Exploring Friendship (on the back of a motorcycle)
Last weekend I decided to get out of Dhaka and into the ‘beellaz’ (village) to visit my friend Shahadat and his family, the Ripons. I’ve realized that getting out of Dhaka is something I have to do whenever I can, because weekends here seem to fill up all too quickly and I find myself already counting how many are left between now and June.
The bus journey was fairly uneventful, thankfully. The route to Gopalganj requires crossing the Padma River by boat; There are both vehicle ferries and passenger ferries, but the vehicle ferries tend to get backed up with traffic and one can easily spend 2-3 hours waiting at the ghat. Impatience being one of my more prominent qualities, I opted for the passenger ferry. This required me to get off Bus No. 1, wind my way down to the ghat, get onto (one of multiple) small ‘launches’, cross the river without crashing into another boat (don’t laugh, we had a few close calls on the way back), and find Bus No. 2 somewhere on the other side (among hundreds of Bus No. 2s). Ferry ghats, like most places in Bangladesh, are stages for total mayhem, so the opportunities for getting lost throughout this process are limitless. Fortunately, I had noticed a blind man being led by his son on Bus No. 1 and, over on the other side when everyone started to look the same, I luckily spotted this pair hobbling up the hill towards Bus No. 2. The elderly woman who had been my neighbour for the first half of the journey sat down after me and explained that I had been her beacon, since (quelle surprise) my white face was the only one she had memorized. It’s always nice when my skin colour serves a useful purpose.
I spent both ferry rides taking in the unusual scenery (it is an area of sandy island chars, not unlike a desert) and eating jhal-muri – spicy puffed rice. It’s a tasty snack but, more than anything, I love the ritual of it. First the muri, scooped into a topless Sprite can out of the inner half of the elaborate box hanging off the jhal-muri wallah’s shoulders. Then the squirt of unidentified liquid from an old pop bottle with a hole in the top, and a squeeze of mixed spices from a similar contraption. Then the spoonful of the beautifully layered chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and green chilies (the latter which I pick out and toss away to protect my rather wimpy palate) from the metal bowl sitting on top of the box. Then a reach under the flap of the box’s front compartment for a handful of crispy noodles to toss into the mix. Finally, another topless pop can slammed on top to form a shaker and, after a few good shakes, the neat mound formed in the paper cone that awaits the masterpiece. Every jhal-muri wallah I’ve ever seen has exactly the same set up and does it exactly the same way. For 5 Taka, you can’t get a better snack, or a better show.
Having not been out of Dhaka for a while, I was interested to see what was happening to the ever-changing landscape. Planting season has punctuated the landscape with men doubled over into their own reflection, lining up long, straight rows of rice. And the change of seasons has brushed patches of the land with the pale yellow of fading mustard bloom. I contemplated the sky with envy for its view of the mustard fields in their full fluorescent glory, probably a few weeks ago.
When I arrived at “Poleesh (Police) Line” in Gopalganj, I wasn’t quite sure why I was there and not at the stop I normally get off at, but I was sure Shahadat had his reasons and I have long since learned to go with the flow here. Shahadat was there with a cousin I hadn’t yet met. He greeted me shyly and handed me a box of tissues. Don’t ask. I’m still not sure. Although I will admit they came in handy.
We had lunch at this cousin’s house, took a tour of the neighbourhood and then met one of Shahadat’s uncles who took us to his house on his motorcycle. It’s hard to find me happier than when I am on a motorcycle. I wish I could claim that I was referring to the driver’s seat, but unfortunately I still haven’t got back on that horse since my leg shared and intimate encounter with a Vietnamese exhaust pipe many years ago. But the back seat is good enough for me. Better when I don’t have to share it, but I still enjoyed the smooth ride and the feel of wind in my hair.
At Uncle Bashu’s house – a lovely tin affair with separate kitchen and dining room built around an open courtyard – I was greeted by a number of unidentified family members and neighbours. I couldn’t tell you how many people are in Shahadat’s extended family, but I was introduced to about 6 Kakas (paternal uncles) and an even greater number of Mamas (maternal uncles), and that’s just uncles. I was then promptly directed to sit in a chair while everyone stared at me. I avoided this duty by getting up to watch one of his aunts cook pithas (small cakes eaten during the winter months) in the outdoor cooking area. When she was finished I was promptly ushered into the dining room to eat pithas and shemai, a sweet, milky vermicelli dessert.
