Robert's List

The hills of Luzon

 
Comfort is not the thing at twenty-two when there remains yet the energy to drive curiosity and the endurance to put plan to action.  The road across the mountains of central Luzon, the Philippines, from the misty reflection of Banaue’s hillside rice terraces to the provincial capital of Bontoc wasn’t easy.   Hours of relentless vibration negotiating the curves of the hills: it was like one of those alien exercise contraptions that attach a band around the human waist to deliver a continuous electronic tremor supposed to dissolve fat and make one look slim.  The bus and its passengers were the band, so it seemed, with all the rattling and shaking the bellybuster designed to flatten the very curves and bends of the rugged, forested hills.  It was quite a workout.

Bucketed by dust we must’ve looked not dissimilar to mud creatures getting off the bus, the mountain’s exercise machine, finally in Bontoc, but our relative youth didn’t worry about such things.  Of course along with the chickens, from grandparent to child the other passengers, the Filipinos, were not twenty-two.  What we called adventure was for them merely transport.

Luzon countryside

Beyond Bontoc on a more civilised road was the hillside town of Sagada, a modest settlement of about ten thousand people that for its caves and tribal influences attracts tourists.  Visually the most impressive sites of easy access are the cave cemeteries featuring the hanging coffins of traditional burial practice.  The hills around Sagada were remote enough for some traditions to have withstood the Spanish colonial period and the subsequent American colonial period; and it’s not just anybody who’s awarded a hanging coffin.  Among other things the person would need to have been married and to have had grandchildren to be eligible.
Along with the pleasure of the hills which seemed all the more beautiful when not trying to get across them on a bus, Sagada brought with it a problem.  It was a few weeks of detour, the Philippines, on our way home from Iran and, having left the bulk of our luggage in a Manila hotel basement so that we could travel light and fast we sought to move on from Sagada to the island’s western coast, then northward still.  But the mountains wished to push us southward instead, eight hours back to Baguio, a city we’d already seen, then the following day several hours northward again on the coast road.  The alternative, real only in our imaginations and eliciting serious contemplation from the locals with whom we briefly discussed it, was to hike westwards to challenge the mountains on foot.

By the time we understood the logistics there was just ten minutes to decide for the last evening bus, two hours, to the first village on the way to the sea was leaving.  Without a map or compass, with me wearing business shoes since we’d not planned on hiking, and with my day pack’s contents featuring two wooden buffaloes I’d bought as souvenirs at the carving shops along the Banaue roadside, we took the decision of our twenty two years, rushed back to the hotel, packed the few things and paid, and ran up the road to join the bus just as it was setting out for the first village, Besao.

There would be no hotel in Besao, we knew, for it was a village; and if there was no place to stay we might have no choice but to hike in the darkness back along the road for several hours to Sagada, plans defeated.  Yes we were concerned about that but we’d also learnt to trust the world for in our travels whenever there’d been a problem there’d been a solution and in any country there are locals who know well how to assist the traveller.  And so we threw ourselves into the care of the Philippines.  Why not?

Fortunately on that bus everybody was friendly and very curious about our choice of Besao.  Fortunately it was Mountain Province where English was widespread.

Besao

He lived like a hobbit, Robert, without perhaps the penchant for lavishness and comfort that hobbits are renowned for.  But in his simple house overlooking the paddies of the valley and listening to the silence of all the disconnected roads it was possible to imagine him blowing smoke rings with a pipe, like Bilbo Baggins, although the newspaper he leafed through was in English and I don’t believe he smoked.  We’d discussed our plans on the bus and thankfully he’d said he could put us up for the night.  His housemate Gem had cooked a simple rice dinner and we’d talked into the evening about our coming journey and life in Besao.  They’d been sure to wake us with the sun as there’d need to be time for a breakfast of eggs and the sea was far.

Storehouses on the roadside

Before we set out Robert gave three things: a list, a letter and a warning.  The list was of villages we’d need to pass through, asking in each the way to the next, to take the right largely trafficless dusty roads which he’d said started on the far side of the valley.  The letter was to his sister-in-law who he’d suggested we could seek out upon reaching her village in a half a day’s time.  But by nightfall, he’d said, we would have reached South Ilocano Province and while the people of Mountain Province were friendly, we should take care with the Ilocanos.  In this world it’s usual for people to have misgivings about their nearest neighbours but having heard of the Ilocanos for the first time we paid attention to his words.

We had not yet crossed the first valley, mist rising, morning not yet of full form, when we came across an old lady ambling through the rice terraces with a walking stick.  Instinctively I wished I could talk to her but in many countries where English is not the first language it’s reasonable to assume the elderly in particular may not know it.  ‘Good morning,’ she said with clarity the sky was yet to achieve.  Ah yes, this was Mountain Province!  We could pause to explain our plans, discuss the rice crop and the beauty of the valley.

Swing bridge

After an hour we had found the first swinging bridge of the metallic and wooden rung type that cross the small mountain rivers in central Luzon, and made our way up the far side again to the first village on Robert’s list, Kin-iway.  We took in the village church, the wooden storehouses by the road we found there and the views back to Besao from whence we had come.  And so it went, up and down in pursuit of the river that became our companion from village to village on the list.  At a side stream by the roadside we met Jane, who was busily washing her clothes by hand in water directed through a bamboo pipe.  She wanted our opinion on a hydroelectric project planned for that valley.  It would inundate areas of rice paddy but there was the promise of electricity.  Did we think electricity was good?  The best part of electricity, we said, is that you don’t need to wash clothes by hand.  That’s hard work!  But if the benefits outweighed the disadvantages in the case of her valley as outsiders we couldn’t say.

