Meet the in laws..

Day 5

Another slow start to the day was very much appreciated. The electricity goes missing more times than funds out of the government kitty! A very unpleasant night where I eventually fell asleep at 4am just as everyone else was getting ready to wake up!

The big job of the day today was to go and see a cousin who recently got married and meet her in laws for the first time. What I didn’t realise until later was that my cousins father in law had two wives, both of whom worked in perfect tandem serving us a variety of snacks. How that worked I don’t know! And I guess it would have been rude of me to enquire about their sleeping arrangements! Just out of curiosity of course! Our host started to quiz me about what I did for a living. He asked me if I owned a restaurant, when I said no he asked me if I worked in one. I said no. He asked if I was a taxi driver! I told him no. He asked if I worked for an 'English' company to which I nodded, did I work in a factory he asked! I said no and told him my profession. I don't think he quite understood my job but he then asked me how much I earned. How rude, at least my personal questions about his sleeping arrangements stayed in my head! I didn't tell him what I earned and he rapidly lost interest in me and moved on to the biscuits!

The evening was a difficult time for me. A man I despise from a few incidents from years ago came to visit us at the bari. The guy is an utter wanker but I had to be civil which was a challenge. I hated his fakeness when asking about my well being and how good it was to see me. The guy knows he’s swindled a lot of money out of my family but still maintains an air of arrogance which drives me nuts! Anyway, I won’t see him again this trip so it’s not all bad! But like a typical juvenile I did stick a finger up at him as he left, not very mature I know but it did make me smile!

Lazy Crazy Days

Day 4

The day started out nice and chilled out, one of the things I love about living out in the village rather than in town. I woke up late, the sun was shining and the electricity was still available! People were going about their everyday business and despite the hive of activity the noise was restricted to the odd cock (I’m not referring to the villagers by the way!). I showered and then sat on the balcony for a bit watching the world go by, had some lunch and then back to the balcony for a bit of a siesta!

Unfortunately the afternoon going in to the evening was not so relaxing. Having to work on the house has become a major pain in the rear because of the state it is in. We spent 4 hours in town buying bits and bobs, the cost of everything having rocketed to new levels of madness. Traffic has become a nightmare and parking is impossible in the main areas of town. After a marathon shopping spree that included buckets, light bulbs and a water filter we headed back to the bari in need of some relaxation and some quality time sitting under the fan, typically when we got home the bloody ‘current’ was out! To make matters worse the local mad woman reported that she’d seen thieves lurking around the village last night. This sent my mother in to a panic and she went about securing all the windows and doors. I must admit, the thought of tackling a burglar in Bangladesh in the middle of the night with no electricity didn’t sound too appealing. Eventually the power came back only to go again at 2am at which time I awoke to find myself dripping in sweat with the sounds of mosquito’s buzzing in my ear. Two hours of tossing and turning later the power came back and I gently fell asleep.

Credit Crunch...

Day 3

Today was spent driving around town in a desperate bid to fulfil the list of tasks set by my missus. Driving around Moulvibazar town is hell, the traffic is terrible and the poor rickshaw drivers get slated for no fault of their own. One thing was obvious, Bangladesh is suffering from it’s own financial meltdown, but not because of the global credit crunch, more so to do with the fact that the caretaker government has done such a great job of ridding the area of corruption it has caused prices to soar. A 1.5 litre bottle of Coca Cola that used to be 80 taka now costs a whopping 150 taka! Luckily we weren’t food shopping, unluckily we were shopping for clothes which worked out worse. Much worse!

One thing that will never change in Bangladesh is the way people stare at young females. I was assisted in my shopping mission by my two sister-in-laws who seemed to leave a trail of gawping men behind them. Once upon a time this kind of thing really angered me, but nowadays I’ve learnt to accept it, however irritating and perverted it may seem.

I spent the evening back at the bari (or as I fondly like to call it ‘The Village of Death’). By the time I got back it was dark so I didn’t have to see any evil looks come my way. But the electricity went down for several hours and the results were not pleasant!

Snakes in a drain....

Day 2

After a great kip I was forced awake by Bablu at 9.30. Nani started harassing me about breakfast from the get go but I managed to get away without eating anything. But the day was summed up by one subject – SNAKES! The cook went to the loo to take a dump and spotted a snake lurking in the corner of the toilet. Un-perturbed he smashed it with the toilet brush and killed it. Now that’s an effective solution to constipation! So much fuss was made about the snakes and many passers by came in to look at the reptile whilst giving their expert advice.
As the day wore on more snakes appeared and people were starting to worry.

