Jesse's Travels » Bangladesh

A Bangladeshi holiday

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 14:18:37 +0000

Another trip to Bangladesh, a voyage into pure chaos, I leave happy yet arrive sad missing the infectious warmth of the place, the unsolvable riddle that is all around me, daring me to make sense out of senselessness. I will give you a brief catalogue of the most amusing moments, number one is the double new years eve trick the government pulled. In order to save energy the government decided to leave the country on permanent daylight savings time, this put Bangladesh on the same time zone as Thailand. I thought it was a laudable attempt, albeit funny, the country is crippled by rolling black outs during summer. Getting civil servants to take off their jackets and using the light of the sun rather than electricity into the evening seemed a good idea to save the planet and keep the power running. After a public outcry the government decided to change the country back to regular time on New Years Eve, giving the country two New Years Eve's in one hour. After the announcement they realised the double new years trick and said they would change the time back at 11.59 to 10.59 rather than at midnight. New Years Eve was auspicious, it was a full moon, a blue moon and a minor lunar eclipse. On Faiz's roof we drank, had a BBQ and gave our memories a light fill.

Number two was the beggar who came up to me and called me 'clean', there is a crossover in the word for clean and white. Language codifies a hierarchy based on the skin colour. The Aryan invasion of South Asia 4000 years ago has left many marks, many wonderful but this would have to be one of the most disturbing. Racism is so incessant, so incomprehensible, from the attacks on Indians in Australia, the discrimination against the indigenous people, it runs across the planet making me think how totally flawed our species is. I hope aliens don't find us in this state, its embarrassing.

Number three was our trip to Cox's Bazaar, reputed to be the world's longest beach and it is most beautiful. It was a Bangladeshi holiday, at first I got a bit annoyed at the pure chaos in the organisation, then I decided to go with the flow and all was good. It is always difficult to travel with more than a couple of people, but half a dozen Bengali's is pure theatre. One person details a plan, the next person completely ignores that person and details a plan, followed by another person and then the next. Everyone lays out a plan without any consideration to the others plan, a plan is not built, it happens, it is a plan where there is only the present, the past and the future do not exist. Two friends, Jami and his wife, brought 13 bags and a kettle, there was a birthday, business, three restaurant malfunctions, Faiz transformed from geek to photographer taking over a thousand pictures a day, more events than can be fit in a day without completing any. We were only there for a day and two nights but it was a good time.

The coastline south of Cox's Bazaar is quite beautiful, it would be an excellent spot for international tourism, good food, wonderful coastline hugged by a cliff but swimming fully clothed and the lack of alcohol would make it difficult. I sat looking out at the sea, watching the sunset thinking a beer would be just wonderful. Maybe as a family tourist destination, but then I imagine white women in bikini's, Bangladesh, I don't think so. A Saudi prince wanted to develop the area on the obscene condition that Bengali's are banned. Then I think, it doesn't matter whether the place develops or not for internationals, its a lovely holiday spot for the locals, low population, a break from the mayhem of the rest of the country, let it be.

Bangladesh is undoubtedly changing, on a purely selfish note I was shocked to see the number of white people across Dhaka, I took it that this was my desh, my panidesh, the only white guy in the country, alas my Bangladesh is being discovered. It was excellent to see my friends again, they are all doing well, although I was saddened by my sparing partner Jami's decline into moderation from pure fundamentalism. The passage of life makes it difficult to maintain extreme views, it requires blind commitment and a total disregard for reality. I don't think either of us are capable, my desire for an atheist planet has waned, it would be boring, lack colour, I'ld have no one to argue with. Maybe when atheism becomes the dominant position I will take up the cause of God. Then I think no, I've just lost all interest in the question, the suggestion or anything to do with it, lost interest in opposing something that doesn't exist. It makes me sigh, I used to enjoy arguing but as I get older it just becomes so boring, tiring, circular, pointless and more than anything else I've realised I'm not right, the opposing position is not wrong, it just is, and what it is, is very funny.

Now I am in Mumbai, India, tracking down Parsi's.

Bangladeshi Business

Photos of Bangladesh

admin — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 18:27:34 +0000

Bangladesh 1998

16 Photos

Bangladesh Dhaka 2000

36 Photos

Bangladesh CHT 2000

28 Photos

Bangladesh 2005

2 Photos

Bangladesh 2007

16 Photos

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Video: Dhaka rickshaw ride

admin — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:03:55 +0000

A video of a rickshaw ride in Bangladesh that finished in a puddle and a broken rickshaw. To watch click the play button on the video below.

Bangladesh – Happily stuck in Dhaka

Video: Bangladesh Baul Musicians

admin — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:00:22 +0000

A video of Bangladeshi Baul musicians smoking and singing. The Bauls are Bengali mystics, both Muslim and Hindu whose songs espouse spiritual unity. To watch click the play button on the video below. The first part:

The second part:

The third part:

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A monotheist with an Empire of Air

admin — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 20:30:11 +0000

With the look of a man ten years in the mountains, a connection to the world soldered together by a process of elimination using a guide from an unknown script, colour blind to the rainbow of wires, his story stepped onto my page. Through the haze of industrialization gone backwards, with a cast of thousands, a dance troop of village nymphs to a soundtrack of toe tapping formula she with anarchist hair led the song into his life. She had the mischievous eyes of a self taught palm reader, an asymmetrical smile, one gold nose stud, three gold teeth and five gold earrings. He a godless monotheist and she a godless polytheist had an instant affinity in a land drowned in God. The terms un-negotiated, a closeness that porn could not see, text messages through the night, a conspiracy between compassionate relatives, subterfuge of friends, anonymous rooms by the hour and a loss making deal between their companies had been the grounds for the evolution of she with anarchist hair and he with an empire of air.

At the start there was only one tense, the addition of two brought the pressure of direction. The defacto did not exist in the census, marriage the only option. He said “I would marry you if I could, but will you renounce your Gods” “I already have, but one false God is no better than a thousand. If I engage in subtraction to just one all my family and friends will be lost. Will you add thousands to one?” “And spend my life behind bars?” “Then we will both be without Gods or God in marriage” “The veil of secularism will be lifted to reveal my body without a head. The state welcomes apostasy in your kind. Relax a solution I will find” He looked at escape from the land of his birth, the surrounding countries nightmares of greater proportions. He looked further a field, to the lands of wealth, he scoured the embassies looking for backdoors, he entered a maze without compass or map, multi flavoured directions from friends led him to a dead end, the sign on the wall said “no money, no entry”.

A plan he hatched, to become rich and powerful. Insulation from his world, acceptance from another. An empire under construction with six half written contracts to provide unwanted services at exorbitant prices, three employers who paid him no wage, seven registered businesses, eight loans from three banks and five unidentified sources, nine associates and spreadsheets full of miraculous predictions. She sat, she waited, she watched and she pondered as the calendars of the world ticked by, the first permanent crevices formed, the cries of her sisters grew louder for the line to move up so that they may take their turn in servitude. She confronted, him once, twice, thrice, with threats, offers and options. She broke their hopeless bond countless times. Said she, "I give you another chance in a life with only one. My options are binary, it is either yes or no. A plan can be ours, action is yours" "Ok, listen, everything will happen, let me be, you will see, we will be free" A plume of smoke exhaled, separated by a cloud, neither could see, a face in disbelief and a face in space. A month, a week, a day, an hour later she returned. "When? Waiting is an option I no longer have" "Hear me, the outline, the trajectory is not new, the theory the same, the practice different. Tomorrow I will launch three new businesses with links to lands outside of ours. All my work is to set us free, to end a charade, this farce situation that everyone knows is false but us. I am a puppeteer, this land will dance for us. You just wait and leave it to me."

In another part of town where eyes move fast and happiness is scored a jealous virgin friend with photocopied hair whispered a story. It passed up, cross and down the line to a pagan mule with tattoos of magic that kept law enforcement at bay. The whisper boarded a plane, a monotheist with an empire of air and a polytheist with anarchist hair are in love. On the other side of the world the pagan mule passed a whisper to a man without pupils. To pay the mule he went to the bazaar of arms to meet a man selling guns from three unsuccessful wars, he passed a whisper for a discount and the man cried, my brother is in love. With a gun and without pupils he robbed a bank to pay a mule and support a one year old baby girl. Celebrating in a brothel he passed a whisper on a pillow, suspended in a hookers haze until the next man lay.