Jane

By mid afternoon we had reached the village of Robert’s sister-in-law and we sought her out at the local school where she was a teacher.  She was surprised by the arrival of foreigners but we were able to deliver Robert’s letter.  To this day I don’t know the words he wrote but it might’ve had ‘feed them’ written in it for she took us to her house for lunch.  Her village, Robert had said, was last in Mountain Province; after that the Ilocano lands would start.

It was a very long way to the next village and afternoon was on its wane while still we walked not knowing how much further it would be or what we would find.  Fortunately there came a jeep full of passengers, a rare sight on those roads and rather than leave us they offered a lift and suddenly the last of the way into Quirino was made easy.  I wondered what they’d do next, our first Ilocanos, and they also wondered because we heard discussion going on.  Ultimately it was decided to deliver us to the house of the mayor where we stayed as guests.

At the mayor’s house were sacks of food aid, rice with the word ‘Australia’ stamped across them.  We’d hoped to see the sea from the Ilocano side but of course from Quirino you can’t see the sea: there was another quite large mountain in the way.

A village house

The way over the mountain was tricky, the mayor of Quirino told us but his sons had agreed to be our guides to make sure we took the right paths the following day.  It took several hours, there was no road and it was steep but eventually we made the pass near the summit and there she was!  In the distance, across a plain with the outline of what looked like a decent road to it, we saw the sea.

The mayor’s sons continued with us down the far side until we reached the outskirts of the village of Gregorio del Pilar.  Then they bade farewell and turned homeward.  It seemed the only treachery to be met in the Ilocanos was hospitality; but I guess when ordinary people meet the most likely outcome is friendship.  It’s not from there the divisions come.  And it’s just as well we’d learnt to say ‘thank you’ in Ilocano: ‘agyamanak.’

There’s an irony in Robert’s warning, which I discovered only recently.  The name of Robert’s village, Besao, may have been derived from the Ilocano word Buso meaning head hunters.  There’s a likelihood that once it was those from the Ilocos Region believed the earlier people of Besao took part in such activity.
It’d taken a day to cross that mountain and once more in Gregorio del Pilar we were directed to the house of the mayor.  He sought our opinion about how to protect the environment, explaining that in the past several logging companies had been active in the area and the locals had not properly comprehended the damage they could do.  More recently he said they’d better understood how important the environment was and that logging company promises sounded perhaps better than what may eventuate.

Upon hearing there were foreigners about, several of the villagers came to meet us that evening.  They took us on a tour of the village, to show the school and the other public amenities.  They showed us the main square where the annual village fiestas were held and we saw village kids hanging about on slapped together billycarts they’d made to race each other down the hills.  From Gregorio del Pilar, we were informed, there was a bus to the sea on the next day.

And so on the fourth day, at twenty-two, with me in business shoes and with two wooden buffaloes in my luggage, we reached Candon City on the main coastal highway northwards.  It is said we get wiser as we age but in truth if there came again the choice between the bus to Baguio or walking across the mountains of central Luzon, my choice would be the same.

The river that was our companion in Mountain Province

If you've made it as far as the Philippines, it's not that much further until you suddenly become a golfer, or meet the frog and the snake or retrospectively take up buffalo farming.  Just about anything can happen when on the road!


This article is also published in Star Magazine, here: Robert's List

In the 'hood

Brothers in the 'hood

‘Tell me why are we, so blind to see,
that the ones we hurt, are you and me’

- from the song ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ by Coolio

CNGs, four-wheel drives, pick-up drop-off cars, dogs, pedestrians, the tempos-of-death stopping suddenly, randomly and askew, and the seemingly out of control buses are there to dodge like bullets.  Leaping over the median strip like a cheetah, slithering by the edge of the fence that’s proudly sponsored by a local bank like a boa constrictor, there’s the menace of the mega-conglomeration of choking smoking motorised mayhem once more to brave, on the far side. The trials that need to be overcome for a few groceries!

The Bronx, Harlem or Dhanmondi: yo! We’re brothers living in the ’hood.

The choking, smoking mayhem of the 'hood

The tea stall guy is on the corner.  ‘You close up,’ I threaten him, ‘where’s your licence?  This is a footpath.  This is no place for a business! No good people are on the street at this hour! You close up!’

‘Why?’ he taunts, rough as guts, ‘who are you, the police?’ 

‘No!’ I tell him with authority, ‘I’m a foreigner!’  I don’t suppose that’s entirely true in the ’hood.  Then, tone softening I continue, ‘but before you close, give one cup of tea.  And make sure it’s not some dui nombor Jinjira tea!’  He usually starts speaking to me in Bollywood Hindi.  I don’t know why.  I must one day ask his name.

That’s the system in the ’hood now, since Abdul and Faruk actually were hunted away, in the midst of the days of Situ’s Sobhan craze.  It was when he first implemented his theory that Sobhan was an acceptable generic name for any stranger; much as others use Mama, and he’d first dished it out in the local hotel on a waiter.  ‘No,’ the waiter had said, ‘Sobhan’s not here.  He’s gone to the village and will be back in a few days.’  He spoke with too much sincerity for the ’hood.

English brother, the younger (right), doing his thing

The first time failure didn’t turn Situ yellow and with Abdul and Faruk the system went down.  Abdul caved at the first, and started answering to the name Sobhan; and he may have started calling me Shopon for a time as payback.  But Faruk was a fighter: hundreds of times that year Situ said, ‘Sobhan, give tea,’ and the reply came like machine gun fire, ‘my name’s not Sobhan.  It’s Faruk!’  The rule of the street was that, back then.

‘My name is Habib,’ I tell the waiter at the cheap gritty hotel, ‘I’m from Bhola.’

‘My name is Habib,’ he replies as we touch palms and other customers laugh.

It’s got some name that gritty joint but from the start I called it the Yucky Hotel, until I found the food was actually quite tasty.  Then it needed something more sophisticated, French sounding perhaps which to an English speaker’s ear rings classy-like.  Now it’s l’hôtel de Yucquie that’s spoken about.

His name is Habib

After a meal Habib hollers to the kitchen ‘one cup Sylhet!’ or ‘one cup Habigonj!’ as he narrates how he’s helping his son finish college in Dhaka.  At other times he only offers Bholan tea, depending on his mood; and he’s got a reputation for slipping the odd gratis tikka kebab onto my plate.

Once I hadn’t been for a while, to l’hôtel de Yucquie but Situ came through.  The manager got up from his desk and with Habib sat at his table to talk serious-like, one to one and brother to brother.  Why hadn’t I been there in a while, they asked with earnestness, did they need a new menu?  I’d only been twice that month.  They’d been counting.  ‘It’s not the money,’ they said and meant, ‘we like it when he comes.’

My name is Habib!

It’s the English brothers that run the cigarette stall.  ‘Good morning,’ English brother, the elder, used to greet me in the afternoon.  They know I can do it in Bangla.  They reverse bargain, the brothers English.  They sell me a gaslight with a discount and I tell them I don’t want the discount and they say without the discount it’s not for sale, and I ask for a twenty year warranty on it, so it goes, although that is in Bangla.  But each time there’s a few more English words, about the rain or a trip to the village or the other brother’s whereabouts and they’re picking it up alright.  When it’s ‘good morning’ it really is morning now and that’s progress for the ’hood.

Emran’s got his squat for phone refills and the odd shout of tea when he’s not on the road.  He shows the photos from Darjeeling or Mumbai or as far as his oily rag budget managed to get him in the latest week’s absence.  He’s got a traveller’s soul and dreams of a big salary labouring in Italy, although I told him ‘impossible!  You can’t go!  Who will refill my phone?’  ‘I’ll do it from there,’ he said.  If he ever ditches the ’hood and bails I guess I’ll be calling Italy for credit refills.

Pay dirt! The grocery store

And at the grocery store is Bachhu who’s mad about the hilsa fish from his native Chandpur.  He piles in the goods and if the bag’s of polythene I tell him he’s a criminal, and at last he offers a free Choc Bar or takes a break and we too have tea.  His managers don’t seem to care.  His life is tough.  I had that figured the day he told me he’d worked at that ruddy grocery store for twenty-four years; and he hardly looks thirty.

The internet joint: how it stayed afloat was beyond me.  The concept of business is not to charge ten taka when it should be twenty and throw in a five taka cup of tea, there too.  They make the real bucks on the household connections, they said.

The vegetable brother, I don’t really know him, but he always throws my way a smile and a laugh.  It’s because of the day I was bored so, as he stood outside his shop in a row of vegetable joints, I suggested slyly if I distracted the next shopkeeper, if he wouldn’t mind, he could pinch one of the watermelons and run up the street and I’d meet him on the corner.  It was season then and watermelons were piled high along the footpaths.  It was our first conversation.  ‘But I’ll get arrested,’ he said and there’s no doubt he’s an ek nombor guy but part of him enjoyed the naughtiness and unexpectedness of the watermelon-snatching plan, coming from a stranger.  He remembers being entertained by my little performance.

Scene of the watermelon snatching plan

Finally, cheetah leaping and boa constrictor constricting and dodging and baulking, running and walking, scrambling through the maze of the jam with groceries in hand it’s time to make it to the home base, to Karim-at-the-gate.  There are tales of hardship and triumph, struggling to get by and fighting the odds.  There’s camaraderie in the blood of our life in the ’hood, a usual commodity in the gangsta boroughs of a mega-city, like in the Bronx, like in Harlem, like in Dhanmondi. 

My name is Habib! And so is yours.

Street kitchen

We're all carnivores in the 'hood

Yo! Can also go jammin', jammin'... Dhaka traffic jammin' or slide on by when de rain be fallin' or stick it out and go huntin' for de beast. Be cool!

 This article also published in Star Magazine, here: In the 'Hood




Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh

The Dance of Lilliput

Building detail.  Photo: Val Voronkova

 
I’m not as worldly as Jonathan Swift’s Mr. Lemuel Gulliver.  I’ve never been to Blefuscu, Brobdingnag, Glubbdubrib or Japan.  There was an occasion in 2002 however when I sort of made it as far as Lilliput.

The journey began in April, in that Soviet apartment in Sviatoshyn on the northern outskirts of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.  It was suitable accommodation for the one-month teaching methodology course in which I’d enrolled.  I was destined to share the apartment with another out of town teacher attending the course, and after some time the doorbell rang.  With a fluster of red hair by choice rather than design, forty-ish Alex bustled in with her luggage, hastily telling something to the driver who’d brought her there.  It was all in Russian, which she subsequently tried on me.  She’d been led to understand I was a Russian teacher who’d spent time in Australia.  Flustered on account of the misinformation, she felt suddenly nervous of her English skills, usual for local English teachers in those parts.  ‘I’m sorry I’m not Russian,’ I apologised.  She said it was okay.

Besides our British tutors there were only two foreigners among the Ukrainian students: me and Alex.  She was from Moldova. 

Botanica District, Chisinau.  Photo: wikipedia

Moldova is a land sliver squashed between Ukraine and Romania, like a pair of long, thin lips unable to smile.  About one-fifth the size of Bangladesh it has 3.3 million people and a blend of cultures and languages, mostly Russian and Romanian; and I thought I sensed in Alex a little of that Romanian expressiveness although she was in equal measure cynical and sensitive like our Ukrainian colleagues.  Like Bengal, Moldova was divided by history, between her country which was part of the Soviet Union, then independent, and the region called Moldavia in Romania.  In 2002 Moldova was purported to be the poorest country in Europe.

It happened naturally as we commuted together in those large white vans called marshrutkas to the subway; and rattled about on the metro to and from class; as we decided upon dinner which mostly she cooked and of an evening polished our assignments and lesson plans which I sometimes edited.  With the weekends given to introducing ourselves to Kyiv there was nothing to do about it: Alex became my first Moldovan friend.

It was the English tutors who did it: after some weeks they one day pulled out a map to find out exactly where Moldova was. ‘Oh, I never realised it was so tiny,’ one of them said, ‘so tiny!’  ‘And without even a single beach,’ said the other.  Moldova’s border is just forty kilometres from the Black Sea but the coastline belongs to Ukraine.  I doubt they meant it to be so but it wasn’t a triumph of English diplomacy.  They’d used the word tiny a bit too enthusiastically and Alex, far from being a nationalist stalwart, was nonetheless upset.

I tried but it was difficult to console her because my imagination had been let loose.  In the train on the way home I asked exactly how tiny Moldova was.  For example: would it fit inside the carriage?  From the marshrutka I pointed to a rusty garage and asked if it was Moldovan mansion-sized.  With a string of stupid questions I did manage to gain from her a cynical smile.

After the course was completed we shared a taxi first to the train station for me and then to the bus station for Alex.  As Kyiv station is large with many platforms when we parted Alex said, ‘do you know where you’re going?’  ‘You know Alex,’ I replied on a whim, ‘I don’t think any of us ever really know where we are going.’  The moment was a scene from a 1950s film.  Alex was Lauren Bacall.  It should have been in black and white.

Moldova took no benefit from the ensuing months.  By June I could imagine traffic jams of tiny toy cars on footpath-breadth highways and by August Moldovans were brushing their hair with toothbrushes.  The Moldova in my mind was getting smaller.  The only thing that never quite fit was Alex herself.  She had always seemed so normal-sized when we were in Kyiv. 

By December the chance arose to visit her in the Lilliputian capital Chişinău, although she’d assured me there was nothing to see in Moldova.  But she’d helped with the paperwork to get the visa, an exhaustive process where Soviet protocols seemed to prevail, and at the very least I knew there was one thing to see: Alex.  When going anywhere there are plans and contingencies to think of, but when the destination is Lilliput there are additional thoughts such as ‘remember to step carefully so as not to tread on any buildings.’

It was a snowy evening when the train pulled into Chişinău station, a remotely grand building not unlike the standard in ex-Soviet towns.  I think the Russians with their sensibilities gave honour to the various farewells and greetings that occur on platforms, with the suitably cinematic backdrop of their railway stations, even in minor towns.  Alex waited in a furry coat and hat and I felt so lucky to be meeting a friend.  One might say it was a tiny triumph. 

Chisinau train station.  Photo: wikipedia

‘Ah, I see you’ve brought your camera,’ she said as we left the station without ado, ‘I guess we’ll have to find something for you to take a picture of.’  As we rode in the marshrutka back to her house she said, ‘so what do you think of the size of our marshrutkas?’  ‘They’re remarkably life-sized,’ I replied.

The following morning we wandered about the normal-sized neighbourhood where normal-sized pedestrians asked me for average-sized directions and a not-undersized woman carried a normal-sized kitten like a baby, wrapped in a blanket of standard dimensions.  There was only one conclusion to draw: Moldova had grown significantly since last I imagined it.

Although a much larger city, Alex had found Kyiv a little slow, and with the people of Chişinău rushing about I could see it.  ‘The Romanian temperament,’ she said, ‘everything has to happen right now.’  I did use the camera: for the tree-lined avenues, the crowded marketplace and the cathedral.  From history some buildings had traces of the Ottomans in their design.

The highlight was the discotheque, an annual event for students at the university where Alex worked.  We took a turn on the dance floor, we did the dance of Lilliput, and Alex asked if I’d had dancing lessons, which was either an undue compliment or a heartfelt suggestion.  There was a mathematics lecturer who proved the theory: mathematicians can’t dance.  There was a final year tourism student we met and I elbowed Alex to ask him what I should see in Chişinău, as a tourist.  He thought for a long while and when the silence broke he said, ‘well the cathedral is quite old and the train station is a nice building; and maybe you’d like to see our airport?’ 

A remarkably life-sized Chisinau street.  Photo: Val Voronkova

At 4 a.m. as we headed home Alex said it was the first modern disco she’d ever been to.  Such an honour it was to share that tiny life milestone with her!  It was before I found Situ his mountain.

It’s not true there’s nothing to see in Moldova.  The country has cave monasteries and the world’s largest wine cellars, Moldova being famous for wine; but December’s not the season for those.  And there’s nothing to be regretted about a visit to Chişinău, with everything undeniably life-sized there.  Nor will a visit to Chişinău leave you a hermit talking to horses as Mr. Lemuel Gulliver’s travels did to him, so there’s that to recommend it.

But for me, since Alex learnt French and immigrated to Canada Moldova’s star attraction is gone.

Some details extracted from an e-mail home, written at the time.

Chisinau cathedral. Photo: wikipedia

Chisinau city hall.  Photo: wikipedia

Orthodox church, Chisinau.  Photo: Val Voronkova

St Teodora de la Sihla Church. Photo: Val Voronkova

Other travel activities that won't reduce you to a hermit who talks only to horses include taking in a film at the Ranjit Talkies, raffling cows and visiting Mrs. Val.


This article also published in Star Magazine, here: The Dance of Lilliput

Open Doors

Hatiyan Pond

Cousin Arif knew there were guests and on that account the likelihood of tasty food was high.  Stepping through the doorway and without a word by way of greeting he positioned himself on the chair beside the table and said, ‘give rice.’  His predictions proved correct and a rice and fish lunch soon appeared from the back room.  In Bangladeshi villages including in Hatiya, doors are most often open.

I don’t remember Kohinoor but she remembered me.  She was just one amongst the flock of children thereabouts whose childhood memories feature a bit of ‘staring at the foreigner’ as a not irregular past hobby.  She was Monir’s sister she said and I’d eaten lunch at their house.  It was years ago but an occasion I can recall.

Kohinoor’s become a woman with her family of her own and when, bejewelled, cheerful and respectable, she stepped through the door with her husband and Monir I was surprised by her confident manner.  Her husband was a fellow from Munshigonj and from first impressions he had a good outlook on life and she’d done well.  They’d taken the time during Eid vacation, like me, to visit our little patch of Hatiya, and it was usual her husband would do the rounds of the relatives and friends while at his father-in-law’s house.  It was usual they’d come through our door amongst the many, without any formalities.  Tea was served and pithas hurriedly arranged from the neighbour’s in order to fuel our chat and I was honoured to belong to Kohinoor’s memories.  I swapped phone details such that we could meet again in Dhaka.

Yet there was one truly remarkable visit of late, from another tall and dignified Hatiyan woman who’d found the back door and stood in the doorway that leads to the front room looking at me as I sat.  I had no idea who she was until Situ said it.  ‘This is Shapla.’  I didn’t even properly smile at her when I heard it; even that most rudimentary communication seemed unnecessary.  I just looked and she also, and the volume of connection was such that actual words would have been petty and could only have diminished the moment.  She was Shapla.  She was proof that sometimes things get better.  She was living evidence that there are happy endings and of course my heart could not but fill with joy at the sight of her, after many years.

A rice and fish lunch soon appeared from the back room.

I was twenty-four when I’d first seen her; she was about fifteen and although in some respects it should’ve been a happy occasion, on the eve of her wedding day, it wasn’t.  Her face was of small tartan pieces, tiny squares of light and shade until the mosquito net was withdrawn.  She sat with legs curled, rigid and stared hollowly towards the end of the bed in her father’s house.  In her eyes there had dwelt an intense vacancy like someone had sucked the blood from each vessel that should have powered the facial muscles to register our entrance.

It was indeed in silence too, our first meeting, but of a different type.  It was silence that freight-train rumbled, strong enough to deafen us from the chattering voices that had filled the next room of the mud-floor, bamboo thatch house; voices alive with talk of jinns.

I worried I might scare her, on account of the white skin; for although she must know me would she even remember the Australian who lived across the rice field? Situ asked her name but she didn’t answer. He turned her face slightly with his hands so at least the blankness swung in our direction.  ‘She hasn’t eaten for three days,’ her father said quietly, ‘nor taken water. She doesn’t speak or sleep.’ He stood behind us, his face furrowed from planting and protecting, unable to be fully replenished by each season’s modest harvest. His was a gradually depleting face in those days.

He knew he was poor and unworldly; why he’d sought counsel from the wealthier, the older and the more religious. Our help was unasked for but as word of the entranced girl at the neighbour’s house had found us we came.

All the arrangements had been made. No doubt her father had saved for several seasons for the most simple of weddings and a pious family had been selected on the assumption it meant they were upstanding.  Her father had been pleased, his duty almost complete.  She’d have a better life with them.

It was normal she’d be nervous so close to her wedding, but beyond normal was her vacancy.  Shapla’s father should not have sent her to the tube well for water, his wife had scolded and he now only too well imagined, especially not in the evening when the winds blew. Bad things lived in the wind.

‘I’ll wait outside,’ I said to Situ, ‘I might scare her.’

‘Who is he?’ Situ said to Shapla sharply, pointing at me, ‘who is he? Can you say?’  I stopped. We waited. After a few moments, like a falling leaf her lips shuffled slightly; as though from a vast distance she murmured words.

‘What was that?’ Situ said, ‘who is he?’

This time we heard. Three words dripped into the room like kajurer juice into its pot, ‘your Australian friend.’

Even on the riverbank there is community

We retired to the next room. Several ladies waited on the bed there, but when they saw us coming they shielded their faces with their burqas and hurried outside. Through the door their voices called, and Situ translated, ‘what happened? Did she move? Do they know what to do?’

‘She spoke,’ Shapla’s father said. He brought a wooden school chair for me before sitting on the bed. ‘She’s in deep shock,’ I told Situ to say, ‘she’s not ready for marriage. How old is she?’

‘Eighteen,’ her father said.

‘The law says eighteen but she is not,’ I said.  The question was repeated and Shapla’s father hesitated, counted, didn’t really know. The villagers don’t usually celebrate birthdays and it’s all the more complicated to remember them with the three calendars, Gregorian, Islamic and Bengali.

‘Is she at school?’ I asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What can we do?’ I asked Situ.  He shook his head.

Shapla’s father said that one of the local respectable uncles or Miahs had diagnosed she was attacked by a jinn on the evening she went to get water from the well. ‘Tell him she’s too young to marry,’ I said, ‘he should call off the wedding.’ Situ told these things, but her father said he couldn’t, with arrangements made; that he wanted her to get well quickly as the groom’s family had already heard she was possessed and if they saw her in that state they might cancel the match themselves.

‘Then let them see,’ I said naïvely, ‘but more important right now is water. She must be dehydrated already. Get some saline.’ Situ reached into his pocket for a few takas to give to someone standing about, instructing him to go and buy saline.

‘Maybe we should move her,’ I suggested to Situ, ‘everything in this house must remind her of the wedding. No doubt there have been crowds of onlookers like us.’ I suggested we take her to his house.

‘I’ll ask,’ Situ said.

Surprisingly, Shapla’s father agreed. Without waiting for the saline Situ tried to give her a little water. He put a glass to her lips and she took a little. I wondered how we’d move her, would her joints unfreeze, the laws of anatomy and movement hold? I wondered about the sincere farmer who believed he was doing good as his daughter’s life seemed rumbling to disaster. I thought of what to do.

The sip of water must have worked like oil on rust because her hinges moved. Situ coaxed her and wrapping a chador around her, walked her out of the house. I followed at a distance, across the yard, and I grabbed the first stick I saw, for crowd control; as they walked ahead I swung wildly and yelled a bit, the way the locals did, to stop the neighbours from following us.

It was late afternoon as Situ and Shapla’s father supported her hunched mass along the road. A man from the colony stopped to ask what was wrong.

It was usual they'd come through our door, amongst the many, without any formalities.

‘Give her my room,’ I said, ‘I won’t go in there and you shouldn’t either. Does she know Amma?  Let Amma care for her.’  Situ’s living room filled with curious neighbours and contradictory advice. There was hardly room to breathe. They chatted as though at a party; it was a drama all the women could probably relate to in some part. I went to my room and closed all the shutters to prevent crowds appearing at the windows and then Amma and Situ’s wife took her there, while I hunted people from the house with the stick; not threateningly to the aunties and uncles but a little threatening to the children who otherwise wouldn’t budge.

With Shapla settled, Situ’s wife wished to set about making tea for her father, but he declined. With his daughter in Amma’s care he left. The women of the household busied themselves at the clay stove. They kindled straw and memories from their own weddings and the odd Hindi film; though in that house there were mostly love-marriages. They warmed rice and vegetables.

‘Should we call a doctor?’ I asked, knowing the nearest one was in town, ten kilometres to the north. ‘Wait and see,’ Situ said.

‘Probably it is only shock and the quiet might help,’ I said, ‘the change of scene.’ Shapla’s brother arrived with the saline, Situ mixed it and Amma served it.  ‘She shouldn’t get married,’ I said to Situ, ‘it’ll end badly. She should finish school first.’ He agreed but explained her father wouldn’t stop it because money had been spent.

‘Who cares about the money,’ I said, ‘tell her father I will give him the money if he calls it off. How much do weddings cost?’ In my head I calculated to see if I could really do that.  ‘Okay, but he won’t agree,’ Situ said, ‘it’s a pride matter.’

‘Then maybe I’ll call the police?’ I suggested, running out of options.  I already knew the general view: if the police came there’d be quite a deal of fuss and it might not be for any good result.

‘Already people are saying she is possessed, and if she doesn’t marry now she might never marry,’ Situ explained, ‘and even her family will be worried about having her in the house. In some families they would stop feeding her, or she would not eat through shame.’

‘No you have to ask her father,’ I said, ‘tell him I’ll pay and if he says no, tell him again and again until he agrees.’ I knew it was hopeless and a part of me always said I was a foreigner just learning about the village ways and I shouldn’t involve myself.

‘I’ll try,’ Situ promised.

As the river, in Hatiya life flows.  It knows not restriction of movement.

Those hours, I think, may have been the only peace Shapla had that day. She drank saline, ate a little, began to talk sensibly and went to sleep.  Despite her signs of recovery the diagnosis of shock was not widely accepted.  When he returned, Situ offered money but as expected Shapla’s father didn’t agree. Instead he thought the groom’s family might be satisfied if the jinn was exorcised and he’d brought a hujur with him for the purpose.

It’s strange but I don’t remember much of the exorcism. It was at a neighbour’s house; it was dark apart from kerosene lamps. We stood in a circle, the hujur beside Shapla; all the older men present. There were prayers I remember, holy passages recited and blown onto her, a tabiz or spell bracelet tied around her wrist. I remember glaring at the hujur from beginning to end so intensely I think he was scared of me. Shapla looked to the ground. I shouldn’t have been there at all.

The odd thing is, and I certainly didn’t understand it then, the exorcism may have helped Shapla a little, perhaps to get through the next day, the wedding we boycotted. Inevitably she must’ve also believed she was possessed.

Shapla’s father is respectful now. It took years before I could look at him kindly, as much as I knew him to be innocent, that he knew no better. Always I saw in his face the dark events of that time, her suffering.  Shapla’s marriage fell apart after an incident where she left the soap by the pond while washing clothes. The responsibilities were too much for she was just a child. Last I’d heard she was working in Dhaka as a maid.  All I’d managed for her was a few peaceful hours. It was a lesson; you can’t always win. And I failed her.

She’s married again now with two children, Situ said before she left the doorway as silently as she’d come.  Somehow she found a new husband from Sonadia, and although I’ve never met him as he wasn’t with her; although I only assume they are reasonably happy together, I had such a strong urge to seek him out and embrace him and thank him; and of course to congratulate him on his fine, fine choice.

In Australia doors are most often closed and if visitors should arrive unannounced they knock and enquire apologetically for having intruded; but in Hatiya life knows no restriction of movement: it’s in the growing paddies, in the birds and buffaloes.  In Hatiya life is not less free than the breezes, as the river it flows, moving along the road, amongst the trees and stepping at will into houses, crossing the thresholds of all the open doors.

Shapla’s name has been changed.

In Bangladeshi villages, including in Hatiya, doors are almost always open.

Doors to choose: Door-on-the-left Door-in-the-middle Door-on-the-right Train-door

This article also published in Star Magazine, here: Open Doors




Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh

Paraiso Percibir

‘Paradise’ es una palabra muy usada. A menudo se abraza “tropicales” y se refiere a algunos pedacito de tierra bordeada por playas idílicas adecuado para tarjetas postales. Pero en la Tierra no hay paraíso.

Es extraño cuando una sentencia altera su modo de ver. No sucede a menudo, pero de vez en cuando una cadena de palabras, pronunciadas tal vez sin pensar, por una persona al azar, puede causar un pequeño cambio e inimaginables al principio de la psique. A veces, algunas palabras son todo lo necesario para establecer un marcador de la vida, que divide el pasado y el futuro, sigilosamente agregar textura a la segunda. Estoy pensando en algo que sucedió hace años en mi primer viaje a Bangladesh en el invierno de 1995-6. Estoy pensando en tres simples palabras.

Probablemente fue el día más largo del viaje, la excursión de tres meses por el norte de la India y Bangladesh con mi Lachlan amigo de la escuela. Fue el día más largo, ya que era más que un solo día: el viaje del buque de Chittagong a Barisal, la continuación en autobús a Khulna sin descanso.

Al principio, el tiempo se mide en las ondas de tic-tac del metrónomo y la roca de la nave; atardecer y el amanecer trazado sobrecarga fácil círculos de aves marinas. La comunicación era la brisa salada y el progreso que el motor apagado. Un viaje en barco es como ningún otro.

El barco estaba repleto de personas y mercancías: había una camada de ruido y olores, un caos de cajas y bolsas. Había familias, ancianos y jóvenes, mendigos, trabajadores, pan-masticadores, los porteros y los revendedores. Nuestra ventaja: nos las arreglamos para reservar una cabaña. Con nuestras mochilas sobrecargadas que se había trasladado a través de la multitud como la lucha del salmón contra la corriente.

La gente era muy servicial. Ellos hicieron lo que el poco espacio que podía. La gente miraba: eran muchos y su mirada intensa. Bangladesh era nuevo para nosotros, que eran nuevas para ellos. La gente saltó del muelle al buque, subieron exterior de la nave con una urgencia inexplicable. Se llama ‘hola’ y le preguntó de dónde éramos, en masa.

Piense en esto: en la mayoría de este país, cada grano de tierra es un regalo de agua, cuidadosamente realizadas por miles de kilómetros de ríos, desde los altos montes del Himalaya, desde lugares tan exóticos como Devprayag, Xigaze y Haridwar, a través de la Uttar densamente pobladas Pradesh llanuras o los valles de Assam, a ser depositados, grano a grano, para convertirse en Bangladesh. No podía haber mejor manera de experimentar esto, la tierra de agua, que un viaje en barco.

Que habíamos encontrado Javed a su casa a Sandwip y conversó sobre su pasión, el cricket. Unas horas más tarde llegaron los barcos más pequeños. Hubo empujones en la cubierta principal, la gente empujó hacia la puerta. Javed fue uno de ella. La gente empuja hacia fuera y por unas escaleras de metal bajó a un lado y termina justo por encima del agua, donde los barcos más pequeños de madera fueron. Javed seguido. Hizo un gesto como de su desaparición, se dirigió a la orilla Sandwip.

Corrientes de meandro, en el aire, en el agua, entrecortado círculos líquidos son extraídos del mar por los motores, para desaparecer y reaparecer. Un viaje del buque libera la imaginación. Exactamente lo agitado pensamiento círculos de población que viaje a los años Barisal hace que no puedo decir, pero había un tema que estaba en lo que se decía. En ese primer viaje, mucha gente dijo, ‘tienes que ayudarme a conseguir un visado para Australia. ” “Lo siento mucho por nuestro país”, dijeron. “Me gustaría tener la piel”, dijeron.

Que se enfrentaba y torpe. Le explicamos visas australianas fueron una tarea difícil, y cuando les preguntamos por qué se disculpaba por su país, y le respondieron, porque era pobre, se podría decir honestamente que era tal vez pobres en dinero, pero rica en gente, la cultura y la naturaleza. No tenía ni idea en esos días lo mucho que era verdad. En cuanto a la piel, hemos tratado de expresar su falta de sentido práctico, propensa a las quemaduras solares y cáncer de piel, pero por supuesto no es lo que querían decir.

Yo estaba en la cubierta para ver el cambio de color del agua, aunque si fue antes o después de Sandwip ya no podía decir con certeza. Había una línea dura, desde el mar gris-verde con el marrón del río. Esta no era la desembocadura del río, pensé, pero sus labios. Los labios del Padma, Jamuna y Meghna: los hijos de los Himalayas de Devprayag, Xigaze y Haridwar.

Habíamos traído bocadillos: pan, papas fritas y plátanos. Con excepción de los plátanos, todos se había ido antes de que el Bay tomó el sol. Lachlan me encontró en la cubierta posterior. “No hay posibilidad de que mordió a uno de los plátanos está ahí, a través de su piel?” -le preguntó. “Eso no ocurrió, ¿verdad?” Teníamos ratas! Supongo que un barco no es que se precie sin al menos una rata, pero para mí significó una noche sin dormir.

Por entonces no era el cielo de la noche para medir el tiempo, las estrellas cerca y de lejos, hace mucho tiempo a las emisiones de luz más reciente que llega al ojo, el espectáculo fue lo suficientemente impresionante para mí a desafiar el frío del invierno. Yo estaba en cubierta cuando el buque llegó a Hatiya.

La orilla Hatiya, no muy lejos, era una pantera agazapada y wafery inmóvil contra el movimiento apenas perceptible del río. A partir de ella, aquí y allá, llegó el resplandor parpadeante luz de una lámpara de queroseno.

Las escaleras de metal se redujeron una vez más: los barcos de madera llena rápidamente con las personas, sacos, bolsas, redes y jaulas. Trabajadores pasado cestas de caña directamente sobre la cara y en los barcos. Sus armas no eran lo suficiente, por lo que las canastas que poco antes de la caída libre de los brazos extendidos de los barqueros atrapado. Hay un pequeño riesgo de la Meghna podría un reclamo. Como mis brazos eran un poco más largo que se agachó, con los brazos en la barandilla, para ayudar. Era un trabajo fácil. Los barqueros sonrió agradecido, ya que tomó las cestas, haciendo señas a mí, que apunta a tierra en una invitación sin palabras.

Era una oferta favorable, ya que en los próximos años Hatiya que sí que mi pueblo natal, Bangladesh, y que fue la primera vez que lo vi. Con un guiño y un codazo, el tiempo estaba diciendo algo, revelando un instante del futuro. Pero yo no entendía.

Mañana significaba puerto Barisal y suciedad fina de polvo que cubría el cuerpo como un hongo. Estábamos viajando demasiado rápido, tendremos que soportar hasta Khulna. El viaje en autobús parecía interminable, era agotador y no había otro pasajero que no paraba de hablar. Khulna parecía más cerca, el autobús fue del tipo llamado murir estaño: factores que no trajo consuelo. En aquellos días había varios cruces de transbordadores, para el viaje, como las marcas de hora en un reloj.

No era un vendedor con un incontable número de artículos pequeños prendida en su chaqueta: antorchas de bolsillo, bolígrafos, maquinillas de afeitar, pinzas para el cabello … Se puso de pie en el pasillo y abrió su abrigo. Para nuestro asombro, su tienda de móviles en el interior continuó: candados, peines, cepillos de dientes … Sus artículos fueron inmovilizados en las filas a cada lado. Fue genial, pero la mezcla de sorpresa y cansancio nos hizo reír. Él dijo que debemos dar propina para que nos da la risa. Probablemente deberíamos tener, para apoyar su iniciativa empresarial. En lugar de eso dijo que la risa era libre.

En alguna parte alrededor de Bagerhat sucedió. El autobús se detuvo por un ferry. Probablemente fuimos a encontrar algo comestible en uno de los puestos de Ramadán con cortinas. Las circunstancias exactas no lo sé, y yo no recuerdo mucho cómo era o quién era, para los que hablamos, pero unos pocos minutos, mientras que Lachlan fue ocupado en otra cosa. “¿Qué piensa usted de Bangladesh? el desconocido le preguntó, y yo le dije, naturaleza hermosa, gente amistosa: mi respuesta habitual y sincera.

Él respondió, y estas son las tres palabras, la pena, que golpeó. Él dijo, “Bangladesh es el paraíso.”

El poder de la frase! ¿Cómo se mantenía aparte de todas las otras frases, ¿cuánto se diferencia de los otros. Como no podía con tanto valor independiente? Más intrigante, ¿qué hizo su altavoz ver que no podía, porque para mí, recuerda, la exposición a la pobreza material en que viven muchos habitantes de Bangladesh estaba sorprendentemente nuevo. ¿Cómo es posible que dos personas del mismo mundo vea de manera tan diferente?

El autobús se salió, no había oportunidad de aclarar. Le dije a Lachlan la sentencia y que fue impresionado. Pero esa frase se quedó, la cuestión de la percepción, los valores en la vida y lo que hizo que la alegría. Esa frase cruzado las fronteras, escondido en algún lugar en mi equipaje. Se volvió en momentos de tranquilidad y se quedó mirando como la gente en el barco: las preguntas que planteaba inevitablemente aleje de nuevo sin respuesta, sin respuesta.

El ferry final fue fuera de la ciudad de Khulna. Mientras esperábamos a una multitud reunida para observar, probablemente el más grande que había atraído en cualquier lugar. Tal vez treinta personas de pie y miró, no amenazante, sino de curiosidad, y, animado por su número, se acercó más, hasta hace un par de ellos tocó suavemente el brazo. Querían saber cómo se sentía, de piel blanca. “Es el mismo que el suyo,” una simple frase que quería decir, pero no podía encontrar las palabras para que entiendan.

Me gustaría dar las gracias a ese señor de la frase paraíso, por sus preguntas de las percepciones. Que podría haber sido la cosa más importante que sucedió en el primer viaje, pero de lo que sucedió después. En Khulna una de las preguntas que se planteó fue invertida de forma inesperada: ¿cómo es posible que dos personas de mundos tan diferentes ver tanto lo mismo?

Esta historia tiene cinco partes: Esta es la parte quinta y última.
El anterior parte de esta historia está aquí: La Cancion de Chittagong
La primera parte de esta historia está aquí: Bangladesh Espera

Este artículo también se publica aquí:

Perceiving Paradise  (En esta página, en Inglés)
Perceiving Paradise  (Por la revista Star, en Inglés)
Paraiso Percibir (En español)




Bangladesh Dreaming: Article Index for articles about Bangladesh