I was then informed that we were heading over to another Aunt’s house across the way. We headed down the road and came to a bamboo bridge with only one pole to walk across; I was relieved to be crossing for once without a bicycle over my shoulder. On the short walk over, I asked Shahadat when we would be going to his house to see Ma-Baba (his mother and father). I had asked a few times already and gotten vague answers (bless Bangladeshis for leaving ‘no’ out of their vocabulary) but he finally explained to me that we wouldn’t be going to his house. It seems that his extended family had collectively decided that I should be shared equally among them and that it was high time I came to visit this part of the clan.
At that moment we reached his Aunt’s village, where I saw another dreaded wooden chair waiting for me and a crowd of family and neighbours gathering…and something inside me snapped. I’m not sure quite what triggered it, whether it was the disappointment about Ma-Baba or the generally overwhelming feeling of a sea of faces staring at me, but after a brief attempt at smiling and throwing out ‘kemon acho’s to the kids and answering questions about my age and marital status, I had to get out of there.
I ducked into Auntie’s house, hoping the whole crowd couldn’t follow me there, and sat on the bed to gather myself together. It’s hard to explain exactly what I was feeling at the time. Part of it was a general frustration with being treated like a Circus Monkey, but at the same time I understand well the sincerity and good intentions behind this ritual. I felt angry, not at them but for them. I felt angry about the fact that a place (many in fact) exists where people are treated differently because they have different skin or a different passport. Looking out at all their admiring faces, I just wanted to shake them all and tell them that I’m not worth looking at. That my foreignness does not make me any more special than they are. That they deserve just as much attention and appreciation as I do.
With fragments of these thoughts spinning, an elderly woman (grandmother?) sat next to me and put her arm around me while she stroked my hair and babbled soothing words at me in Bangla. I felt like the world’s biggest idiot for reacting so poorly to their kindness, but I also recognized the importance of the feelings I was experiencing and the need to process them better.
The idea that I needed some space seemed to get across and I managed to sit at the edge of the village and watch the sun drop into the rice fields with only half of its inhabitants surrounding me.
Back at Uncle Bashu’s house, a village meeting was taking place. No women were involved, so I passed the time sitting on the bed with a few of Shahadat’s Aunts, chatting. Later, Shahadat and Bashu joined us and we got into a conversation about Canada; specifically, Shahadat’s dream to visit Canada to meet his Ma-Baba, my mother and father.
The conversation began with all those present trying to convince me to stay in Bangladesh forever by offering to give me a piece of land on which to build a house. When I explained that there were simply some things I needed in my life that I couldn’t find in Bangladesh (starting with privacy!) the next best solution was for Shahadat to come to Canada to visit. His plan was to save 5 lakh Taka (over USD 7,000?) and fly to Canada where I imagined him envisioning my parents greeting him at the airport with open arms. I politely pointed out some of the logistical complications like visas, the amount of time it would take to save a decade’s worth of income, and the life that could be built if these savings were not spent on a frivolous trip to Canada…
But what was really on my mind was the vision I had conjured up of my parents awaiting him at the airport. It was there because it was ludicrous. If Shahadat ever came to Canada, my parents wouldn’t be at the airport to greet him with open arms. At best, my mother would invite him over for dinner and send him on his merry way. My father is incredibly welcoming and would be so with Shahadat as well, but might have a heart attack if he started calling him ‘Dad’! My friends and brothers would probably find his village demeanor endearing, but would quickly lose interest, and patience. People wouldn’t gather in masses to meet him and no one would offer to give him a piece of land to build a house on.
I didn’t get far in convincing anyone of anything before it was time for bed. I went to sleep on a wooden bed next to a woman whose husband left only months after their marriage to work in Saudi Arabia. I had a fuzzy blanket to keep me warm and plenty of questions to ponder as I drifted off to sleep.
I fell asleep too quickly to address any of them, so I got back to pondering the next morning. After awaking to a myriad of sounds – geese honking, children laughing, water pump clanking – and having breakfast forced upon me, Uncle Bashu fired up the motorcycle and we headed over to Ma-Baba’s house (I protested that this really wasn’t necessary, but no one would have any of it). I was surprised when Bashu suggested that I ride facing forward – I had actually become quite proud of my ability to gracefully ride sidesaddle, as women here do, a skill I developed after being scolded a few times for straddling a number of motorcycles in a very unladylike fashion. His concern was that I keep warm, which, with only a wool shawl in my bag, was a difficult task.
