The pied piper of Dhaka

Have you ever seen a movie star walking a tiger down

Oxford Street

? The crowd’s reaction is easy to imagine: stunned silence, open mouths and eyes that unblinkingly track this most unusual of sights. A westerner in
Bangladesh produces a similar reaction. Everyone stares at you. There is no conception of privacy or personal space, but in a small city bursting with 14 million people that is hardly aspiring. They gawk at you because you are white and maybe the most interesting thing they’ve seen that day. The looks are never intimidating or malicious, just agog, stunned, puzzled. If they can recover from their incredulity, then expect questions. ‘What is your country?’ comes first, followed quickly by ‘What is your name?’ or ‘Married?’. Since everyone knows these stock phrases, and everyone is curious, expect to be asked a dozen times a day, more if you venture out. 

A conversation in back broken Bangla with a rickshaw wallah will attract a crowd at an exponential rate. At first only one Bengali will join in, the boldest, keen to help you make yourself understood though he knows no more English than the wallah. He will be joined by another and then a few a more, and as the crowd grows the more courage people have to join in. Finally understood, you make your way on the back of the rickshaw while the crowd remains trying to comprehend what it has just witnessed. There are days when I feel like a novelty attraction, perhaps a dancing bear or a monkey that does tricks. 

The celebrity status I enjoy is often irritating, but it does have its advantages. Often beggars are so stunned to see a white man that they forget to entreat me for money. A few hundred yards down the street I see their faces morph from bewilderment to the despair of missed opportunity. ‘Damn, there goes a white guy and I forget to hit him for some cash!’ 

Of all the attention I receive as a foreigner in
Bangladesh, the reaction of children is most entertaining. On sight their eyes and mouths widen into full moons, totally entranced by a man so pale the light reflects off of him. They tug their parent’s sleeves: ‘Father, what is wrong with that man? He is so pale, like a ghost. Is he dying?’. If I encounter group of kids in the street, then they follow for a few hundred yards, a long drawn out tail of inquisitive faces, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest, falling over his feet to keep up.

A puzzle solved

For the past month I have been woken by the cry of ‘Aaaaahhhh Muuuughi’ and today I have finally deciphered this strange noise. ‘Aaaaahhh Muuuuggghi’ is the cry of the chicken man. He walks about the city with a large wicker basket on his head, about a metre in diameter, stocked full of live chickens. Aaaaahhh Muuuuuughi’ is in fact mughi which is bangla for chicken. The scrawny birds sit in his basket, docile and bewildered. They look as if they know their fate and have given up hope.

War of the Roaches (Part 1): a scream in the night

I awoke in the dead of night to the piercing sound of a high-pitched scream. It kicked me from my deep slumber instantaneously. What horror had come to visit? What foul entity, be it natural or supernatural, had come to torment me, perhaps to take my very life? I sprang to the light switch, never lacking in courage, so I could better confront the evil. The fluorescent glow revealed a twirling mass on Mark’s bed. I saw what I thought were too hands furiously beating the bed clothes, and the same shrill cry echoing about the bedchamber. I moved to my back foot, my courage faltering at the sight on the unholy terror. Gradually the whirling mass began to take a recognisable form. It was my friend Mark, his face anguished and tear stained and his hands still tearing at his sheets. At last I could make sense of the scream: COCKROOOAAAACH!

Singapore Slim

We are about 2 weeks into Ramadan, the holy month where Muslims fast throughout the day to purify themselves and train their minds and bodies to be good and just in the coming year. As atheists and Christians we are not expected to participate in the fasting, but living in a predominately Muslim country there are still implications on our diet. As a matter of courtesy we do not eat or drink in front of our hosts during the day.

The cafeteria where we eat most of our meals is still open, but offers a limited selection of food (even more limited than rice and curry). Now breakfast and lunch is bought in the local supermarket, Agora, and taken in our room. We’re eating a lot of fruit and drinking a lot of water, supplemented with bread and biscuits. This partially self-imposed diet has been nicknamed the Singapore Slim for reasons that I’m not entirely sure of.

The Singapore slim is a powerful weight loss diet, since in effect it involves only eating one meal a day. I’m planning to market it along similar lines to the Atkins diet. I think there’s some money to be made here. To achieve your weight loss dreams all you need to do is move to an Islamic country during Ramadan and live according to the customs of your surroundings. It is simple to use: there’s no point counting, no calculations – just dramatic weight loss that would make a supermodel convulse with envy.