city, no matter how tempting the distance from the obnoxious horn and the views of near death experiences…do NOT sit at the back of the bus! (Unless, of course, you enjoy being catapulted skyward at every bump, of which there happen to be just a few.)
It is rice planting time. Men carve into the thick yellow-green fur of rice seedlings, making small bundles that will be transferred to larger paddies or sold in the market. The seedlings left behind form a map of newly shaped islands floating in a sea of mud. Paddies are flooded with water and seedlings plunged into the mud in neat, evenly-spaced rows by a line o
f hands that work simultaneously. In contrast to the solid sea of deep green that forms once the rice matures, the planting season (which happens 3-4 times a year I’m told) paints the landscape with dots of pale, unassuming greens that allow a better appreciation of the beautiful patchwork of paddies, the patterns formed by the rows of seedlings and the blue of the sky mirrored in the water.In contrast to the trip up to Dinajpur, which was enshrouded in fog the entire time, the trip down on the bus was bathed in wintry afternoon sunlight.
This made observing the villages and freshly planted fields of rice even more beautiful. In addition, this time of year sees the odd crop of mustard seed bloom its radiant yellow flowers, a pleasant contrast the standard greens and browns.I arrived in Bogra feeling refreshed, thankfully, because I would soon have my patience tested as never before. After being dropped on the side of the highway into a mass of rickshaws and men hanging about, I called my friend David, who I had come to Bogra to visit, to tell him where I was. He suggested I get a rickshaw to Shatmata, the centre of town and a fail-proof place for his cook to find me, as David was still busy in the office and unable to meet me. I happily hopped on a rickshaw and trundled off through the busy streets of Bogra. Shatmata, a large traffic circle, is a place of comings and goings, meaning there are a lot of people around, but I figured it implausible that Paritash, the cook, would not spot me. After all, I was the only white face around.
As I waited, f
or what turned out to be an hour, convincing myself periodically that that guy over there staring at me must be Paritash, then later realizing that that guy over there was staring at me simply because I was stare-worthy, a crowd slowly started to form. It actually took longer than I expected, but as soon as someone with a little English under his belt worked up the courage to ask me what country I was from, an instant audience appeared. Before long, the audience numbered about 200 people – men - who stood in a circle around me, staring. Every once in a while a few people would leave and others would take their place. Those who spoke English took it upon themselves to explain the complex phenomenon of people staring at me, to which I played dumb and nodded my head as if it had never happened before. And, of course, everybody asked questions. At first, I entertained their repetitive inquiries about my country, my work, my inexplicable appearance in Bogra, my marital status, my age, etc. But I soon grew tired of spewing these statistics over again to newcomers, so I started asking the veterans of the group, those who had been observing me from the beginning, to answer the questions for me.Newcomer: “Madam, don’t mind: your country?”
Me (to Veteran): “What is my country?”
Veteran (to Newcomer): “Canada”
Me: “Very good! Canada, yes”
Everybody: [Hysterical laughter]
It turns out I can be pretty entertaining when I want to. Between this trick, using every Bangla word in my vocabulary, pronouncing that I don’t have a husband because I don’t need one and flapping my hands frantically at the swarm of mosquitoes that descended at dusk, the crowd was more than pleased. In fact, few of them even noticed that I was committing the two cardinal sins of a guest in Bangladesh: not sitting and not taking tea. By far the most frequently used word in the Bangla language is boshun, which means sit, and it usually takes but a second for someone to appear with a chair and demand that you boshun in it so that they can then offer you cha, tea. Fortunately, I and my 200 new friends were having too much fun to worry about such formalities.
Inevitably, however, some boro lok (literally ‘big person’) always comes around, usually in the form of an arrogant middle aged man with a job that makes him think he is much more important than he is, and shoos everyone away. He smacks the kids on the side of the head for being pests and yells at the adults to get lost. He then lectures the foreigner that for their own safety they should not be standing in such a big crowd of ‘illiterate’ people, when the foreigner actually thinks that everyone was being very pleasant and well behaved. In my case, two boro lok came along after about 40 minutes of entertainment and succeeded in pushing the crowd back a couple of metres. Even stranger than the feeling of being squeezed into a crowd of people is the feeling of standing in the middle of a circle of people being forced to stand two metres away. Now instead of staring and talking, there was just staring. It didn’t last long though; nobody can keep a Bangladeshi from invading the personal space of a Bideshi for any significant amount of time.
Eventually, David arrived (the cook was apparently waiting in the wrong place) and rescued the damsel in distress, much to the disappointment of her admirers. We had a lovely dinner and then I was up again at 5:30 the next morning to catch a bus to Dhaka.
I particularly enjoy experiencing a place in the early morning. The air has a feeling of anticipation to it, and the scenes that play out are different, calm, preparatory to the commotion that will ensue as the day closes in. It is a quiet time when fewer things are happening, making them easier to observe. Men kneeling towards Mecca in mosques, breakfast stalls lighting their stoves, day labourers heading towards the fields on bicycle or by foot.
As the bus made its way towards Dhaka, I admired the early morning silho
uettes reflected in the rice paddies and all the goings-on of a February morning. Eventually, the sun rose, round and red, a teep on the forehead of the sky.While all this was very lovely indeed, I was unfortunately simultaneously engaged in a very important and very uncomfortable lesson: no matter what kind of rush you are in to get somewhere, no matter how happy you are to find a bus company you recognize in an unfamiliar city, no matter how tempting the distance from the obnoxious horn and the views of near death experiences…do NOT sit at the back of the bus! (Unless, of course, you enjoy being catapulted skyward at every bump, of which there happen to be just a few.)
posted by ash at 3:55 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home