After Jummah prayers my Nani summoned the Imam to do some prayers and scatter holy water which he did so. He proudly claimed no further snakes would appear and left with a handsome reward. He was only gone 30 minutes before the next snake emerged from some unknown orifice. My mother went in search for a professional, unfortunately the A-Team were unavailable, Steve Irwin is dead and the Ghostbusters didn’t dabble in the reptile field. The bad news for her was that she came back empty handed as the local snake charmers were no longer able to ply their trade because the new caretaker government had taken away the tools they used to do their business. I’ll post some pics from a group of snake charmers we watched in action back in 2005 at some point.

My Trip to Bangladesh - Day One

Some things never change!

I thought I would keep a diary of my trip to Bangladesh this year and put it up on the blog. Not sure if anyone is interested, not sure if I’ll be interested by the end!

The journey to Bangladesh started at 2am on 16th October as we made the journey from Sharjah to Dubai airport. We just about managed to squeeze our baggage through without exceeding the limit, unlike the poor guy beside us who was faced with a £310 bill! The title of this blog stemmed from the debacle at Gate 123 as boarding commenced. Our flight had all the passengers travelling from most of the middle eastern destinations to Dhaka which meant the flight was full of boisterous young men returning to Bangladesh for the first time in years.

The flight was scheduled to board at 1.15am. By 1.05 a large group of 50 or so passengers had gathered around the entrance. This crowd grew steadily as the announcement came for all passengers travelling with young children and family to board first. Unfortunately most of the assembled crowd did not understand English and proceeded to try and force their way in. I have a lot of sympathy for the Emirates official who stood by his guns and did not allow boarding to turn in to a total farce. At one point he threatened to deny boarding to a cocky youngster who got a little heated under the collar, a very brave gesture when one is surrounded by a baying mob. The crowd eventually fell in to order and boarding commenced of all the economy passengers.

The flight itself was only 4 hours in duration and passed off without too many dramas and the plane landed ahead of time. So far so good I thought. We entered Zia International and straightaway the new signage caught my eye, I think the sponsor was Tiger mobile. Even the queue for Immigration was pretty short and the actual processing took less than 3 minutes. Too good to be true, something had to go wrong. And it did. For some reason the baggage was very slow coming off and to make matters worse the luggage was separated between two different belts so we had to fly between the two. After an hour and a half we finally had all our bags and made our way avoiding the predatory clutches of the customs officers.

The trip from Dhaka to Moulvibazar took the full 4 hours. If anyone else tells me it only takes 2-3 hours, I will personally set them on fire! The trip wasn’t too bad to be honest and we arrived at the Village (bari) in good time. Unfortunately things weren’t as expected an despite 3 days non stop work by cousins, the house looked terrible. Locked up with no air for the best part of 3 years the place was covered with bugs and the paint had begun to pill. So thief had stolen some of the pipes that connected the water tank to the house water supply so emergency repairs had to be done. An act of burglary or an act of vandalism I don’t know!

It was great to see my Nani (Gran)as she had no clue I was coming until an hour earlier, she still makes me laugh even in her advancing years. A few friendly faces popped in and a few not so friendly faces popped in to make some forced hellos. Foyzur Bhai popped in to say hi a few hours later and promptly vanished again. The in laws popped in, in the evening and the electricity went for several hours and so we were forced to endure the sweltering heat. I hit the hay about 7.30pm and slept through the night pretty well.

See you later...

There won't be many updates for the next couple of weeks because I'll be busy drinking a cold Pran in sunny Moulvibazaar!

The fastest way to lose friends...

Most Bengali's seem to be fairly mild mannered and it often takes them a while to get riled up, but one surefire way to insult your fellow countryman is by not taking their parcels back to Bangladesh with you.

As soon as someone announces they are going to Bangladesh, the phone starts ringing night and day, everyone has a small package for delivery. Sometimes people you haven't even heard from in years will get in touch and ask you to take something back for them. Why should you? With the amount of luggage you are allowed to carry, space and weight is at a premium. The other problem the traveller faces is that if they are faced with a random baggage examination by a Customs officer, it is a tad bit embarassing when you tell them you don't know what is in the tightly fastened parcel in your bag!

