Diabula Did It



It must’ve taken a measure of bravery for the Portuguese to first set out on their voyages of discovery in the fifteenth century.  With the weight of the unknown, the myths of sea monsters and risk of falling off the edge of a flat world they nonetheless set forth.  By the following century they’d made it as far as the Bay of Bengal where ultimately they established a port in Chittagong and a settlement on nearby Sandwip Island.  But did they ever get lost along the way?  From time to time they must have.  And when they got lost, could it be that the Portuguese turned their sails around while at the same time cursing the very devil for having deceived them?

Kashem Bhai of Rahania village in modern-day Hatiya is not Portuguese and he certainly has little in common with Henry the Navigator or Vasco Da Gama.  Unlike any Portuguese explorer indeed, it is with considerable care that Kashem Bhai contemplates his actions, and the actions of others.  He’s someone who finds no delight in risk-taking. 

In the night sky over Hatiya, every few minutes there are the lights of planes, transcontinental, small and very high.  We’ve considered it might be the Hong Kong to Dubai route.  While watching the planes, Kashem Bhai has been known to remark, ‘How risky!  Do people really need to do that?  Why do they take such risks?’  He’s rehearsed a rather nice sound of a plane falling from the sky: durrrumm!  It’s safe to assume he belongs to my grandmother’s school of thought, that if people were meant to fly they’d have grown wings.  And it’s not the only risky behaviour Kashem Bhai has noticed among his fellow humans.

There’s also the important matter of ceiling fans.  Kashem Bhai wonders how it is that people can sleep under them, what should happen if during the night the fan were to fall.  ‘How risky!’ he says, ‘Why do people trust their lives to a single, small screw!’ He means the one holding the fan in place.  ‘Is it really necessary?’  Living in Rahania, Kashem Bhai is lucky not to have to face the threat of ceiling fans often.  On any island electricity is not a straightforward matter and what electricity there is in Hatiya seems to have got lost somewhere along the way to Kashem’s village.

It comes as a surprise, therefore, to hear of the occasion when Kashem Bhai’s careful planning and risk avoidance considerations failed him.  It was on a day that started like any other.  As with many a villager, Kashem’s hours are normally consumed with chores and duties, household this and marketing that.  But on that day Kashem Bhai decided he was in need of rest, and as he lives by the Hatiyan coastline it was little trouble to gather a few friends and propose several hours of adda at the beach.  There’s usually a welcome breeze blowing in from the Bay of Bengal there, he knew, and it’s not a place where the day’s duties could track him down.

Getting there presents few problems.  It’s simple enough to follow path-and-aisle between the rice fields and to negotiate the muddy crossings of the tidal channels in the open land they call ‘The Garden.’ Nor is it overly challenging to zigzag through gaps in the coastal shawl of the mangroves beyond.  There’s usually a patch of dry sand or a grassy clearing nearby; the local fishermen can advise as to the best place for adda on any day, in accordance with the Bay of Bengal’s latest artistry. 

But it’s also a simple scientific fact that adda is not restricted by daylight or tides, and it was well into the afternoon the small party of conversationalists thought to return.  The best way back changes as tides come in and in the darkness it’s not as simple to watch out for cobras; nor are there too many paths to choose from due to the channels and the rice fields.  But as that afternoon wore on there arose an even more pressing problem: society and that peculiar disadvantage of being a respectable member of it.

Unfortunately, on the very day Kashem Bhai determined to go to the beach was also scheduled an important shalish, a public mediation.  Even from the beach Kashem could see the distant bazaar was crowded with onlookers and participants, ready for the event.  Kashem Bhai considered his reputation: what would people think if they saw his little group of friends returning from the beach at a late hour?  Would word of their wasting time on adda reach their wives?  So they waited.

Unfortunately the mediation was a land dispute that had generated a good deal of interest.  There was much to be said and technicalities to be considered.  It’s a simple scientific fact that village mediations are not restricted by daylight or tides.  As the path to the bazaar started fading towards darkness and the water started coming in, it seemed as though the shalish would never end. 

Eventually the group could wait no longer; but if perhaps they walked apart they might yet be able to reach their homes inconspicuously.  At any rate they’d need to try.  One by one they set off: through the mangroves, jumping over muddy channels and weaving a way through The Garden.

The crowd proved to be a blessing, with each of Kashem’s friends able to enter the market from the sea side unhindered and without remark.  It was dark by then.  But unfortunately, just as Kashem Bhai’s feet found the start of the bazaar he was spotted.  ‘Kashem Miah, where have you been?’ Abdullah Member asked.

Kashem Bhai didn’t know what to say.  But fortune favoured him because after a moment a convenient skerrick of local folklore came to mind: the legendary Diabula.

Kashem embarked upon a carefully crafted tale, about how he had been walking home from the bazaar to his house as he usually might, when for some reason he found himself walking and walking, still walking, and still not seeming to cover the short distance to his home.  Finding his situation odd, Kashem Bhai explained, he started to think it was Diabula’s work. 

In Hatiya, Diabula is an invisible spirit but not a jinn or a bhoot of the ordinary sort.  Diabula has the particular trick of snatching people’s sense of direction and leading them astray; and people are at greatest risk of attack when they walk alone.

Kashem Bhai told Abdullah Member that he stopped walking and on suspicions of Diabula thought to turn his lungee upside down.  This action is the commonly understood remedy for Diabula’s handiwork.  And when he did so, just about half an hour earlier, Kashem Bhai continued, he was shocked to find himself, quite inexplicably, at the beach!

Having enjoyed the little tale, Abdullah Member could have no further questions.

It’s strange to think that the Portuguese journeys of several hundred years ago may have assisted Kashem Bhai as he entered the bazaar that day.  It’s just a theory, but is it impossible to imagine that the islanders’ Diabula was long ago derived from the Portuguese diabo, the word for the devil? 

Hatiya Island didn’t exist when the Portuguese came to the Bay of Bengal, it’s a much younger island; but many Hatiyalas have an ancestry from the older Sandwip, far to the east.  And when I mentioned Diabula to a Sandwipian friend he knew what it was immediately; he also knew to turn his lungee upside down in the case of a Diabula attack.  Meanwhile those few people I asked from inland districts of Bangladesh had never heard of Diabula.





There Shall Have Been Jaisalmer



There could even be future predictions in those books.  Who’s to say there isn’t?  Who’s to say what wisdom is there, in the rare manuscripts and ancient tomes of the libraries of Jaisalmer, where the dry desert air is favourable to conservation?  Yet here, I embark upon a far humbler task: of predicting the past.

As once there came tribesmen into the arid territories of the Thar, as once there came herdsmen driving cattle and flocks of goats to forage among the thorny, scrubby bushes and desert grasses of that marginal country; as once there came wayfarers and traders from east and west, with textile, gemstone and treasure chest; so it shall come to pass that western backpackers, two, shall arrive in a white Ambassador that shall have been hired from Something-or-Other Tours & Travels in Delhi.

Over the centuries, in places where wells and tanks have been dug and there is water to drink, settlements shall have emerged and, gradually, a small but dignified desert kingdom shall have been established.  There shall be palaces and forts built for the Bhati Rajput royalty and the capital shall have taken the name of its founder, Maharawal Jaisal Singh.  At a time long after the camel caravans from Central Asia, Africa and Egypt have ceased to come; long after the several neighbouring kingdoms have been combined into Rajasthan, the land of the kings; and many years after the Pakistani border has been etched across the map, the backpackers shall have reached Jaisalmer to see all that has gone before them.

And they shall have with them a driver, who in his previous life was a bear.  That very driver shall have steered the Ambassador in safety across the nearer Rajasthani plains, dodging camel cart and swerving around cattle herd; and he shall have stopped to undertake urgent on-road mechanical tinkering as they navigated the ribbons of tar of the Thar.  In Jaisalmer, so shall it have been that they took rest.

Let it be said that they shall have stayed in a hotel near the large tank to the city’s south, the tank that’s embellished with minor temples around its edges.  They shall have heard the rumour that the main gate to the tank was presented to the Maharawal by a well-to-do lady-of-the-night, and when he disagreed to its construction due to considerations of propriety, she did it anyway, while he was away, incorporating a Krishna Temple in its uppermost storey so that he could not object to passing beneath it.

Let it be written here that they shall have enjoyed one sunset at the tank and have found the following sunrise while eating breakfast on the hotel rooftop, with views to the fort and the old city within its walls.  Let it be known how they visited that city of laneways, with its Jain temples and its haveli mansions in filigree design, of delicate craftsmanship, that shall have been constructed long before by the once wealthy families of trade.  By the time of the Ambassador’s arrival, the city in all its history shall be there, perched upon its hilltop in the Thar, Jaisalmer: the golden city.

So too shall they have visited the shops of souvenirs and desert jewellery in turquoise gemstone, silver and lapis lazuli.  They shall have known the carpet stores where dozens of carpets are to be unfurled upon arrival, as potential customers sip tea.  They shall have met the Singaporean ladies, three, down from Kashmir; and they shall have heard the Singaporean critique that westerners usually prefer carpets in bold, contrasting colours.  And it shall have amused them as the Singaporeans chose their own carpets in not less predictable pastel shades of aqua and rose.  To each group shall be their own traditions.  But it shall not have mattered in any substantial way, because the carpet stores are stocked for all comers, from the east and from the west.

Verily I say that on the third day they shall have organised a tour, by jeep and by camel, to the sand dunes of Sam.  As His Royal Highness the Maharawal could tell you, winter nights in the desert are cool and the locality of Sam follows that pattern.  But kindling for the campfire shall have been brought from afar, due to the lack of trees, and the locals shall have donned military type jackets and factory knitted shawls.  The foreigners, meanwhile, shall have unrolled their technologically designed sleeping bags that come with guarantees of withstanding a specified number of minus degrees, the sleeping bags which their mothers shall have made them bring.  They shall have slept in the open, with Australian pillows, under the Indian stars. 

And those foreigners shall know nothing, not how to survive in the desert nor even how to speak the Rajasthani tongue; but they shall have eaten well, the dinner prescribed by the tour agreement.  Meanwhile the locals shall have busied themselves in poaching: cooking and eating a small desert deer.  The locals shall have imbibed from desert wells while the foreigners had bottled water from a distant alpine spring.

On the following day there shall have been camels, two, for the ride back into town, a ride of several hours, and I tell you they are tall beasts such that when the camel one is sat upon is elderly, with arthritic knees causing it to sometimes stumble on rocky ground, when there is the sound of leg bones creaking as it walks, it’s not an altogether calming experience.  ‘Does he ever actually fall over?’ shall have been asked in sign language, as best it could be done.  ‘Sometimes,’ the camel driver shall have made him to understand by way of reply.

And the he-camel shall have passed beside she-camels and there shall have been bellowing, camel lips inverted with bubbling froth welling up from a camel mouth.  Camels live for about twenty years, they shall have heard, with a working life from two to sixteen.

So let it be recorded as it shall have been done.  It is my past prediction.  They shall have seen Jaisalmer.

 









But being a patriot, I suppose 6th century art critic Xie He might have preferred the mountains of his China.  Fruit adorers might like instead the mango tree gardens of Malda Town, or after the desert wanderings of Jaisalmer, it might be time to get lost in the rain.

It's up to you. Nobody's telling you what to do. It's your choice.




This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: They Shall Have Seen Jaisalmer








India Will Decide: Article Index for articles about India

16 December




The Bangladeshi flag hangs in the living room, in what has become a December tradition.  It’s about Victory Day but nor does the red and green go astray in the Christmas season.  I’ve never thought to write about 1971.  I wasn’t here and there are people far more qualified to do it.  But strange as it may be on 16 December I feel gratitude for a victory that is not mine, for the independent Bangladesh I admire.  And it is of modern Bangladesh that I wish to write.

To do so I rely on what must be the sole advantage, and it isn’t much of one: being born elsewhere there are differences to observe and many aspects of Bangladesh would seem to have been shaped by the events of that fateful year.  Bangladesh was born in blood.  Australia was born with an Act of British Parliament.

In Bangladesh I see a belief in justice and more specifically, standing against injustice.  It’s to be found in many places: on the street when petty disputes draw in bystanders to actively partake in finding a solution, hopefully via discussion and considering the merits of each side of the argument; in the newspapers which skilfully represent the underdog, the hard done by, even when vested interests might not like it; in the courts who are rather good at pursuing their own motions and through such judicial activism demonstrate significant potential to contribute to improving society.  In Australia these things don’t happen or not to the same extent.

Australia is a developed country, wealthy in mineral resources, two and half times larger than India.  Bangladesh has few earthy resources and a small territory by comparison.

In Bangladesh there is independent thinking, from the rickshaw driver painstakingly putting his case to the policeman for some infringement to the government’s refusal to simply cave in to the whims of larger powers like India or America.  It’s refreshing because in Australia debate usually centres on how much to please America.  The recent vote on Palestine at the UN is a case in point.  Australia abstained which was considered by its government to be a strong symbol of independent views, which is sad because it was such a singular, minor thing, important symbolically but still just one vote that would not change the outcome, and it was compromise because most who voted for the ruling Labor Party in Australia would likely prefer a vote in favour of Palestine.  Australia is for America a very poor ally, as a yes-nodder inevitably is.  Meanwhile in Bangladesh the UN vote was a non-issue: there are longstanding principles.

