Bangla, Biryanis and Badminton

Badminton
Originally uploaded by Bangla, Biryanis and Badminton.

I think I’ve covered the Bangla and Biryanis (well, food in general, really, but for the record, unfortunately the only Biryanis I’ve eaten have been out of greasy “packet” lunches – a cheap way of feeding hundreds of people at work functions), but up to now I haven’t said a word about Badminton – simply because it’s a winter sport and it has only really just got going – in a big way.

Semi-permanent nets are being put up all over the country – in the school grounds near where I live; in driveways in Dhaka, complete with floodlights; in the middle of rice paddies. And people are using whatever means possible to get that shuttlecock flying – two beautiful little boys who live at my office, 10-year-old Hassan and his 8-year-old brother, Hussain, were using their thongs as bats the other day because they don’t have real ones. It was so adorable, I even took some video footage. Actually, these boys were also using piles of rubbish as soccer goals a few months ago – ten points for creativity!

I think badminton could be giving cricket a run for its money in the popularity stakes in Bangladesh. Forgive my prejudice against the sport, but badminton seems to be an odd sport to be SO popular. It's a bit daggy, isn't it?

May contain traces of rocks

Again with the dhal. Where is Anju buying this stuff?

I am invisible

When I speak English to people in the office, I suddenly turn invisible to my non-English speaking colleagues. I was just having a conversation with Raju and, in mid-sentence, I was interrupted no less than 5 times by various people who did not even look at me when they began their conversation with him, and continued until they’d finished whatever it was they had to say.

Go Bangladesh Observer, Go!

I wonder what might be the long-term psychological effects of seeing pictures of dead bodies, complete with blood and gun-shot wounds, consistently on the front page of the morning newspaper.

I know the short-term physical effects include a lurching of the morning’s breakfast in one’s gut.

The Haircut

Sitting at home, looking out my window at three men shinning up the trees opposite me, cutting off all the branches.

I’m amazed at the skill with which they can climb and am having flashbacks to my trip to Fiji in 1990, watching the locals knocking the coconuts out of the trees – and also to my Dad, who, whenever he wants to cut branches off a tree, uses a ladder.

I’m sad at the prospect of my lovely green outlook turning into a bare, wintry vista.

More talk about the weather

The slow and steady descent into winter has begun. It is a gradual and predictable process, not like in Sydney where you can be in the middle of winter and suddenly get a 30-degree day. The days at the moment are absolutely perfect. Cool in the shade, sometimes with a gentle cool breeze, not a cloud in the sky, and the sun a perfect temperature to warm the bones. Like reading the paper in the park on an autumn day.

And today, a harrowing reality of winter in Bangladesh has dawned on me. Winter means runny noses and colds, which, in a country famous for its loogie-hocking, the levels of mucus lining the footpaths, roads and anything else that happens to get in the way has already started to rise dramatically.

I am almost used to the hocking and spitting. But the nose-blowing (whereby one casually leans over, blocking one nostril and blows with all their might, leaving a long line of snot dangling from the nose, which is then swiftly pinched away from the nostril using two fingers and then flicked onto the ground) is a new habit for which I’m quickly learning I have little tolerance.

I had the displeasure of witnessing one particularly gross example of the old Blow, Pinch and Flick today – except there was a pause between the pinching and the flicking whereby the man looked at the contents of his nostrils (now dangling from his fingers) with a look of combined disgust and confusion as to what to do next. After some careful manoeuvrings, he managed to perform the flick with relative success.

Before I came here, my Aunty Gaye told me about when she lived in Papua New Guinea and the children used to use leaves to wipe their noses. If only I could say that was the case here.

However, winter also means that it’s not stinking hot – so I will concede that the snot is a relatively small price to pay.

The Kidnapping

Anju invited me over to her house this afternoon. I told her I’d go straight after my walk, so we decided I’d go at about 5pm.

I purposely ate a pretty big lunch, because I figured that combined with the usual cha, biscuits and other snacks that Anju would be likely to feed me, I wouldn’t need to eat any dinner.

