The Fish of Hongdo

It happened fast. Racing over the water, the small boat appeared suddenly, bashing against the minor waves as it crossed them, with the whirring of its motor growing louder as it unexpectedly closed in. The vessel I was on was larger but even if it tried to power away it could hardly have escaped. It was too late for that. What did they want?

I could only take my cue from the other passengers and the crew, because with everything happening in Korean I was at a minor disadvantage. The small boat sidled up to ours, its motor cut as an animated conversation across the gap of water began. The passengers were fussing; they seemed to be negotiating. It happened near the coast of Hongdo, Red Island, in the Yellow Sea.

Winter had come to South Korea. It was cold and the waters about the eight hundred islands can only have been colder.

It’s in Korea’s far southwest where the peninsula crumbles away like cake. Those islands might almost act as stepping stones for giants attempting to cross to China. They must’ve been a worthy challenge for early navigators and cartographers, charting each isle and outcrop, bay and cove. Even on the national map the torn coastline of the southwest looks like a pile of leftover puzzle pieces.

At closer quarters the islands are similarly unwilling to conform to standardised design specifics. A vast range of rock shapes, delicate, unusual and unexpected, document the drop of the island into the sea. Or at least on Hongdo they do. One of the furthest islands from the mainland, Hongdo is famous for the artistry of wind and wave, which is why tourists go there. It’s the reason I was on that boat.

It’s not difficult to reach Hongdo. There are scheduled ferry services to cover the 115 kilometres from Mokpo City on the mainland. It takes two and a half hours. Hongdo is small, about six kilometres long and two and a half kilometres wide. It has two villages, Il-gu and the I-gu, between them home to the 710 islanders; and if it’s winter when the boat docks in Il-gu harbour, there’ll likely be locals waiting on the pier to offer home-stay style accommodation; but in the summer the island is said to be crowded, mostly by Korean mainlanders. It’s a popular destination. 

It’s not difficult to organise the two-hour circumnavigation tour of the island by boat, which is the best way to appreciate the gallery of rock formations, nature’s art.

But before that it’s possible to follow the Il-gu-to-I-gu road, the stone and dirt pathway up the nearer hill that rises to about 200 metres. There, the camellia bushes grow large and create, in places, a tunnel. The views, over the island, over the sea and down to the villages, are deep breaths of oxygen, life-bringing. The island takes its name, Red, from the effect of each sunset on its rocks and cliffs; although in spring there is the red bloom of the camellias to be considered.

It was on the second day, near to the end of the circumnavigation tour, that the smaller boat had suddenly appeared. Aboard I could see three men, in thick jackets, two in baseball caps. They had knives.

The passengers were animated. What’s going on, I thought. It was only a matter of moments before the nature of the trouble became apparent. 

It was about fish. Fresher fish there could not be. The fishermen in the smaller boat had just caught them and wished to sell them. Meanwhile the fish flapped about in a water-filled bucket.

Although I realise it’s nearly criminal activity in Bangladesh, I confess that I don’t often eat fish. A small piece on occasion I will enjoy, especially if it’s fried. But in Hongdo the challenge was greater still.

I watched as fish were sold, the unusual part being in how they were delivered: pre-chopped and salted. With each sale the fishermen took the fish to a wooden board on the deck of their boat, scaled and gutted them on the spot, cutting them into thin strips of boneless meat. Then they were sprinkled with salt, put into a bag and handed across to the larger boat.

The even more unusual part was how they were eaten: directly. There was, I thought, a missing step in the process, in accordance with usual procedure: the cooking part. I watched as Koreans took thin strips of raw fish by hand and pushed them into their mouths.

I was fortunate, arguably, because on our boat was one Ms. Kim from Suwon, near to Seoul. She was on holidays with her family and her sister’s family. Her sister was introduced as ‘aunty’, but in her fluffy leopard-skin patterned jacket she looked too young for the title. Ms. Kim spoke some English and although we’d not said much before that, the enthusiasm of the raw fish snack somehow induced greater conversation and an offer to share.

At the same time from somewhere that rice wine, the Korean version called soju, surfaced, to accompany the fish. So I joined in: a nip of soju, then a few strips of salted raw fish gulped down the throat just as a pelican might do. It wasn’t bad, actually, although it might’ve been better not to know what it was. The mood on the boat became festive as everyone, and I was the only foreigner among them, drank and ate.