But there lies the problem, if you say no to someone, they get the hump and ill feeling begins to fester. They stop phoning you and bad mouth you to the world. But when they go to Bangladesh, they won't tell you and if you do find out they make all sorts of excuses as to why they can't carry your goods.

I myself have been faced with luggage loathing recently, after I refused to carry someones video tape. The reason being, the guy in question hadn't spoken to me in 2 years and I didn't have the room. Since then, we haven't spoken to each other and quite frankly it hasn't had an adverse affect on my life!

So next time either don't take any parcels from anyone or else be prepared to pay some money for excess baggage!

Probably not the best way to deal with marital failure...

Telegraph Article

I came across the article above from back in 2001 when one of the most unlikely couples tied the knot in a bizarre wedding ceremony in jail! Saira Rehman got married to one of the UK's most dangerous prisoners - Charles Bronson!

I remember reading about back then but knowing the whole story, Saira's background is similar to that of a large number of Bangladeshi women who come to the UK through marriage and ultimately the marriage fails. Saira arrived in 1990, having only met her husband at the altar in Bangladesh, her husband assualted her and as expected the marriage didn't last. She escaped to a womens refuge where she brought up her newborn daughter, before moving to a council flat and putting herself through college. A remarkable achievement for some who didn't speak a word of English and one who had no family in the UK. But here is where the story takes a bit of twist, rather than being put off men for life, she sees a picture of Charles Bronson in the paper and fell for his errrr boyish charms? Adonis like good looks?

Whatever the reason, 3 months and 9 prison visits later the two were husband and wife, except she went back to Luton and he went back to solitary confinement. As expected, the marriage didn't stand the test of time and the two were soon divorced. A lucky escape? Not for Saira, rather than counting her lucky stars she decided to publish a book about her life and of course her marriage to Charles. Bronson wasn't best pleased and wrote her a letter which is on his official site. Apparrently he thought her appearance on the Jeremy Kyle show was a little low brow! Again I think she got off lightly!

You can read Charles's response HERE

She's planning on releasing a second book about her life with the notorious inmate, which I am sure will infuriate him further. Maybe someone should tell the former Mrs Bronson it's probably not a great idea pissing off one of Britain's most dangerous prisoners!

Her book 'Breaking Free' can be purchased from the Joi Bangla Book Store HERE

Air Sylhet - Still Grounded!

If you tuned in to Channel S a year ago, one advert you would have seen was the Air Sylhet advert. Hailed as the UK's first ever affordable direct flight to Sylhet. They held investment days around the country trying to secure the funds to launch the service in 2008. There was announcement that Luton would be the airport of choice before expansion to other major airports of London, Birmingham and Manchester were introduced.

Then suddenly everything went quiet. The ads were pulled off of Channel S and no news seemed to be forthcoming. I bet some of the investors were getting twitchy feet by now. I have my own theory as to why things went cold. Firstly negotiations between the airline and the Bangladeshi authorities came to a halt. If Air Sylhet was able to fly diretcly to Sylhet, then Zia International Airports passenger throughfare would decrease. By allowing direct travel to this region, the government would see a huge power shift from Dhaka to Sylhet. And with increased competition, Bangladesh Biman would find itself in a difficult position.

However after a period of inactivity, the adverts are back and it now appears that Air Sylhet is ready to take off. A visit to their website shows that Vienna seems to be the transit point for the airline with flights to Dubai and Vienna available. It appears the airline has yet to finalise it's deal with Bangladesh and thus flights are only offered to those destinations. Furthermore, the most worrying aspect is that if you look at the official website, a list of destinations does not include Sylhet! I wonder if in the current economical climate, it is prudent for Air Sylhet to commence business when their major selling point is not available. Without Dhaka on their schedule (not to mention Sylhet!) business will be very slow to pick up. But at least they are up and running, unlike Royal Bengal Airlines!

Bangla Rap Wars!

Rap music has spawned some of the greatest rivalries of modern time, Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. tore it up in the 90's and 50 Cent and the G-Unit beefed with pretty much anyone and everyone. It now appears that the art of war has spilled over in to the Bengali rap world. I'm sure everyone has heard the excellent rap track by Lal Miah called Lal Ekhla Eksho, well it looks like he's got a couple of haters out there, Dulal and Polob who have recoreded their own version titled Lal is Tal.

Here's both versions, make your own minds up as to which is better!

Lal Miah - Ekhla Eksho

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv-eTzb2BH4

Dulal & Polob - Lal is Tal



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcwszbZCtvY