Armenia in Bangladesh

This article explains the presence of this Armenian Church in Bangladesh that my dad took my sister and I to.

Nasim Mama

My dad woke us up at 7 a.m. to tell us that our uncle, my mother's oldest brother, died. My Nasim Mama ("mama" is the Bengali term for your uncles on your maternal side of the family) had a lot of health problems. He has been in and out of hospital for a long time. He was the reason my mother finally went to Bangladesh last December, though, he seemed fine at that time. Out of my family in Bangladesh, he was the closest to me, thanks to e-mail. We'd email each other at least once a week, talking about school, family, etc.

He died around Tuesday night (Bangladesh time) of a stroke.

On the phone, while my mother talked to her sisters, she told them, "At least you were there with him," in between sobs. It made me think of the guilt she must feel for being here in the U.S. while her entire family is back in Bangladesh, struggling on practically nothing. She didn't get to spend enough time with her parents, sisters and brothers as someone should get to.

It's sad.

Motorboat, Bengali-style

In the Naf River, back in January.

From Dhaka to Calcutta, We Go

The Moitree, or Maitreyi, Express in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo by Subir Bhaimuk from the BBC.

Today marks the first official run of the Moitree Express (Friendship Express) from Dhaka, Bangladesh to Calcutta, India. This train used to run back when Bangladesh was still Pakistan, but it was shut down during the 1965 war between India and Pakistan (which eventually led to the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War from Pakistan). Fittingly, today is also Bengali New Year's.

My dad said it was a shame we weren't in Bangladesh now so that we might've taken the train. The cheapest tickets are around $8 U.S., which probably means that first class tickets would be around $20 U.S. Looking at the BBC's pictures, it seems like the interior of the train resembles the train we took from Chittagong to Dhaka--the fans on the ceilings, the seats, the doors. Though, our train wasn't decorated with flowers.

My dad recalled his father's stories about taking the bus from Dhaka to Calcutta to his first job when Bangladesh was still part of India. His father, my grandfather, was part of three countries: India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; my mother and father were part of the latter two.

I hope, the next time I'm in Bangladesh, I get to take this train.

Unfinished Paths to Nowhere

Because it's dangerous to cross the streets in Bangladesh, there are overhead pathways. At a major intersection near outer-Dhaka, these pathways remain unfinished, like many things in the country.

Bits: Viva Egypt, Sinking Bengali Ferries and Romanian Traffic Cops/Ballerinas

Cairo, Egypt--1950. Photo from Slate.

1.

"Egypt Independent" from Slate

In celebration of Egypt's independence from the British Empire, Slate posted pictures of Egypt through the years and it looks amazing.

2.

"Thirty-one dead as Bangladesh ferry sinks" & "Chronology - Bangladesh ferry disaster" from Reuters

Because of the recent ferry accident near Dhaka, Reuters decided to compile a list of all the ferry accidents in Bangladesh, which is sort of strange and interesting.

3.

"All the jam's a stage for Romanian traffic police" by Kate Connolly, from the Guardian

So Romanian traffic cops in Timisoara have to take ballet lessons in order to become more graceful and to calm angry drivers, giving them something to enjoy while stuck in traffic or behind red lights. There really is nothing more to say about it.

A Clean(er) Bangladesh

The street outside my oldest aunt's house in Bangladesh.

After reading this article about a plastic bag ban in Ireland (brought to my attention by my lovely Hannah), I thought about Bangladesh. And garbage.

Back in 1995, one of my clearest memories of Bangladesh was the overwhelming smell of garbage. The heavy heat of the summer plus the immense amounts of trash lying around in the streets created the deepest, strongest scent of rot. It felt like you were branded with that smell for days.

Afterwards, before we left for Bangladesh back in December, I read somewhere that Bangladesh banned plastic (polythene, as they call it) bags because of clogged drainage systems, in 2002. Instead, they have these neat netted bags and, of course, paper bags.

