February 12, 2009
Chandpur, Bangladesh
View from the Mayuri, he's photographing me with his cell phone
Mayuri means Peacock. We floated her, bloated with people, down the river to Chandpur, A village where Priyankas' dida was born, her grandmother. In a mission hospital run by New Zealanders, before partition, before there was a Bangladesh. In this country, only 15 years older than I am, there is so much pride and pain.
Two days before pulling out of the war, under the cover of night, the East Pakistani army searched out all the Bangladeshi artists and intellectuals they had been maintaining tabs on during the war and shot them dead. To leave the country without a backbone, without its intelligentsia, without its art, without a voice. This day is still remembered, mourned. This was 1971. This is barely old enough to be called history.
The current population is around 150 million, 40% of whom live under the poverty line. Irresponsible? Corrupt? A Basket Case, at it has famously been called. After partition, when money was given to rebuild each of the battered nations the Pakistani (East and West) Government gave a disproportionate amount to West Pakistan. There was no major governing body here to protest. The Liberation War, only 25 years later, the slaughter of millions, the slaughter of the soul of a country. The term 'birthing pains' does little to describe two wars in 25 years time. But the soul of Bangladesh is not dead, it's pulsing, and hard. This country is more alive than anything I have ever seen.
On the Mayuri I sit cross-legged at the bow of the 'launch' and watch. The Padma is seething with small boats cris-crossing under the toes of the larger launches. Its stinking, raw sewage from the city pours straight in, washing it out to the Bay of Bengal, down twenty hours of riverbank. The boats thin out as the river's deep black much gives way to gray water.
The large buildings turn to rural villages, and brick factories. Brick factories, which leave grit in the air, make you cover your face with your hands. Brick factories where women fill their reed baskets with red brown rectangles, piling them high, and then carry them on their heads, onto boats waiting to be filled. The transport boats barely sit above the water, but their bellies, reaching under to the river, are huge.
I am acutely aware of being the only foreigner on the boat. I try to smile at people. I am acutely aware that I may be the only white person, or only American that some of my fellow passengers have ever seen. I sit out on the bow after a few tired hours in the cabin, and Priyanka sits with me. We watch the brick factories give way to green and brown as the river widens and lightens, and begins to just smell like a river.
Different children come up to us; an older boy who works on the boat is watching me take photographs. "Aamar" he says, pointing to his chest. He's asking me to photograph him. The sun is intensely bright and so we go to a shaded corner only feet away and he turns to face me. His face is serious, he's having his portrait taken, he knows how he wants to look, he's orchestrating this, and I am simply the person with the camera. I shoot a few frames, then show him one of the photos on the screen replay. He looks irked, like its no good. In Bangla and sign language he explains that he doesn't like the way his eyes are squinting so much. Ok, I try again, I come much closer to him, only maybe two feet away, and bend down so I am level with him, taking a much closer photograph of his face. Showing it to him I ask 'bhalo?' 'good?' and he smiles 'bhalo' this one he likes better. We return to the bow's front.
Deckhand who requested I take his portrait, Mayuri Launch to Chandpur
Priyanka is sitting still and when I rejoin her I notice another boy who is watching us. He's younger, maybe six years old, and wearing an orange and black leather jacket that has HONDA embroidered across the chest. He's tentative, but not nervous, I can tell he is just being polite by not leaning in too close over her shoulder to look at the pictures she replays on the screen of her camera. She asks him the time in Bangla, he looks seriously concerned, as he checks his watch and reports back to her "Its 11:23" also in Bangla. Then she asks "and when will we reach?" again with a straight and knowing face he answers "noon."
Priyanka and boy in the Honda jacket, Mayuri Launch to Chandpur
I take out a US one dollar bill to show the boys, show them the strange pyramid with the single eye, 'eck choke' and explain to Priyanka as best I can about the symbol… an elite club that the presidents have belonged to in the past. She translates to the boys. In Bangla the boy in the HONDA jacket asks her "and who is the American President right now?" She answers "Obama" and the boy smiles, remembering, ahh "Barack Obama" he says back, showing that he had only just forgotten. Then he smiles wider, "Barack Hussein Obama." At this moment, on this boat, surrounded by young Bangladeshi Muslim boys with names like Islami and Muhammad, I am so proud. I am so proud.
