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"Malaysia
is India for Beginners and Bangladesh is India Times
Two" quote by a world traveler
Here, they take a junkyard truck axel and build a big
platform on it creating a flatbed truck except that,
of course, there's no engine. Typically two guys- one
in front, one in back- make it go, and they carry loads
that are unimaginable. With Zahid driving I looked and
I saw a rig like this moving along at a pretty good
pace. And I turned to check out the guy pulling such
an incredible load at 7 in the morning during Ramadan
when everybody fasts. And as we moved past him I looked
and I saw several things. He was running as much as
that was possible. He was smiling. He was running down
the horrible grit and pebble-strewn road without shoes!
And he didn't have those kind of feet that look like
elephant's feet, the kind you see on the Indians in
Mexico, the kind that look like shoes wouldn't go on
them. He had feet with arches, feet that looked like
they could fit into elegant, pointed shoes. "The
strength of the poor is their determination to survive,"
I was reminded by my friend, Luis Francia, whose book
about the Philippines won great acclaim recently. And
here in Bangladesh, for some reason, they survive smiling,
laughing, and even singing. I have heard more singing
here in the street than I have ever heard anywhere.
There's a barbershop quartet of lepers I want to write
about-happiest guys in the world.
Some other things I've seen: I saw two young boys with
big bicycle trucks racing each other and laughing. I
saw a man pedaling a bicycle truck with 12, hundred-pound
bags of concrete on it. The terrain is like a pancake
here, which is what makes it possible but even the slightest
rise in the road can be a crisis. I saw a man carrying
bricks on his head. He was supplying the masons and
had a stack three feet high and 4 bricks wide on a board
on his head. They build with bricks but they also use
them for concrete. It's interesting that here in this
giant delta there are no rocks. What's not under water
is the best bottomland in the world. So in order to
make cement they first make and bake bricks and then
bust them up for the mix.
Ramadan (Ramjan)
This is Ramadan, Roja-fasting and meditation. Every
thought is to be weighed and contemplated. Therabi-special
prayers that go with Roja- are a part of every day.
Where I live-mosque central- I hear them beginning at
4 in the morning. And when I go downstairs the drivers,
security guards, and the gardener are on their prayer
rugs facing east. I know some painters from the University
of Daka and they invite me to their hangout for Iftar,
the breaking of the fast at 5:30. The café is
called "Fusion" and it's not a Bideshi (foreigner)
place. It's like Terry and the Pirates without the Dragon
Lady. Farook's uncle owns it and Farook painted the
ceiling like Michelangelo did the Sistine Chapel. But
Farook painted 1950's pin-up-girl pictures up there
in heaven because in the middle are clouds and birds
and then all around are the girls. It's a masterpiece
and goes great with the fuzzy wall-projection TV which
features footage of Mecca and special mosques in Bangladesh
at this time of year and MTV other times. Fusion is
a dark place and I like that because I like low light.
It makes me stand out less so I can watch in peace.
And I like the cerulean neon signs by the counter. At
Iftar everybody eats the same thing- finger foods- onion
falafel, nuts, a banana, a honey-baked sweet thing called
a jilabi- very good and not heavy. It's all prepared
and served at the same time and joins us all together.
There's real beauty in knowing what to do and doing
it together with a devotional purpose. The young Thomas
Merton was moved by this when, after a night of carousing
when he was a student at Columbia University, he stumbled
into a Catholic church for the early Mass. It amazed
him that so many different people could put their own
agendas aside and focus on something bigger together.
It was the beginning of his journey first into Catholicism
and then into monastic life.
There are difficulties here and homesickness. It's the
behavior produced by the poverty. The other night I
decided to walk to a restaurant to meet some friends-
maybe half a mile. After starting out by falling in
a hole, which, of course, only an owl could see, I was
followed by a Rickshaw driver for a long time. "Boss",
he cried,"Boss,Bangladesh, Bangladesh". I
said in Bangla, "I want to walk. I like walking".
"Boss, Boss," plaintively supplicating. About
the time I lost him I got trailed by a little kid, maybe
2 years old, carrying a baby that looked like a dead
cat. Maybe it was a dead cat. There is every kind of
ruse. Beggars have to turn over money to pimp-type guys.
A friend saw a woman on the street bleeding from the
mouth, stopped, got a cab, and got the woman to the
doctor. "Oh", the doctor said," she's
been here before. That's paint. And the doctor told
my friend," It's too bad. You probably will never
help again."
What to do? I just got lots of 10 taka notes- worth
about 20 cents each. I'll hand them out and see how
that feels. I know somebody here who is my age and was
born here and spoke Bangla before English. His parents
were English missionaries. I said to him," Barry,
the other day I gave my driver a big bonus for Eid and
the next day he asked me for more money for a uniform."
Barry said," You could give a million dollars and
he would still ask for more." Barry told me two
stories to help my understanding. One is about a trader
on the silk route and he stops for the night out there
in the barren land and it's cold and his camel says,
"Master, please, if I don't get just my nose in
the tent I'm gonna freeze". This keeps going on
and,well, the camel winds up in the tent and the driver
is outside. Another story is this. People are riding
on a train in a closed compartment when a man appears
knocking on the door. He pleads," I'm old. I'm
tired. I'm sick. Please let me in so I can sit down."
So they let him in; they make room for him. Next, a
woman with a baby comes to the door of the compartment
pleading," My baby is sick. Please, I'm desperate.
It's cold. My baby will die. Let me in." The old,
tired man just recently helped stands up and says, "Get
the hell out of here lady and close the door. You're
letting in the cold air."