I don’t wish to imply it was the first time I’d faced raw fish during that preceding first week in South Korea. It was rather the opposite: as if raw fish sought me out, following me around the country like a hunter stalking deer. At almost every meal, in nearly every restaurant, I had suffered for not being able to make sense of the written Korean on the menu. The only thing to do was to randomly point to a listed item and cross fingers. The first time, when the waiter returned some minutes later with a large plate of raw fish, I thought to try my best at it, thinking on the next occasion there might be something that had seen a bit more of a pot or a pan. It’s a mystery how it came about, but inevitably, time after time, my random choice was a plate of raw fish.

This result was despite my deliberately having tried to increase the chances of variation, by pointing towards the top of one menu at lunch and towards the bottom of another during dinner. Somehow, I was remarkably consistent in my random choices. Yet I was sure Koreans ate other things.

But of all the raw fish that followed, chased and hunted me down, it was the fish of Hongdo that was the most special, and clearly the freshest.

These days in Dhaka it’s usual to consider the freshness of food, especially when eating from a street side stall. Food freshness is an important consideration anywhere. 

It’s just that in countries with a national cuisine that’s something like South Korea’s, a further consideration for the uninitiated might be if the food isn’t actually, on occasion, a little too fresh.

Or, probably, it’s the sort of thing one learns to enjoy.

Let the Boat Sail!

Arctic Ocean

Caribbean Sea

Indian Ocean

Kattegat

Luzon Strait

Mediterranean Sea

Persian Gulf

Red Sea

South Pacific Ocean

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Fish of Hongdo

Aspects of Lord Shiva

Unakoti means one less than one crore.

Bangladesh was somewhere, very near, downstream around the corner or along the pathway that red earthen crept into the jungle, parting the trees and disappearing in the curve of the hillside.  Direction wasn’t easy to judge in the geography of the hills but it was certainly so that Moulvibazar wasn’t far.

The air was thickly still and sweating.  From climbing the short trail up the hill on the other side of the waterfall it had become uncomfortable and hard to breathe.  It was one less than one crore.  It was May and only fools arrive there then.

At the hilltop was a rock to sit on that had no divine face to it.  It was a spot, on the rock, to contemplate and to rest. Time to time a traveller should take rest.

Below and by contrast, about the waterfall and along the stream was a crowd of rock-cut faces, chiselled, large and small, divine.  Lord Shiva was there, depicted several times and at the largest size available in India.  There were many of his colleagues, Durga on a lion and the image of Shiva’s son Ganesha carved, three times, into stone.  Shiva’s Nandi Bull, his carriage, indeed three examples of it too, waited and might wait forever half-submerged in river sand.  Other rocks had become turtles.

Then North Tripura, as if to bless the moment, found a slight but unmistakable hilltop breeze.  Or was it sympathy for the foolhardy May traveller?

The immediate world, the world in general and the inside world are the elements of Shiva’s trident.  The beauty of the hills was immediate; the daily tension and trivialities removed, as it is when on the road, was the world in general; and peace, not least because the rock-cut faces, both in duration and in space, brought home the twin truths of insignificance and smallness, was inside.

Lord Shiva must’ve understood that contemplation as he is known as a yogi, often depicted in his cross-legged, meditating aspect of spirituality.  And the tranquillity of the place, the music of water at its quietest in May, could’ve easily encouraged the going beyond contemplation into meditation.

But just how many images were there?  It would’ve taken some effort to count them; perhaps it was just as well to leave it to the name of the place.  Unakoti means the one less than one crore pairs of eyes looking out from about the waterfall.

Lord Shiva must’ve understood the taking breath there, on the hilltop rock, as it is said he also once took rest at the very spot.  Time to time a traveller should take rest.

Shiva’s travel plan then was to reach Varanasi as a member of a large party of gods and goddesses, totalling one crore in number.  One evening they sheltered on Unakoti hill, with Shiva expressly instructing that all should arise before dawn to set out once again. 

But when dawn arrived, Shiva found he was the only one awake and in anger he cursed his companions, turning them to stone so that they could remain for eternity, while he set forth towards his destination, alone. 

Unakoti means the one less than one crore deities left behind.

Shiva’s aspect of destruction and transformation seemed at odds with the valley.  Yet, perhaps in his rock-cut image that once was bare stone is his transformative work.  Perhaps there is the message that destruction is an essential part of nature, easily entwined, intermingling with the life of the waterfall and indigenous to the valley’s beauty: because it takes an end to make a beginning; because destruction too is necessity.

And the eastern tribal influences in Shiva’s features and decoration, as he is depicted in Unakoti, recall another legend, about one potter and sculptor called Kallu Kumhar.  It is said the sculptor was a devotee of Parvati and wished to follow her home to Kailash Mountain. 

Shiva agreed on the condition that Kallu Kumhar carve one crore images of Shiva in a single night.  He worked hard but by dawn he was still one image short, which gave Shiva the excuse he wanted to leave Kumhar behind with his carvings.  Even the carver should pace himself. 

Unakoti means the one less than one crore hopes, the trying and the devotion, dashed at last.

Shiva the dancer is not hard to find in the life of the light-hearted cascade tumbling among his images.  Shiva the family man is there somehow, not only in the company of Ganesha his son, but in the families of pilgrims and visitors that venture there, even if not so often in that month.

And the archaeologists say the carvings date from the seventh to ninth centuries, possibly earlier.  It is said the centre of worship flourished during the Pala rule three centuries on.

But Unakoti is not a triumph of the calendar only.  It’s the joining of the trident: the immediate world, the world at large and the inside world. 

Unakoti means the one less than one crore elements that arrive through three strands to make a singular unity.  Even in that foolish month of May.

b o u n t y o f i n d i a

t h e h e a r t o f b a n g l a d e s h

t h e w a y t o t h e s e a

j u s t a h e r m i t t a l k i n g t o h o r s e s

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: Aspects of Lord Shiva

A Place to Stand

Village near Mongla, 1996

with guest writer Reja Ali Mobarak.

Bangladesh has changed, but we remember 1996.  Reja Ali Mobarak wrote his part in Bangla and the writers together translated it.

It was of cottage and mansion dripping with subtropical weathering, Khulna Town.  Soil and earth, the old buildings brought charm.

A simple archway on the footpath read ‘Hotel Sun King’ in metallic letters.  Before entering, I invited the guy from the bus to share tea and samosa, behind a curtained doorway across the street.  It was Ramadan.  We had endured his constant chatter for many hours; from the long, unbroken journey from Chittagong we were unshaven and exhausted.  He reclined and talked as I went to the counter to deliver up the few-taka bill.

***

I used to transport live baby chingri from my home in Hatiya to Foila.  We are lower middle class although my father was the union chairman.  The chingri business used to see out the winter months.  It was seventeen years ago.

I bore the yoke of village politics that caused my father’s strokes and the burden of maintaining the family that belongs to the eldest son was weightier than my age.  Sometimes life must run against the current.  While waiting for the commission agent in Foila to pay me, I came to Khulna.  My business partner Nazmul, from Khulna, had invited me many times; yet I chose the independence of a cheap hotel called Sun King.

In the mornings Nazmul would come.  By night, at his house, his mother would feed us.  I’d seen the pens of his chicken establishment.

The Sun King manager was old with thin, grey hair and gaps in his teeth.  We’d found the habit of sharing iftar together, the evening meal to break the fast.  It was still a few hours but I was counting, relaxing on the sofa under the window at the top of the stairs, in the small space that was barely a reception area.  The manager sat on a stool behind his pint-sized bench in the corner.  

I was sitting, with nothing to do, when I saw two fair-skinned foreigners and one Bangladeshi come up the stairs with too much baggage.  They asked the manager for a room and I stood, moved a few paces closer.  I was curious.

***

Language was a frustration.  I wanted to bargain with the manager directly but the non-stop-talker had the advantage.  I didn’t trust him much so after a few sentences I did what I wanted to do all day.  I told him to be silent.  I asked for a room, the koto, the how much, we’d already learnt.  The manager wrote a figure on a paper scrap: 150 taka for a double.  It was cheap; but we nonetheless went into auto-bargain.  It was South Asia and we believed that’s what one did.

As usual we turned to walk away in faux outrage.  But the old man didn’t shower our retreat with better offers.  We didn’t proceed beyond the first landing on the way to the ground floor.

***

It was strange: the manager told them the price and they walked away!  We always thought bideshis stay five-star, like at the Sonargaon in Dhaka.  I hadn’t had much experience with bideshis but because my father was Chairman they used to come to the house sometimes from the Red Cross.  I remember they’d sit at the table on the veranda and chat in English.  From a young age I was expected to serve their tea and my father would encourage me to speak English.  But I felt shame so mostly I was silent.

I remember how awkwardly they sat, straight-backed and serious, their faces tense.  It was nothing like when the neighbours would visit.  But these two, there was something different about them: they’d come to such a standard hotel, they were unshaven with messy hair.  I wanted them to stay there.  Fortunately they came back and I looked one of them in the eyes and in poor English said the room rate was okay.

***

That guy who’d been hanging out in reception said the room rate was okay.  I took a brief moment to study his face: he had very green eyes. 

But I was looking for honesty and we couldn’t rely on the non-stop-talker.  It’s really very odd but examining his face it wasn’t only that I thought he was probably honest: in some way I recognised it.  I told myself not to be stupid.  But we took the room.

***

I don’t know why he believed me and didn’t bargain further, but as they filled in the book at the counter I couldn’t help it, I read over their shoulders to know where they were from.  In the ‘Citizenship’ column he wrote ‘Australian.’

***

He read over my shoulder as I filled out the Register.  It was a bit rude.

***

When we talked to foreigners we felt as citizens of a poor country and because of the language problem in communicating, shame; but when he was bargaining with the manager I did not feel like that. When I saw him at first I felt as though I already knew him. I don’t know why.  He finished the work around taking the room and wanted to go there.  I don’t know much English but I asked him to share iftar with us.  He understood my offer easily, without even trying.

It was astonishing.  After about an hour he came from his room wearing lungi!  My eyes fell open at the sight: inside I was thinking, ‘maybe this foreigner doesn’t hate Bengalis.’  He sat on the sofa as the adhan sounded for iftar to begin.  The manager had chopped onions and chilli, mixing oil with muri.  I’d brought a few sweet jilabis and some piazu.

It was all laid out on a sheet of the day’s news. Nazmul was late and the bideshi’s friend was still sleeping.  He didn’t know how to eat with his hands and bits of the muri mix were sticking to the sides of his fingers and falling on the floor; although he didn’t understand Bangla he helped me to communicate.  He spoke slowly and understood my meaning when I knew the English words were wrong.  It made me so happy!  I wished to speak to him more after iftar but I didn’t know what he felt.

***

It was the only day in Bangladesh when I had a strong desire never to speak to another Bengali: a product of the non-stop-talker and the long journey.  Sleep was made complicated by the mosquitoes that came in through the big hole in the wall.  I decided to fight them no longer and got up, still with zero desire to connect with locals.  I didn’t want to start with the ‘country?’ and work our way up to the amount of my father’s salary.  Yet the idea of travelling was to meet people and learn something; and if I’d always maintained such a negative attitude we would have missed out on so much.  So when I saw him sitting on the sofa under the window and there being nothing else to do, my objections softened.  I decided not to judge him solely on the rudeness of having looked over my shoulder as I’d signed in. 

It wasn’t my first iftar. I saw him watching how I ate with my hands and was embarrassed for my lack of skill.  Afterwards we heard shouting from the street below.  Through the window we watched a really angry mob pass.  They were punching the air with fists clenched, chanting slogans, holding banners I couldn’t read.  It must’ve been related to the upcoming election.  Many Bangladeshis had spoken about politics. 

***

BNP was attempting to hold an election but Awami League was set to boycott. We watched an opposition protest march down the street.  I did my best to explain things from my perspective. He shared his experiences of Bangladesh, good and bad.  I felt so much shame when he said some Bangladeshis asked him for a visa, or tried to cheat him, that I could not look him in the eye. But it was great to hear that despite his young age he had visited many countries and it was rare how hospitable Bangladeshis were. On average he had quite a good idea about Bangladesh. What was stranger was that some ideas coincided between us.

Near Mongla, 1996

***

He told me about his family, his village in Hatiya and his business.  I’d seen Hatiya from the ship.  It was an island lit by dim kerosene light in the darkness.

We spoke of Australia but his questions came like a river, naturally and without being boring.  When he spoke about local politics without invitation water rose in my eyes and I only hoped he wouldn’t notice.  It wasn’t that he said anything new but as we were nearing the end of our stay in Bangladesh I suppose I had already started processing and there was this insurmountable disjunct between what seemed to be the suffering of poverty, and on top of it the political tensions, with the hospitality, even happiness that seemed in Bangladesh to be as common as earth.  In Sydney it is rarer.

The strangest part was that although his English wasn’t great, to comprehend his meaning was without strain.  In some things we thought similarly.  It made an impression: how could two people with entirely different backgrounds see the world so much the same?  I knew him.

He invited me to dinner but said we’d have to wait for his business partner Nazmul to arrive because they’d planned to hold a business meeting first. 

Nazmul was a young guy dressed in impeccable neatness from hair part to polished shoes.  Surprisingly he said I could sit in on the business meeting; I think he didn’t wish to leave me waiting alone.  So the three of us went to his room and found space between the bed and the chair that belonged to the little desk.  The room had no window; but it also had no hole in the wall. 

I thought it would be boring; but as they started conversing in Bengali I discovered a smile:  how absurd it was to be at a meeting between a Bangladeshi prawn seller and a chicken farmer.  The unfathomable Bengali language wanted to make me laugh!  I felt so privileged and fortunate and I had not overcome those feelings when he said quite suddenly their meeting was done.  ‘Are you sure you’re done?’ I laughed.  The meeting had lasted less than five minutes.

Dinner was biryani something at the hotel across the street.  I tried to pay the bill but there was no way he’d let me.  ‘I’ll get my own back,’ I thought happily.

***

I wanted to talk to him all night but I thought he would think badly if I talked too much, that I would disturb them. So we decided instead to visit the Sundarbans together and I would meet them at Mongla port the following afternoon. Afterwards I imagined I should have gone with them in the morning but mistakenly I thought they would mind it, as if I was a loafer.  I told them I had other business meetings, thinking I should go to Foila for money. 

***

I’d wanted so much he should come with us to the Sundarbans but it could hardly be expected he’d be able to just drop his business.  I asked a few too many times but lastly decided to press further would be rude.  But he agreed to meet us in the afternoon. I hope he hadn’t felt obliged.

A clod of earth was Khulna Town, earth connecting, the earth that brings a new place to stand.

find the elements
                          air
                     fire
             water
      earth
ether


This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: A Place to Stand

The Modern Jajabor

The road chooses the jajabor; the jajabor chooses not the road.

A meeting of jajabors while on the road is a surprisingly uncommon event.  Many days may pass without hint of another, and in settled periods the absence of even evidence leads one to wonder if others at all exist.  Yet there are the travel websites, with postings like ‘I left home three years ago on a three-month trip.  I’m never going back.’  The jajabor’s footprints may be light but they step, nonetheless.

When one jajabor does meet another, in my experience it’s a happy event, a meeting without formality and no more constraint to it than the hopping about of a sparrow on a windowsill.  There’s calmness in not needing to explain or greatly elaborate; to without effort pursue simple talk of adventure, with travel tales consumed as readily as rice.  Jajabors don’t ask the questions settled people do.  They don’t need to.

Of course it’s jajabors of the modern variety of which I write, the ones who use passports and planes; but I should explain first about using the Bangla word, jajabor, which is something similar to the English word, nomad.  It came about by accident.

In Dhaka people speak of the Bedey.  I’m not sure if it’s the Bedey who visit Hatiya Island, but in the winter months the nomads come, setting up their n-shaped tents in thatch and plastic sheeting on any patch of empty land. 

I’ve heard the Hatiyalas say the ones who live on boats can drink brackish, delta water; that they barely set foot on land.  I’m not sure how much is true.  Like nomads or semi-nomads in many countries they have a reputation for trickery and fortune telling.  It may well be undeserved.  Still, as in other parts of the country, when the nomads visit Hatiya they camp wherever they find ground and are for the most part left undisturbed.

Yet it wasn’t the presence of the traditional nomads in Hatiya that led me to learn the word surprisingly early.  I don’t suppose ‘jajabor’ is usually considered basic Bangla.  It was because of the Assamese singer Bhupen Hazarika, who sings that famous Bangla tune Ami Ek Jajabor, I am a nomad.  Unlike in the lyrics I didn’t reach the Mississippi, but I did like the idea of the song.

Learning about his thoughts is a way to understand our own.

Modern jajabors face shared problems and chief among them is explaining to non-travellers about travel.  People ask, why travel or why travel there?  The reasons are many and to account for them properly would require a conversation of some length.  It’s not always called for, especially as the result is likely to be disappointing.  Non-travellers usually have other priorities and a differing world view.  They don’t understand.

For example, one jajabor I know, an Italian Mexican-born one currently ‘pausing’ in Bulgaria, said that when asked why he lives in Bulgaria he just says the girls are pretty.  The Bulgarians are content with that and it circumvents the need to elaborate.  A more sophisticated reason might be that since he was young he was fascinated with Eastern Europe and one thing led to another.

It’s funny: I taught him the word ‘jajabor’ and he discovered its opposite, the term for people who prefer a life in one place.  He called them: ‘sedentarians.’

When it comes to explanations, I have similar troubles.  When Australians asked why I was moving to Ukraine some years ago, I said, ‘I’ve always wanted to live in a country that begins with a ‘U’.’  It started people listing: Uruguay, Uganda, Uzbekistan… it was so much easier, it didn’t take hours.

In Hatiya, when I used to visit almost annually from Sydney, the circumstances were even more difficult when a Hatiyala would ask, very occasionally, why.  My Bangla was still very basic and more than that, I simply did not know how to speak of the inspiration of travel.  I could not explain how much there is to learn from other cultures or properly clarify how much enjoyment I took from their company, that in even the basic elements of their daily lives, which they take for granted, I found new wisdom and, often, hope.  How could I say that I wanted to understand their life experiences and way of thinking in order to better comprehend mine?  What is universally human, what is cultural and what is the individual?  I would’ve liked to have explained such ponderings, but I had no ability.

So instead I simply pointed to the tents by the road and said, ‘Ami ek jajabor’.  The answer made Hatiyalas laugh.  It was a simple statement, but it made me start to wonder…

The last modern jajabor I met was probably that British-born one in Kolkata a few years ago.  His name was something plain like Ken or Mike and we met in the queue at the Bangladeshi Consulate while organising visas.  He also didn’t have a pen.  Besides that there was little about him to suggest he was a jajabor.  It was when we started talking that I could imagine it.

The jajabor consumes travel stories like rice.

The first sign was that his travel plans sounded complicated and evolving.  He was down from Korea, had been to Bangladesh, was in India on a detour due to a wedding invitation that had surfaced and wished to return to Bangladesh en route back to Korea.  He taught English, he said, which is not atypical for a jajabor.  I started to consider… maybe, yes maybe…

And the sedentarians wonder what the jajabor is searching for; and it makes the jajabor laugh.

Perhaps because I know Kolkata I did something unusual for a jajabor, I asked Ken or Mike if he wanted to go for a meal when our visa work was done.  I write unusual because jajabors rarely team up.  They follow their own journeys and despite having much in common, say goodbye as easily as hello.

So we chatted more, somewhere up on Park Street. I heard about his circles in the sand, his plan to see South America for at least a year before teaching again and then setting out for African wanderings.  He never wanted to return to the U.K .Naturally I spoke of Bangladesh and the pull of the Meghna River; and he said he had liked Bangladesh. 

Even in the distant sunset the jajabor can find himself

But what I remember most fondly about Ken, or Mike, is when I asked what he would do when all the travelling was done.  I wanted to see if his answer was the same as mine. 

‘I guess I’ll decide which country I like the best,’ he said, ‘and I’ll stay there.’

‘You’re lucky,’ he continued, ‘You’ve found yours.’

More recently I sat in a party in Dhaka, with shondesh and delicious home cooked savoury items on a plate and I confessed to a Bangladeshi who lives in Sydney that I’m actually a bit of a jajabor.  His eyes lit up at the idea and he said eagerly, ‘Well, I moved to Sydney so perhaps I’m a jajabor too?’  And maybe it’s true.  It can be that the scope of jajabor-minded public is far broader than I was used to thinking.  When I consider it, in many Bangladeshis there are certain signs: curiosity, adaptability, a sense of humour and love for going places, even if that means not further than visiting relatives in another district, as far as opportunity allows.

Yet this jajabor may have progressed to being an ex-jajabor.  His jajabor life may be done.  Or could it simply be that from around-the-world-and-back-again he found himself perfectly content within the most jajabor-minded majority culture of all?

In many Bangladeshis are signs: curiosity, adaptability, a love of going places...

Weighing up the options

Which road chooses you?

A. the mountain road, to Bolivia?

B. the camino del sur, to Argentina, Chile & Uruguay?

C. the delta road, to Bangladesh?

D. the spiritual road, to India?

E. none of the above.










This article is also published in the Star, here: The Modern Jajabor