I give the older boy the one-dollar bill. "I can keep this?" he asks after I finished explaining the symbols on it as best I can. Priyanka and I guess about if he will exchange it, as 70 taka buys a lot here, or if he will keep it, because it is such a strange object.
We disembark in Chandpur and walk the dirt road past the cha stalls, to the Hotel Taj Mahal, recommended to us by friends who live in Dhaka. Chandpur is a port town, so there is a lot of prostitution, a scene that we are hoping to avoid at our hotel. The offering price gets cut in half with a few sentences from Priyanka 'we are students, on a budget' and we want the least fancy room, non ac, simple please and small is fine, its only one night. After a brief lunch of 4 taka pratha and dhal we head out into the village proper.
Searching for her dida's house and the hospital where she was born proves fruitless, as it was a long time ago. Before Partition, before Bangladesh was born. The nikkill para or lawyers neighborhood where her grandmother was raised has moved, twice since then. But we do find the Ramakrishna mission that her grandmother had suggested we visit. We walk in and head through the courtyard to the office in front of the temple. An old man in orange is sitting at an old wooden desk. Next to him stands a man who looks maybe 50, dressed in a button up shirt and sweater vest. They invite us to sit before we have even explained why we are there.
Priyanka explains in Bangla to the two men, as more people collect around us. Her grandmother was born in Chandpur, in a missionary hospital, about so many years ago. I cant understand her, but I know the story well so I can follow the names of places, the basic timeline she paints for them. Her grandmother left after partition and has not been back since. Her dida's dadu, grandmother's grandfather was a high court lawyer here a long time back. She tells them names and approximate dates. The older man, the maharishi is thinking very hard, his head angled down, elbows on the table. He cannot remember, but the men sit and discuss possibilities. Priyanka asks if I can take some photographs, and I tentatively take a few of the man in orange. Then she tells me to photograph the boys, of whom there are eight or ten now arced around us watching the exchange.
I stand and ask again, pointing to my camera. They all smile and I back up to get a group shot of them. After I have taken two or three group photos one of them steps out "my photo" he asks, clearly meaning take my photo away from the other boys. He poses with his arms slightly bent, posturing. His top shirt buttons are undone and he has a silver chain with an S on it around his neck. I show him the photos on my screen and he smiles, he likes them. Then three of the boys whip out their cell phones and point them at me, 'ok photo?' they ask. It's only fair. The take my photograph and then show me on their phone screens. "You have a beautiful smile," one of them says, laughing as he practices his English on me. Another says, "now you are my friend" and shows me my photo on his phone.
Then different assemblances of photos happen. The boys want to take their photos with me, I let different ones use my camera and photograph me with other ones who stand next to me, looking serious, like young men who know how models stand. They take photos of me with standing different boys on their cell phones and show me. We are in dialogue with out images, posing, clicking, showing. One of the boys explains that they live in the mission and that he studies accounting at the local college. The oldest boy studies chemistry. They range in age from 20 to 23, one points at the boy with the S necklace and says 'thirteen' clearly mocking him, as he's just told me he is 20.
Priyanka has written her address for the oldest man and he has promised that if anything comes up he will of course pass the leads on to her. He is smiling and offers us prasad from the temple in the mission. Walking out I munches down melon and cucumber doused in syrup and tell Priyanka about the boys enthusiasm. We laugh, 'I though you might be overwhelmed' she said, and I was, but happily. I had an exchange. Suddenly I was the center of attention, instead of pointing my camera at people, taking their photographs, I was in the middle of a group of boys, who were all pointing their cell phones at me and taking my portrait. It's only fair. I was overwhelmed, I am not used to being photographed, but I bet most of the people I meet and photograph aren't either. The equality of the exchange was exhilarating, empowering and intriguing.
Student who requested I take his portrait, Ramakrishna Mission, Chandpur
Being Photographed, Ramakrishna Mission, Chandpur