It was a typically foggy January morning. We slid through a pea-soup mist from which emerged the wiggly trunks of trees, ghostly silhouettes of people wrapped in various layers of clothing, and the smell of tea and breakfast. It ended up taking an hour to get there, which gave me plenty of time to contemplate the concept and limits of friendship. I came to a couple of foggy conclusions to match the weather. Firstly, I understood that because I am Shahadat’s friend, every member of his family, by association, has also befriended me. Friendship exists through association and is shared equally, something that doesn’t translate at all to my Canadian upbringing where we are free to choose our friends and accept very little as a matter of association. And secondly, I confronted the fact that Shahadat and his family, on their terms, were willing to do things for me that I was never willing to do for them. How fair is that? I don’t know. Is friendship meant to be fair? I don’t know. Those were questions I couldn’t answer.
But I did think about them…
With mist collecting on my glasses, I pondered how, over the long run, if there were ever a long run, no one in Canada, including myself, would have all that much time for Shahadat. Or at least not the kind of time that people here make for me. There are a number of (acceptable?) reasons for this; I considered, for instance, even just the question of mobility, of the number of people, places and interests we fit into our car-driven lives and the fact there simply isn’t the same amount of time available for people as there is here, where lives tend to unfold in a 2km radius. There is also the Western value placed on individual freedom as opposed to collective social responsibilities, and the multicultural mix that prevents us from considering any colour of visitor as particularly ‘special’.
Ultimately, on the question of fairness, the most difficult task was to try to determine how much my ‘unequal’ friendship with Shahadat and his family had to do with Bangladesh as a culture, me as a person and white as a colour. I didn’t get far…
My train of thought was derailed by our arrival at Ma-Baba’s house. Baba greeted me with a kiss on each cheek – unusual for a Muslim man – and the tickly scratch of his beard and his toothless smile made most of my concerns fade away. What lingered was taken care of by Amma’s home-cooked breakfast and the warmth with which the sea of faces there greeted me. This time I sat in the chair and let them all stare.
At the end of the day, maybe I just need to think about it all less and focus on bringing joy to the moments I have with my friends here. And learning to drive a motorcycle. And eating jhal-muri.
The bus journey was fairly uneventful, thankfully. The route to Gopalganj requires crossing the Padma River by boat; There are both vehicle ferries and passenger ferries, but the vehicle ferries tend to get backed up with traffic and one can easily spend 2-3 hours waiting at the ghat. Impatience being one of my more prominent qualities, I opted for the passenger ferry. This required me to get off Bus No. 1, wind my way down to the ghat, get onto (one of multiple) small ‘launches’, cross the river without crashing into another boat (don’t laugh, we had a few close calls on the way back), and find Bus No. 2 somewhere on the other side (among hundreds of Bus No. 2s). Ferry ghats, like most places in Bangladesh, are stages for total mayhem, so the opportunities for getting lost throughout this process are limitless. Fortunately, I had noticed a blind man being led by his son on Bus No. 1 and, over on the other side when everyone started to look the same, I luckily spotted this pair hobbling up the hill towards Bus No. 2. The elderly woman who had been my neighbour for the first half of the journey sat down after me and explained that I had been her beacon, since (quelle surprise) my white face was the only one she had memorized. It’s always nice when my skin colour serves a useful purpose.
I spent both ferry rides taking in the unusual scenery (it is an area of sandy island chars, not unlike a desert) and eating jhal-muri – spicy puffed rice. It’s a tasty snack but, more than anything, I love the ritual of it. First the muri, scooped into a topless Sprite can out of the inner half of the elaborate box hanging off the jhal-muri wallah’s shoulders. Then the squirt of unidentified liquid from an old pop bottle with a hole in the top, and a squeeze of mixed spices from a similar contraption. Then the spoonful of the beautifully layered chopped tomatoes, onions, cucumbers and green chilies (the latter which I pick out and toss away to protect my rather wimpy palate) from the metal bowl sitting on top of the box. Then a reach under the flap of the box’s front compartment for a handful of crispy noodles to toss into the mix. Finally, another topless pop can slammed on top to form a shaker and, after a few good shakes, the neat mound formed in the paper cone that awaits the masterpiece. Every jhal-muri wallah I’ve ever seen has exactly the same set up and does it exactly the same way. For 5 Taka, you can’t get a better snack, or a better show.