Here's another story from somebody else. A man goes
to heaven but before he goes through the pearly gates
he says to St Peter," Sir, I would like to see
what hell looks like just to I understand better how
lucky I am." So they go down and there are three
holes in the ground and the first one has a lid and
they open the lid and down there is Hitler with his
pals all messed up and hideous. So they put the lid
back on and move to the next one, open the lid, and
there's the cavalry from Wounded Knee. So they move
to the next one and there's no lid and the man asks
St. Peter," What's up with this one, there's no
lid." St Peter says,"Oh, that's the Bangladesh
section. We don't need a lid for them. As soon as one
starts climbing up the others pull him back down."
This last one is kind of deep, I think, and I'm not
sure I know enough to understand it completely. But
what I do understand is that anyone who has a job in
Bangladesh is supporting lots of other people. Nobody
moves out ahead of the crowd independently. The number
one contributor to the economy is remittances- money
that people working outside Bangladesh send back to
their families here. This notion is in direct opposition
to the independence and rugged individualism of the
average American. The closeness and connectedness of
the huge, complex, family groups is both wonderful and
totally mysterious to me.
My driver, Zahid,-boy wonder at the wheel- gives most
of his money to his sister and to his father. At least
that's what I understand. And so there is constant pressure
to keep more and more coming down the pipe. Friends
and I were on Andros Island last summer. It's in the
Bahamas but it's not an island people go to much. The
people aren't into tourism. That may be an understatement.
Everything is expensive. We had a conversation with
a drunken fisherman and asked," How come everything
is so expensive" He said," You have the money.
We need the money."
In Bangladesh it's all about how to handle the great
divide between our privilege and their need. They will
never understand that in the USA things are expensive
and that if we ever plan to go back there, we need to
hang onto as much money as we can. That idea they don't
understand and we don't understand them either. When
they do get to the United States and make that $10 an
hour, they rent a room in Queens and share it with 10
other people, buy a 50 pound bag of rice and another
of beans or lentils, and send the saved money back home
to Bangladesh. "Bangladesh, Boss, Boss, Bangladesh……….."
Zahid had an accident with the car. I was with him.
It was expensive and it was after a couple of close
calls-one really bad- just recently. My parting speech
was composed. But then, leaving school when the car
was in the garage for repair and I was wondering how
to get back to the house, there he was, running to me
with a big smile, grabbing my bags, and getting a rickshaw
for us to go home. Still, it's a problem, the whole
servant thing and how to manage it so that it's not
more trouble than it's worth. Zahid's English is no
good and neither is my Bangla so I had the big Bengali
man in the business office -a wise man- talk to him
about my concerns. This terrorized him appropriately,
but , I think, only temporarily. Still, he now enjoys
pointing out the "crazy driving" of others.
I am sticking with him for now but things aren't the
same.
Pakhi Gan
We leave at 5:30 for downtown where
I play squash on the only good court in Bangladesh-
the Sheraton. At that time there is no "jam"
and the city is waking up. People and things appear
before you like specters moving in the dim, cool light
softened by the dust in the air. The rickshaws are beginning
with their first fares moving through the pre-dawn haze.
At certain places there are gatherings of roosting birds-
certain groups of trees they like -and we hear their
morning conversation-the pakhi gan-bird song. It's beautiful
to hear as we move along without talking- these little
oases of sound we come across in the silent space. It's
early, my favorite time. I play squash from 6-7 with
a couple of new guys. They are both good players. One
is named Basher- a good name for a squash player. The
other is Albinus and he's Garo. Garo is a tribe- a big
tribe- and Garos are Christians typically. They look
a little Asian, like Hmong or any other hill tribe people
of Southeast Asia. Albinus is about 35 and he is very
fast and plays hard, not just hard enough to stay in
the game. He can retrieve any ball and that is very
good for me. I mentioned it to him and said," I
heard the Garo were tough, spirited people." He
liked that and he said," Back in my home village
up north near the Indian border a big group of Muslims
tried to push us off our land and even though we were
few we said," no. This is our land. We've been
here forever." The Muslims came back to fight and
there were only two Garo at that time in the fields.
They stood their ground and one of the Muslims cut the
Garo across his stomach-slit his stomach- with a knife.
The Garo took his gamsa (towel) wrapped it around his
stomach, and with the short swords they have, he and
the other guy killed 4 or 5 of the bad guys, so the
story goes. And I have heard other stories like that.
Post Mortem
About two months ago now I was slightly shocked to see
in the morning paper that the government had deployed
40,000 army troops to deal with the crime and lawlessness
that goes unpursued by the police. Every day the paper
would announce, " Army picks up 1700 Miscreants",
or "Terrorists" or "Criminals".
After two months the numbers are now in the hundreds
not the thousands any more. But every day since it started,
almost without exception, it was reported that people
had died in army custody. Usually it would say something
to the effect that they had questioned the person, that
he had "fallen sick" and was delivered to
the hospital where he was either pronounced dead of
an "unknown malady" or died of a "heart
attack". I kept all the papers and was planning
on clipping the articles because it was so bizarre.
I noticed that some of the "terrorists" were
political people and filmmakers and journalists. Currently
they are after "foreign journalists" for "sedition"
having to do with recent articles talking about how
Bangladesh has become a safe haven for Al Queda. It's
important to mention that almost everyone is happy about
this action by the government to establish law and order.
Before it happened I did read about a lot of gangland
types of political murders and I don't see that any
more. Like everything else here and elsewhere too, I
have to add, it's very difficult to know what to think.
Now it's Eid in another day or so depending on when
the new moon is spotted and I'll be going to the village
Chariacola in Gazipur again to be with Farid and his
family for the day and in the afternoon I'll paint by
the big river there.
Koda Haphej, Shanti……Ricker
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