Bangladesh will be 42 in March.  Australia turns 112 in January.

In Bangladesh there is dissent and no fear to challenge the powerful.  The negative is when it takes on the form of hartals and violence, but consider how important basic dissent is, to democracy.  Bangladeshis are not afraid to own their country and if only protests were peaceful and well-targeted they could not but be considered an asset; because the alternative is a conformist society where dissent is actively discouraged.  In Australia when Muslims protested against that movie, the Immigration Minister thought to threaten to review their immigration status if they were violent, if they were non-citizens.  In Australia after Indian students raised their voice against racial attacks on the streets the government amended citizenship laws to make it more difficult for students, post-studies, to stay.  There are many ways to control voices and it’s mostly only the new communities that still use them.

In Bangladesh like a phoenix from the ashes arose a vibrant academic and artistic community, to build upon the legacy of the martyred intellectuals.   Bangladeshis fought for and died for their language; and culture holds the place of dignity and celebration that it should.  In Australia meanwhile funding for the arts remains woeful compared to financial support for sport.  It’s reminiscent of Soviet policy that favoured sport and ballet, because spectacles of that nature are wholly apolitical and do not encourage a populace to think.  And if each Tiger was given over a million dollars, which is what was Australia spent on each Olympic gold medal, what do you imagine they could achieve?  But in the case of the Tigers it’s looking as though it’s not required.

Australia has a population of 2.2 crores.  In Bangladesh there are 16.

If we look to the cleverly drafted Constitution, there are protections there: human rights, freedom of expression.  It’s a people-centred document.  In Australia there is no protection for freedom of expression and little for human rights which are at best contained in ordinary legislation that can be and is changed by the government-of-the-day at whim.  It’s how the provisions of the Racial Discrimination Act were suspended in order to intervene in remote aboriginal communities.  The government told aboriginal people how to spend their income.  And the valid point that protection of human rights is not always achieved in Bangladesh does not lessen the wisdom of the Constitution; it makes it more remarkable since human rights as a national value become the starting point of discussion.  Australia debates meanwhile whether there is need for national values, whether formal protections are at all necessary and what such values could be.  Ultimately it’s a simple matter of valuing human liberty.

And then there was the tragedy at Tazreen Fashions, which shouldn’t have happened but did.  Even with such a horrible event with Australian eyes I see, am impressed by the outpouring of grief, concern and self-reflection.  Because as you may know, the Australian government operates camps in Papua New Guinea and Nauru for boat arriving asylum-seekers where inmates can expect to wait for years, where they currently live in tents, where there are suicide attempts and hunger strikes.  As you may know, the Australian government holds fifty plus human beings in indefinite detention because although refugees they have been determined by secret security assessment to be threats to the community.  Those inmates are not allowed to know the charge against them.  For the most part they are Sri Lankan Tamils who would seem unlikely threats to the Australian community, and they cannot defend themselves.  These are official policies that operate every day and can have no less cruelty to them than any potential act of negligence that led to the Tazreen fire but there is little outcry.

And of bravery and boldness I see abundance, not only in the history books but now, in all of the above aspects of Bangladesh and of course, you know it, in the very difficult struggle for daily life that too many Bangladeshis still face.  And they smile.

As a westerner on 16 December I remember Senator Edward Kennedy and George Harrison were not afraid to stand up and be counted.

I know and you know how easily this country’s challenges, shortcomings and failures can be spoken of; how many there are to choose from – free speech, it is there to a very significant degree – people can talk; journalists inform and with a degree of daring and bravery too.  But save that talk please for December 17, since Victory Day is for remembering the struggle and sacrifice that created this young nation where people live cheek by jowl in relative peace.  Victory Day is to recall that along with the many other things, good and bad, that modern Bangladesh is, it remains not less than a minor miracle.

People value the things they have to fight for.  Bangladesh was born in blood. 




There are more Bangladesh articles, mostly about culture and travel to choose from, or try something different like the end of the world in Rapa Nui or a visit to the Latvian National Academy of Science, but if you go there, mind the heavy doors on the way in.

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: 16 December






Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh

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