Having not been out of Dhaka for a while, I was interested to see what was happening to the ever-changing landscape. Planting season has punctuated the landscape with men doubled over into their own reflection, lining up long, straight rows of rice. And the change of seasons has brushed patches of the land with the pale yellow of fading mustard bloom. I contemplated the sky with envy for its view of the mustard fields in their full fluorescent glory, probably a few weeks ago.
When I arrived at “Poleesh (Police) Line” in Gopalganj, I wasn’t quite sure why I was there and not at the stop I normally get off at, but I was sure Shahadat had his reasons and I have long since learned to go with the flow here. Shahadat was there with a cousin I hadn’t yet met. He greeted me shyly and handed me a box of tissues. Don’t ask. I’m still not sure. Although I will admit they came in handy.
We had lunch at this cousin’s house, took a tour of the neighbourhood and then met one of Shahadat’s uncles who took us to his house on his motorcycle. It’s hard to find me happier than when I am on a motorcycle. I wish I could claim that I was referring to the driver’s seat, but unfortunately I still haven’t got back on that horse since my leg shared and intimate encounter with a Vietnamese exhaust pipe many years ago. But the back seat is good enough for me. Better when I don’t have to share it, but I still enjoyed the smooth ride and the feel of wind in my hair.
At Uncle Bashu’s house – a lovely tin affair with separate kitchen and dining room built around an open courtyard – I was greeted by a number of unidentified family members and neighbours. I couldn’t tell you how many people are in Shahadat’s extended family, but I was introduced to about 6 Kakas (paternal uncles) and an even greater number of Mamas (maternal uncles), and that’s just uncles. I was then promptly directed to sit in a chair while everyone stared at me. I avoided this duty by getting up to watch one of his aunts cook pithas (small cakes eaten during the winter months) in the outdoor cooking area. When she was finished I was promptly ushered into the dining room to eat pithas and shemai, a sweet, milky vermicelli dessert.
I was then informed that we were heading over to another Aunt’s house across the way. We headed down the road and came to a bamboo bridge with only one pole to walk across; I was relieved to be crossing for once without a bicycle over my shoulder. On the short walk over, I asked Shahadat when we would be going to his house to see Ma-Baba (his mother and father). I had asked a few times already and gotten vague answers (bless Bangladeshis for leaving ‘no’ out of their vocabulary) but he finally explained to me that we wouldn’t be going to his house. It seems that his extended family had collectively decided that I should be shared equally among them and that it was high time I came to visit this part of the clan.At that moment we reached his Aunt’s village, where I saw another dreaded wooden chair waiting for me and a crowd of family and neighbours gathering…and something inside me snapped. I’m not sure quite what triggered it, whether it was the disappointment about Ma-Baba or the generally overwhelming feeling of a sea of faces staring at me, but after a brief attempt at smiling and throwing out ‘kemon acho’s to the kids and answering questions about my age and marital status, I had to get out of there.
I ducked into Auntie’s house, hoping the whole crowd couldn’t follow me there, and sat on the bed to gather myself together. It’s hard to explain exactly what I was feeling at the time. Part of it was a general frustration with being treated like a Circus Monkey, but at the same time I understand well the sincerity and good intentions behind this ritual. I felt angry, not at them but for them. I felt angry about the fact that a place (many in fact) exists where people are treated differently because they have different skin or a different passport. Looking out at all their admiring faces, I just wanted to shake them all and tell them that I’m not worth looking at. That my foreignness does not make me any more special than they are. That they deserve just as much attention and appreciation as I do.
With fragments of these thoughts spinning, an elderly woman (grandmother?) sat next to me and put her arm around me while she stroked my hair and babbled soothing words at me in Bangla. I felt like the world’s biggest idiot for reacting so poorly to their kindness, but I also recognized the importance of the feelings I was experiencing and the need to process them better.
The idea that I needed some space seemed to get across and I managed to sit at the edge of the village and watch the sun drop into the rice fields with only half of its inhabitants surrounding me.
Back at Uncle Bashu’s house, a village meeting was taking place. No women were involved, so I passed the time sitting on the bed with a few of Shahadat’s Aunts, chatting. Later, Shahadat and Bashu joined us and we got into a conversation about Canada; specifically, Shahadat’s dream to visit Canada to meet his Ma-Baba, my mother and father.