In another part of the world a woman in the stupor of a televised proton attack of others fantasized misery watched a man defend his paid for love transgressions by telling the story of a monotheist with an empire of air and a polytheist with anarchist hair and she knew, my daughter is in love. Information unknown is a privilege, she entered the family kitchen with the buzz of a mosquito to a mother isolating parsley, fallen wrinkles, a fetish for money gone astray and sunless skin of paste seated by her father at a table with designated cups and a candle waiting for the power to cut. In a voice that rose exponentially with time he said “We have lived on this land for more ages than the rest of the world has known. Our empire stretched from sea to sea, we were more than the majority, no other existed, but then they invaded from five sides, depopulated, converted, banished and now our Gods outnumber us. We have an unbroken and undiluted culture, traditions and religion that is unique in the world. Our language sits with no brothers, cousins or distant relatives in a family of its own. If you marry this man of the one austere God, what will happen to the culture of my grand children? What will they be?” “They will be of a new culture, with twice the traditions, twice the culture and no Gods. We have always existed with others, your history is a lie. Tradition is for those without imagination, it is one long fake humble, grumbling, stumble towards death on an over walked path so deep it is a canyon where light does not shine”, retorted she with anarchist hair. “Many say they do not wash, are nomadic barbarians, are a people who have contributed nothing to the world, I know little of this. What I do know is that the world is shrinking, there is a cloud of uniformity stretching out over the world, your children will not be one of us, our numbers will be diminished, one step closer to extinction and consigned to a museum in our own land.” Exasperated she said “History is not static, culture and traditions are not born from ether, there is an evolution, history is constant change, the birth of the new is from recombination, transfiguration and fusion of the old. We are in a prison of history that prescribes our uniqueness, our destiny and mission that derides others as lesser beings” “You are right we are unique, but not more unique than others, nor better or worse, we exist in a spectrum of differences amongst equals. If the old is not preserved then the world will become bland and grey, a species of unidentifiable clones, of individuals without history, lost walking blindly in the present. You know nothing of the suffering of your family for the survival of our people. Children are the foremost means of perpetuation and you will throw away all that your line has fought to keep alive?” “Our children will have the traditions of both, the will be symbols of the syncratic, he is the antithesis to my thesis and our child will be synthesis. We will by a minority of two and our children will learn all the fairy tales” “Their traditions are none, and when multiplied with ours will leave nothing. They come from a land where women wear tents, your daughters will vanish from sight, existence denied, homogenous across the world, their religion is a virus that knows only death and conquest, they are simple and eat our Gods.” "They have been here for a millennia, their look is ours, their food an animal different, their script and tongue identical, they pray to one, you to many, we to none. Ours is the path to peace." "Yours is the path to extinction"

At an identical table in another part of town his brother, nine younger sisters, mother and father sat down to a bacteria filled dinner that became cold in the wait for a son with one desk, two cigarettes, three phones, four people waiting, five minions, six deals, seven cups of tea, eight chat windows, nine unread emails and ten friends in a small office on top of a hospital in a cloud of ganja waiting for an air-conditioner to cool eleven warm beers. His families calls were put on hold, one by one they went to bed til his mother remained asleep at the table for his loud return, with a start she lamented his atheistic wanderings, the ways of right and wrong, an incomprehensible grunt for an answer and the matter was closed. The next day her father was without breath, his regular skipped heart beat, movement or the warmth of life. The last unimagined piece of his argument, delivered without word or gesture and her mind was set, she delivered her final message to the monotheist with an empire of air. "No more. Your words are the sum of zero, ground in ether, born at a dawn without sleep from a land where the sun circles and chili is washed down with water. You know nothing of my suffering, pressure is mine, frivolty yours. I will marry a polytheist. A husband has been ordered, accepted, I await delivery.” The air was empty, the phone without sound, then a repetitive beep giving way to a prerecorded voice telling him to hang up. He tried to regain contact, her sister a former confidant took the messages and wrote them in air, the curse of caller ID left him listening to monotonous sixty second ring tones until a letter appeared at the phone company asking them to change the tune, his email address was added to a spam database, friends split along lines, the polytheist with anarchist hair had vanished. A translucent pick axe attack, blinded by angle that everyone else had seen, he was left to forging letters and posting them in self addressed envelopes. With countless attempts that drove him to sleep he read three religious tomes, three times, over three months pondering the fate of a species caught in the pre-history of superstition. He re-read old text messages, emails and listened to the few words left on his answering machine. Resolving never to leave his office, a bed and shower were installed, food delivered, he time shifted the 24 hour cycle to 30, then 36, 48 until a cycle no longer existed. His stubble refused to budge, stomach grew without cause, valleys formed in his chair, co-habitants dwindled, the personal faltered, friends faded, interests lost, reduced to playing pong on his computer. The phone never stopped ringing, the search for an elusive monopoly like currency, a businessmen with a short term interest in his survival suggested a doctor. Then he was alone. Рe listened to the wind, watched the trees turn on their sides, horizontal rain beat against the glass until the power cut, no candles, no torch, no mobile coverage, no satellite, no backup, warm beer, cigarettes, papers and ganja with no lighter. The windows bent under the wind until they broke, water danced in on a song from the wedding party of a polytheist who was once known to have anarchist hair. Did they realise this was for the best? The playwrite tells a story of comfort, the millennia’s of right and wrong, figments of a collective imagination told in song and dance. The parallel that had touched parted to rejoin the world of separation. Her name means sadness, his name means loss. He had an empire built on a flurry of words, she had a fiancée expecting a virgin wife. This is the story of a monotheist who had an empire of air and a polytheist who lost her anarchist hair.