While the government thought ahead with the plastic bag ban, there is still no accountability for garbage in Bangladesh. The lack of garbage cans is to be expected. At my oldest aunt's house, I looked for a place to throw out a candy wrapper, but I couldn't find a garbage can. I asked my aunt where I should throw it. She took it and threw it off the balcony. This is where my mother picked up her habit from. Outside, the streets are filled with litter, just like in 1995, and every so often, as you drive, you see heaps of garbage along the roads. Poorer people pick through the piles, looking for anything that could be recycled, useful for themselves or sold for money.

On a similar note, in Dhaka, we were used to green-colored baby taxis, or autorickshaws. During an outing to Sonargon, I noticed more and more yellow-colored autorickshaws as we got further and further away from Dhaka. My cousin, Dola, pointed them out to me and told me that the government was going to ban them soon and replace them with the green autorickshaws. Why? The yellow autorickshaws ran on petrol, which contributed to Bangladesh's already horrible air quality. The newer, green autorickshaws run on compressed natural gas, or CNG.

These laws, along with the abundance of rickshaws and human-powered vehicles (walking carts, carrying cargo by hand, rowing boats (!!!)), would make you think that Bangladesh is well on its way to being a clean country, but you'd be wrong. Despite the CNGs and cycling in Dhaka, the streets were still clogged with cars and buses. The air was thick with smog and dust--I had a constant cough the entire time I was there. It took me a week to adjust to New York's cleaner air when I got back. Shocking, no?

Moving Cargo

Check out the guy on the rickshaw holding the long, long metal pipe.

Roofs of Dhaka

Rowing in the Naf River

This was taken during our boat ride to St. Martin's Island, off the coast of Bangladesh. The Naf River acts as the border between Burma and Bangladesh.

The Betrayed World

"Beauty is the world betrayed."
--Milan Kundera, The Unbearable Lightness of Being



Sonargon was the first capital of Bangladesh. My cousin told me about these old, Hindi houses out there that are abandoned now, and the government can't afford to preserve them, so there they stand. Of course, people live in many of those buildings because, hey, it's shelter.

(One of) Moghbazar's Mosques

This was the mosque my father went to when he was a child with his father.

The Corals of St. Martin's

Bits: Peace on Paper, Obama's Grammy, International Learning, Modernizing India, Getting Those Step-Ons and Turtle and Elephant Tales

Unfinished highway in Mumbai. Photograph by Adam Ferguson, via Time.

1.

"Virtual Peace Isn't Enough" by Zalman Shoval, from the New York Sun

Bush's new goal is to set a definition of the Palestine state, rather than creating it. Granted, though, that would be impossible to do in his remaining 7 months.

And Shoval does bring up a good point: on paper, peace means nothing; it's the actual implementation of peace and laws that create it that really mean something.

2.

"Maine to Obama; Clinton Replaces Campaign Leader" by Katharine Q. Seelye, from the New York Times
Hahahaha, Obama won a Grammy and beat Bill Clinton.

3.

"U.S. Universities Rush to Set Up Outposts Abroad" by Tamar Lewin, from the New York Times

Globalization is obviously big and now, instead of international students flocking to the U.S. for education, there is a new place for them in the Middle East and American universities are giving them those opportunities. Brian Baird, a subcommittee member, brings up an interesting point:

"Still, he said he worried that foreign branches could undermine an important American asset--the number of world leaders who were students in the United States.

'I do wonder," he said, 'if we establish many of these campuses overseas, do we lose some of that cross-pollination?'"

4.

"Rebuilding Mumbai" photographed by Adam Ferguson, from Time

These pictures remind me a lot of Bangladesh, except that one picture of the brightly-lit streets at night. In Bangladesh, there was always a dark soft glow of light.

5.

"Indonesia to spray train roof riders" from Reuters

I saw this a lot in Bangladesh: people cram into any space they can when using public transportation, even if that means sitting on the roof of a car, truck or train, without any fear. In this article, it says about 53 people died traveling that way in Indonesia. I wonder what the number for Bangladesh would be. And, come on Reuters, Indonesia isn't part of Africa...

6.

"Turtle Swims from Indonesia to Oregon" from the AP

So he swam 13,000 miles. You go, turtle.

7.

"Wild elephant stray into B'desh village, kill man" from Reuters

And another elephant, though nowhere near where I was.