The conversation began with all those present trying to convince me to stay in Bangladesh forever by offering to give me a piece of land on which to build a house. When I explained that there were simply some things I needed in my life that I couldn’t find in Bangladesh (starting with privacy!) the next best solution was for Shahadat to come to Canada to visit. His plan was to save 5 lakh Taka (over USD 7,000?) and fly to Canada where I imagined him envisioning my parents greeting him at the airport with open arms. I politely pointed out some of the logistical complications like visas, the amount of time it would take to save a decade’s worth of income, and the life that could be built if these savings were not spent on a frivolous trip to Canada…
But what was really on my mind was the vision I had conjured up of my parents awaiting him at the airport. It was there because it was ludicrous. If Shahadat ever came to Canada, my parents wouldn’t be at the airport to greet him with open arms. At best, my mother would invite him over for dinner and send him on his merry way. My father is incredibly welcoming and would be so with Shahadat as well, but might have a heart attack if he started calling him ‘Dad’! My friends and brothers would probably find his village demeanor endearing, but would quickly lose interest, and patience. People wouldn’t gather in masses to meet him and no one would offer to give him a piece of land to build a house on.
I didn’t get far in convincing anyone of anything before it was time for bed. I went to sleep on a wooden bed next to a woman whose husband left only months after their marriage to work in Saudi Arabia. I had a fuzzy blanket to keep me warm and plenty of questions to ponder as I drifted off to sleep.
I fell asleep too quickly to address any of them, so I got back to pondering the next morning. After awaking to a myriad of sounds – geese honking, children laughing, water pump clanking – and having breakfast forced upon me, Uncle Bashu fired up the motorcycle and we headed over to Ma-Baba’s house (I protested that this really wasn’t necessary, but no one would have any of it). I was surprised when Bashu suggested that I ride facing forward – I had actually become quite proud of my ability to gracefully ride sidesaddle, as women here do, a skill I developed after being scolded a few times for straddling a number of motorcycles in a very unladylike fashion. His concern was that I keep warm, which, with only a wool shawl in my bag, was a difficult task.
It was a typically foggy January morning. We slid through a pea-soup mist from which emerged the wiggly trunks of trees, ghostly silhouettes of people wrapped in various layers of clothing, and the smell of tea and breakfast. It ended up taking an hour to get there, which gave me plenty of time to contemplate the concept and limits of friendship. I came to a couple of foggy conclusions to match the weather. Firstly, I understood that because I am Shahadat’s friend, every member of his family, by association, has also befriended me. Friendship exists through association and is shared equally, something that doesn’t translate at all to my Canadian upbringing where we are free to choose our friends and accept very little as a matter of association. And secondly, I confronted the fact that Shahadat and his family, on their terms, were willing to do things for me that I was never willing to do for them. How fair is that? I don’t know. Is friendship meant to be fair? I don’t know. Those were questions I couldn’t answer.But I did think about them…
With mist collecting on my glasses, I pondered how, over the long run, if there were ever a long run, no one in Canada, including myself, would have all that much time for Shahadat. Or at least not the kind of time that people here make for me. There are a number of (acceptable?) reasons for this; I considered, for instance, even just the question of mobility, of the number of people, places and interests we fit into our car-driven lives and the fact there simply isn’t the same amount of time available for people as there is here, where lives tend to unfold in a 2km radius. There is also the Western value placed on individual freedom as opposed to collective social responsibilities, and the multicultural mix that prevents us from considering any colour of visitor as particularly ‘special’.
Ultimately, on the question of fairness, the most difficult task was to try to determine how much my ‘unequal’ friendship with Shahadat and his family had to do with Bangladesh as a culture, me as a person and white as a colour. I didn’t get far…
My train of thought was derailed by our arrival at Ma-Baba’s house. Baba greeted me with a kiss on each cheek – unusual for a Muslim man – and the tickly scratch of his beard and his toothless smile made most of my concerns fade away. What lingered was taken care of by Amma’s home-cooked breakfast and the warmth with which the sea of faces there greeted me. This time I sat in the chair and let them all stare.
At the end of the day, maybe I just need to think about it all less and focus on bringing joy to the moments I have with my friends here. And learning to drive a motorcycle. And eating jhal-muri.
posted by ash at 9:04 AM
1 Comments:
Love this post, and your blog.
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