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

No Please, No Thank You

It was Gulshan, for dinner.  ‘Do you enjoy living in the East?’ the Australian woman said, her first words to me on that evening, with enough vitriol in her tone to strip rust from a pole.  Why the bitterness?  I was confused.  I rarely think of East and West: and if I did, East might mean Russia or China, not Bangladesh.  Bangladesh is a South Asian nation but mostly I think of it as: Bangladesh.  It requires no reference point.

My Bangladeshi friend Situ was there, thankfully, and in the short conversation that followed she made mention of how she cannot tell the difference between Bangladeshis, Indians and Pakistanis, which might be alright if she didn’t work with these communities in Sydney.  She challenged my saying that Bangladesh was not India and required Situ to attest the fact the two countries actually differ.  And when I suggested Bangladeshis might be flashier in style than at least their Paschimbangan counterparts, she indicated Situ and said ‘I don’t see any gold anywhere!’  She’d been in Bangladesh for less than twenty-four hours.  It was her first visit.

She spoke of her trip, maybe a week, to a village in Western Ukraine.  The scene was of poverty, despair and people who didn’t know how to fix the village water pump.  They had kitchens smaller than her Australian bathroom.  ‘The country’s been ruined!’ she declared, ‘It will never recover.’ Then she almost spat out the word ‘Russians!’  I might not mention such unfortunate inanities except that she was certain her pending visit to a village in Jessore would be identical.  ‘I already know what it’s going to be like.’ 

For an Australian, a visit to a Bangladeshi village is a significant opportunity to learn, not only of Bangladesh but of oneself.  It seemed a shame that such a great opportunity might be lost before it began.

Fortunately we didn’t have to stay.  As we left she was busily telling a young Bangladeshi girl, maybe six years old, ‘In English we say please and thank you!’  She wanted to force the girl to say ‘please’ before handing her a candy.  There was some irony in her instructing on manners and it made me wonder if I had ever been so culturally judgemental. 

The young girl didn’t know what to do.  I wanted to say, ‘Look, it’s there, her ‘please’ is in her expression.  It’s in her shyness which means respect.’  I wanted to say, ‘Leave her alone!’ or ‘How about you learn some Bangla?’  But there was no point.

Reality: if an English-speaker sits at a Norwegian dinner table they’re likely to be shocked.  ‘Pass the salt!’ they’ll say, a little too directly.  On the Norwegian street, passers by stare, while in Sydney it’s usual if you catch a stranger’s eye to look away or smile.  The difference was significant enough that when I first went to Oslo at age eighteen the street staring used to have me scanning my clothes to see if there was something odd.  T-shirt is back to front?

Yet within days I’d learnt that Norwegian phrase takk for maten, ‘thanks for the food,’ to be said after every meal.  I learnt takk for sist, which means ‘thanks for the last time we met,’ and can be said on re-meeting someone.  In Australia there are not similar customs or not in the same way.

Reality: if an English-speaker goes to Iran it’s the locals who might be shocked.  You can’t just say salaam to greet someone; it needs to be a slightly sung, full-hearted salaaaam! to matter.  There might need to be a kiss on each cheek.  Farsi has several phrases for ‘how are you?’  It might be insufficient to use only one; and there are three versions of ‘thank you’, often strung together and with a ‘very much’ thrown in. 

There were other unique systems: Iranians will seat the most important guest furthest from the door and all things should be offered three times and twice refused before being accepted on the third offer, which is the genuine one.  More informally I remember scenes of Iranians passing handfuls of sunflower seeds down the intercity bus, row by row, passenger by passenger, until it reached the foreign guests!  When it comes to the verbal ‘thank you’ alone, Iranians leave English-speakers for dust.

Reality: in Thailand there’s the system of wai-s.  A wai involves palms together and shows differing levels of respect, dependent upon where the fingertips are placed.  A wai above the head is for Buddha or the royal family.  Fingertips that are positioned under the nose are appropriate for elders, under the chin for friends and below the chin for children.  Mere words are not required.

Reality: Bangladeshis are mostly polite, especially in the village; and it might sound strange but I used to wonder how they managed it since there is a deficit of ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ to an English-speaker’s ears.  It’s because in terms of sophistication, Bengalis leave English-speakers for dust.

Think about all the gestures the foreigner must learn.  There’s the ‘sorry’ pat on the shoulder if you accidentally bump someone in a crowd.  There’s the ‘even sorrier’ arm stroking, often favoured with friends or creditors.  There’s the perhaps old-fashioned ‘very sorry,’ displayed by sticking the tongue out, tugging on ear lobes and doing squats; and I once saw the ‘extremely sorry’ of hitting one’s cheeks with one’s own shoes! 

There’s the sharing a cup of tea to end a dispute and the process of village mediations that must go back for thousands of years.  We can show respect by offering or taking things with both hands.  Splitting bills, as is common in the west, is out of the question and within many a Bangladeshi family the concept of sharing property like clothes or jewellery is taken for granted. 

Think about the degrees of ‘you’ that no longer exist in English.  In place of every aapni, imagine if you put a ‘please’: how much more prolific they would be than in an ordinary English sentence, because aapni is there in every verb.  Tumi and tui may also have politeness when they indicate closeness or caring.

Think about the greetings.  It took me time to properly understand how all the villagers saying assalamu alaikum or namaskar were not simply saying ‘hello’ or ‘good morning.’  Walaikum salam, I could happily respond, without having a clue as to the respect present within the exchange. 

Years ago, it was common after a handshake to put your hand to the heart; and there’s the hand-to-mouth-then-heart gesture if your foot accidentally touches someone, the gesture that makes the villagers laugh when I do it because I’ve added a little signature flick to the end of mine.  Beyond that, there are indescribable smaller gestures, a look in the eyes or a smile of delight: nobody seems to do these things the way Bengalis do.  And let’s not even get started on the jamai, the son-in-law!  These ways of expressing politeness, caring and consideration are harder to fake than the verbal version.

Unfortunately, telling that girl to say ‘please’ is not a neutral act.  It is a cultural imposition that sets the English-speaker’s way as the standard to live up to and be judged by.  Let’s not do that anymore.  This is the twenty-first century and we tried that last century. 

The girl can be polite in the very many local ways available and if she wants to attend English class or go to Australia later, let her learn the petty forms of politeness then: it’s easy to adjust to the Toyota model if you’ve been taught to drive the Mercedes.

It’s understandable the Australian woman didn’t know these things.  What’s sad and embarrassing for another Australian is that she couldn’t imagine she didn’t know.  Then again, she didn’t know the Cold War ended either.

In these heady days of a nationwide reaffirmation of what it means to be Bangladeshi, there’s this minor matter I’d like to throw into the pan: Bangladeshi manners.  I’m busy trying to reduce my use of dhonnobhad, the verbal thank you.  I want to drive the Mercedes!

It's not only about manners of course, but different ways of thinking, perhaps what a culture sounds like, or even perceptions of paradise. 



This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: No Please No Thank You














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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






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