The Living River

"...The living river and the living river alone gives coherence and significance and therefore beauty to the canyon world. 'I love all things which flow,' said the deepest of Irishmen."

--Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Bengali Working Day, take tin

Bits: Designing the Waterfront, Euros in NY, South Asian Accents, Iranian Magazines, Disappearing Islands, Disaster Relief, Lifeboats & Dead Dolphin

It's been a while since I've done one of these, since I don't have that office job anymore and all. But now's a good a time as any to start it back up again.

1.

"Turning a Pier Into a Park," New York Times Editorial

I've been following the entire Pier 40 debates because I am invested in its outcome (hell Community Village Boating). There are three plans (Related's Las Vagas-izing of the Pier, along with housing Cirque du Soleil, Urban Dove's focus on sports and the Pier 40 Partnership's desire to maintain the Pier as is while creating more organizational space. Out of these, the New York Times favors the Related plans, and while it does make sense from a business point of view because the Pier needs to generate money for its renovation and for the Hudson River Trust, I was kind of disappointed. I thought maybe the Times would root for the underdog--the Pier 40 Partnership. Yeah, sure, they don't have a firm plan, but, come on, it's the perfect plan. Don't destroy something that already works, don't push stores and restaurants down our throats, we already have Seaport for that. Let Pier 40 live on as a pier for the people.

2.

"'Euros Accepted' signs pop up in New York City" from Reuters

So the dollar is so, so bad that stores around New York are accepting Euros, and other foreign monies from tourists taking advantage of their monetary superiority.

3.

"East River State Park" from A Daily Dose of Architecture

This blog posted images of the winning design concept for the East River State Park in Williamsburg. While it looks nice, it's hard to tell whether there is ACTUAL waterfront access. We don't need more railing along the rivers, right?

4.

"An Ad With Talking Pandas, Maybe, But Not With Chinese Accents" by Stuart Elliot, from the New York Times

Elliot talks about the controversy over Salesgenie's Super Bowl commercials, one that featured animated pandas that spoke with Chinese accents and another that included Ramesh, a salesman. What caught me about this article is the description of Ramesh's accent:

Mr. Gupta [chairman and chief executive of InfoUSA, parent company to Salesgenie] said he planned to keep running the other Salesgenie commercial, featuring an animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.

Yep.

5.

"Shutting Down Zanan," New York Times Editorial

Because it's easier to get rid of any possible opposition than actually confronting them in a civilized way, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad closed Zanan, an Iranian women's magazine. The reason? According to the editorial, because "the magazine was a 'threat to the psychological security of the scoiety' because it showed Iranian women in a 'black light.'" This, of course, wasn't true. Ahmadinejad was just afraid of women empowerment, especially in an Islamic country where sharia law sets women apart from men.

6.

"For some, climate fight is about survival," by Elisabeth Rosenthal, from International Hearld Tribune

Attention to drastic climate changes, all thanks to global warming, is growing constantly. Just look at all the havoc being wrecked throughout the world, like Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh, the tsunami in Indonesia and of course, Hurricane Katrina. There is the constant push for new environmental laws that would limit greenhouse gases from major industrial countries, like China and the U.S. (two countries which refuse to do so). One of the areas of the world that is often overlooked, both for their size and their lack of international power: low-lying islands, such as Bali, Maldives and Granada, as Rosenthal points out. As sea levels rise, these islands are in danger of disappearing. Entire countries vanished. Can you imagine that?

7.

"Anonymous donor gives $130m to cyclone-hit Bangladesh" from the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Sort of along the same lines, this is really nice. And, just so you know, 130,000,000 Australia dollars (I assume that's what the article meant) is equal to 7,946,669,332.57 Bangladesh taka.

8.

"Jan. 30, 1790: The Lifeboat, an Idea Whose Time Has Come" by Tony Long, from Wired

Because I'm a boat-nerd, I needed to share this.

9.

"Rare Dolphin 'beaten to death' in Bangladesh" from AFP

This is sad, but strangely makes sense--if something isn't familiar, you're going to be scared of it.

Inside the Baby Taxi

Port of Chittagong

Boat Dreams

At the port on St. Martin's, off the coast of Bangladesh.