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Bangladesh: Mafia by election

admin — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 21:54:37 +0000

It all started on the Ganges river, the great river that carries half cooked Hindu's through Bangladesh and out into the Bay of Bengal. Moqtar, a child at the time, was in a row boat when he was hit on the head by an aberrant oar from a man with a head the size of a small coconut. He was propelled into the river where he sunk to the bottom unconscious. On the bed of the river the fish nibbled on his dead skin, changing his fat ratio until he slowly floated to the surface. A fisherman saw the young Moqtar's body floating, paddled over and brought him aboard. Clutched in the boy's hand was the smallest Koran in the world, made of gold, the tinyest inscriptions of the smallest Arabic in all of creation. Moqtar returned to the world with a Koran of immense power. His most pious relatives told him to sell it to make the family rich and powerful. Much bickering developed amongst the family, this Koran was the work of Satan. To free them of it, Moqtar told his family that he lost the most precious Koran in the world. Years later on a roof in an amphitheatre of recently constructed soon to be demolished ten storey apartment buildings sat an older Moqtar beset by a circular wind, facing a chubby eighteen year old exhibitionist desperately burning fat in the adjacent building, a tree mauled by an untrained gardener too stupid too sack, in a compound guarded by four sleeping guards and a sick dog. On this roof of a tubby mystic with a beard named Kaliq, there is a steady flow of visitors who eat, smoke and work Islam into every conversation, sleep comes at dawn, music flows from phones and laughter disturbs the guards. Kaliq moves the prayer beads through his hand, reciting the Koran, with a religious philosophy that is barely an offence to an atheist. A friend of Moqtar's visits, an MP, an old friend with a problem for the self proclaimed problem solver. Elections are approaching, he is not guaranteed nomination from his party and he is far from certain of been re-elected by his constituency. His cousin has shagged 53 burka clad women since he has been elected and he is worried about how this will play out amongst the electorate. As the benefactor for his area he has not made enough money, has not taken any bribes and cannot pay for the peoples votes. Even if he gets re-elected he will be in massive debt, an MP's salary does not pay enough to buy the peoples votes, there is no funding for political parties, the system is designed to corrupt him. He has just purchased one hundred motorbikes which he and his cronies use to ply the isthmuses connecting the villages in a sea of diamond shaped rice paddy fields. From house to house the thunder of one hundred motorbikes go by, he shakes hands and gives speeches, this is influence by the touch of power, of wealth, votes from semi-literate awestruck farmers, it is all a display. He pays people to attend rallies, he gives 20,000 jumpers away, pays for the burials of the poor, builds school's from his own pocket, he organisers lifts for the farmers to get to polling booths, gives them free meals, an elected king yet he became as MP in order to get free flights to see his wife who lives on the other side of the country. If he doesn't get re-elected then he will be getting very irregular sex. Moqtar sees his problem, with two phones to his head says "no problem, leave it to me, I know everyone, I will fix everything". He makes a few calls to some friends to organise the situation. On the roof arrives March, owner of a girls hostel who is about to raise funds through an IPO where shares will be bought via SMS. He presents his business card, tells us about his work, drops ten names, shows us a photo of his parents with dead independence leaders. Following behind is a drug abusing Islamicist with a beard named Tito. With the eyes of a zealot recently converted, who knows the truth yet lives in a world full of the blind. Moqtar and Tito engage, hands start flying, their cigarettes are sabers, they get closer and closer to each other until they can smell the others previous meal, neither can here the other, they are mesmerised by their own words. Moqtar is still on one phone, barking orders, March gets Tito's, Tito decides he prefers the job Moqtar has assigned to the guy on the phone who gets March's. The next day they meet again to report, Tito did not wake up, March got stuck in traffic, the four kilometres as the crow flies translates into fourteen kilometres of roads, it takes five minutes at night, two hours during the day and the other guy is bemused, its the first he's heard of it. Moqtar is confused, he cannot remember the mission, the reason or why these people are even here, he fell asleep with a phone on his head and a joint in his mouth to the cries of "Moqtar". I should give you a little background on the two political parties involved in this duel to fuck Bangladesh. Ishti is from the ruling party, the BNP, the Bangladeshi Nationalist Party, they were created by a dead military independence leader come president, he was the second, third or fourth leader of independent Bangladesh. He took over after the first PM, the leader of the Awarmi party and most of his family were killed. They were killed because the Awarmi leader's son had a love for raping ruling class women and had taken his passion a little too far with the wives of military. The BNP is now headed by the wife of the dead military leader and the opposition, the Awarmi league, is headed by the only living family member, the daughter of the first PM. Ostensibly the Awarmi league are about a pan Bengali identity that unites on the basis of language, this brings the Hindu's of West Bengal in India into the equation. The BNP are for a Bengali speaking Muslim identity and think that the Awarmi League are selling the country out to India. These two women leaders of a Muslim country don't talk to each other and are bound by the same goal, making money for their clan. The son of the BNP PM recently got picked up by the Malaysians transferring US$400 million out of the country. He cannot explain where he got the money from. Most international deals involve him, taking a cut to ensure it happens. Amongst this mess Moqtar needs to make sure Ishti will get re-elected. Moqtar floats the tinyest Koran in the world "listen, listen, just listen to me, we need chaos, we need djins, we need to use the reactionary nature of Bangladeshi politics, the thoughtlessness, lets play chess with those who only think in the present, the election is only four months away, the caretaker government will takeover in one month, lets do some work." Ishti reports "we have already added 12.2 million names to the electoral roll, but I am concerned that once the neutral caretaker government takes over they will disband the electoral commission and reconstitute the voter list. We have to ensure the caretaker government is not neutral." Fresh from the girls hostel that his wife will not allow him to turn into the brothel of his dreams comes March. "We need Djins, we need to possess the leaders of the two political parties to manipulate the situation. Using the power from the tinyest Koran in the world we can do anything. I have the best contact with the Djins. Once I was full of self harm, self abuse from drugs. My family booked me into a rehab clinic where they gave me drugs to counteract the illegal ones. They flushed happiness from my system, the rehab drugs stopped all others working. I escaped from the clinic to my aunties house, she has a good contact with the djins. I am connected with all the djins. So I went to this auntie, she connected with the djins and became possessed by them, started talking in another voice, the pan that the Djin ate coloured her mouth. I said to the djin, I want to get high. The djin through my auntie bit my finger sucking out my blood and this anti-drug from my system. That night I got wasted." I'll give you a little run down on this djin business. The djin's, otherwise known as genie's are an old Semitic superstition that survived the purges of monotheism and made it into the Koran. They are made of smokeless fire, humans from clay and angels from divine light. They can do acts of good and evil, they have a society likes ours, they can see us but we cannot see them. When pissing a pray should be said "God save me from the Djins", bad sex means a djin has possessed you and stolen your orgasm. They live for 3000 years in a land of diamond's and stones, bereft of trees. Before the creation of the earth there was a great battle in heaven between the djins and the angels. The angels killed all the djins bar one, a beautiful child named Satan. The angel's raised Satan as one of their own, he prayed constantly until God elevated his rank above the that of the angels. God requires submission, he commanded all his creations to bow before him, but Satan been a rebel child would not and was shown the door to hell. Like a worm he propagated until the world was full of his progeny, djins. With the tinyest Koran in the world our crew of semi holy, semi demonic stoners depart for a meeting with Baba Jan, a doctor, former militiaman, self confessed Muslim mystic who believes in re-incarnation and uses the knowledge of two fallen angels to manipulate the djins. March drives at a hundred kilometres an hour through crowded streets, choking pollution, blacked out blocks from load shedding, over Dhaka's brand new fly over, beggars and rickshaws leaping out looking for that eternal bliss of the after life. At the meeting with Baba Jan all prostrate themselves before him in a blasphemous display of idolatry, he touches each persons heart and gives them a touch of God. Baba Jan hears their plan, is impressed but says "There could be a third force in Bangladeshi politics, the ruling BNP has split, a number of members are forming a new political party the LDP, the Liberal Democratic Party. Already their houses and cars have been torched by BNP supporters but I'm worried, if Dr. Yunis joins we will be finished. The whole country is mad about Dr. Yunis since he won the Nobel Prize for peace for devising the micro-credit scheme. The man has taught the worlds bankers how to make money out of the poorest people on the planet, charging them 18% interest on small loans. He has taken his scheme to Japan, the Japanese are interested. We will have to keep him out. We need guns, djins and money." Baba Jan starts reciting from the tinyest Koran in the world in reverse and calls on the djins to possess the leader of the Awarmi league opposition and then the PM. Through one djin he commands the brain of the Awarmi leader to vacate immediately, through another he commands the PM to delay the nomination for head of the caretaker gov as long as possible and falsify the voter list, increase the population of the country, tell the NGO's they are all beggars and develop that beacon of growth, the aid industry. As the month progresses the government stalls the negotiations with the opposition over who will head the independent caretaker government. The constitution stipulates that power must be handed over by a certain date. The day before the hand over the government announces that it will be a former chief justice of the supreme court, a BNP man. The Awarmi league explode, call an indefinite hartal, a strike by the political class, the people are paid sixty cents to go and riot, there is little popular support for these hartals, yet the entire country is paralysed. To trash a building, torch a car or be beaten by the police is an investment. If their side is elected then these rioters will have jobs in the government. If they are killed they become martyrs to the cause and drive the movement. Dhaka is surrounded and blockaded, nothing and no person can pass, the main port for the country is blockaded, the borders are closed, 25 people die in three days of rioting, shot, beaten to death with oars, the symbol of the Awarmi League, all shops close for fear of the mob, the streets empty of cars and every vehicle not powered by a man. Only the rickshaws are left and they do good business, they triple their prices and ride broken bricks to the rioters to throw at the police, government forces, the BNP demonstrators and anyone else who wants to get in the way. During the hartal we are stuck on the roof, I sleep on a veranda, woken by warmth and the need to turn the fan on, not touching ground for six days, constantly on the phone, one charger between four, batteries getting switched, connected to the internet via bluetooth LAN routed through a Linux laptop then back out over bluetooth to a mobile phone and over GPRS. We run out of smoke and are forced out onto the street to score in perilous circumstances, a King interrupts my work, seated I shook a King's standing hand, its difficult not to be rude to royalty, no matter how nice they are. Helicopters do runs in one direction over Dhaka, Moqtar makes a phone call with his second phone and then says to us "The military will take over tomorrow." If food runs out there is lots of papaya to eat, "we are used to this". We are tended to by one and half maid servants a person fetching cigarettes, massaging feet, doing hair, sweeping and a little weeping, cleaning, folding, washing, turning fans off and cooking some of the most delicious food in the world. A maid servant asks "Do you want tea?" "Yes thanks, black tea" "I'll get you milk tea" "No I want black tea" "But milk tea is better" "But I want black tea" "I prefer milk tea" "Just get me black tea" "Ok, I'll get you milk tea" "Before you get the wrong tea, what do you think of the political situation?" "I don't know, I just want the phone in my village to work so I can call my family" Our species has split along class lines. If you don't want a diversionary rant about class skip to the next paragraph. There are the wealthy regular sized fairer skinned humans and then there are the villagers, the maid servants, the rickshaws, shrunken humans, darker skin, two meals a day of rice and dahl, born to a 14 year old emaciated mother. Placed in a machine to shrink in all directions, small bones, small frame, small head, the width of a side and the side of an arm, an arm for a leg and a finger for an arm, a mango for a head, with parted, groomed hair, and these are the men. The women are half sized, the old women quarter sized. Centuries of vegetarian Hinduism, centuries of colonial assault, and 50 years of independent mismanagement have bred two peoples, one religion, one god, one large and rich, the other poor,

Thailand & Bangladesh – From the heart of Bangladesh

Bangladesh: Wedding Video

admin — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 03:15:16 +0000

A friends wedding that I attened in Dhaka. If you can see a white guy carrying a rug above the bride, thats me.

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Bangladesh: Video of a Milad with Lincoln

admin — Thu, 02 Nov 2006 06:06:19 +0000

This is a Bangladeshi Milad, an Islamic singsong where a friend Lincoln is doing his thing.

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Bangladesh: Video of a Milad with Lincoln part 2

admin — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 04:51:04 +0000

Video of Milad in Northern Bangladesh

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Bangladesh: Music Video

admin — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 04:45:39 +0000

Video of a house gig in Dhaka

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