I arrived at Anju’s at 5pm as planned. I was immediately swamped with family members, kids and other unknown village people; told to “boshen” (sit down) on a wooden chair; handed the obligatory glass of “dub” (green coconut water); and yelled at in Bangla in the hope that by doing this I would understand more easily. Anju’s family always has the most wonderful of intentions, but they tend to come across quite aggressively and I definitely have to be in the mood for it whenever I go to her house – her family are quite intense and I think they’d actually like to keep me.

Luckily I was in the mood today.

One thing was missing today though. Biscuits… chanachur… bananas… Where was all the food? I thought maybe Anju had relaxed her hospitality practices – much to my delight – I was still full from my lunch. I thought I’d take advantage of this by casually laying the groundwork for myself by saying that I MUST leave before dark (these days, it’s around 5.30). Anju said that’d be fine.

A little while later, Anju took me inside her house, where I was given the (again, obligatory) cup of cha. But still no food! I was impressed. As I drank my cha, I looked around Anju’s house. I was interested, although not entirely surprised to notice that there were lots of things around the room that had once been in my garbage bin. Things such as the cheap, rusty cheese grater that I’d bought when I first moved in; a thin-based frypan that burnt everything I cooked in it for the first month or so; and my horribly mouldy bamboo mat. I wondered what Anju and her family must think of me – throwing these things out when, to them, they are still perfectly useable. Never in my life have I been so aware of my innate materialistic nature than I was at this moment.

So, with tea cup empty and tail firmly between my legs, I said in my most assertive voice and best Bangla I could manage, “Anju, I have to go now.”

“OK, just come into this room for a minute.”

I was led into another bedroom and told to “Boshen” on the bed (minus a mattress). The next thing I know, I’m being handed a plate piled high with rice and told to wash my hand.

Nooooooo!!!!!!!!!! I CAN’T stay for dinner! I have to GO!! Grrrrrr!!!!

“Anju! You are SO naughty! I told you I have to go. You didn’t tell me you were inviting me over for dinner!”
“I know, but if I had’ve asked you for dinner you would have said no.”

That shut me up. I probably would have. But she’s very cheeky.

So that was that. Her mum gave me 4 huge pieces of chicken. Anju and I ate together, along with her younger brother, Jackir, who she’s been wanting me to meet for ages, her sister and mum and dad, which is quite special – this goes completely against custom: usually the guest eats with the men first and the women serve the food and eat hours later. The food was delicious, and I didn’t even need Anju’s encouraging calls of “Khao” (Eat!) every couple of minutes – not until I got to the drumstick and reached my limit. At this point, I pleaded with Anju to let me leave the unfinished chicken, for I knew there was more food coming. But she again told me to “khao” and she pulled the meat off the bone for me, gave the bone to her mother to dispose of, and told me to “khao” once more.

Next came fish, and once again, Anju felt obliged to take the meat off the bones for me – but I felt a little bit like a child being fed by my mother, so I told her to stop – my dignity was at stake here.

Eventually, somehow, the contents of my plate ended up in my belly and Anju was finally satisfied that she had successfully had me over for dinner.

One of the most fortunate customs in Bangladesh is that it’s ok to leave as soon as you’ve finished eating, so I told Anju that now, I definitely had to go. At this point, I was ushered into the third (and final) room of the house, where some more relatives had mysteriously appeared and were sitting waiting for me to talk to. We chatted small talk for a little while, and once I felt that my duty had been done there, I looked pleadingly into Anju’s eyes and said that I really had to go.

Thankfully, she released me. I walked outside, where I said goodbye to Jackir. At this point I experienced another break with custom. Anju instructed her brother (a 20-year-old young man) to shake my hand. This type of behaviour is also unheard of, especially for village people – so I was most impressed with Anju for being such a progressive older sister and good role model for her brother.

Anju and her dad walked me all the way home – Anju with her arm around me the whole time and her dad on torch duties.

Yet another memorable experience to write home about.

You’ll never believe this...

The mould is gone.

Hallelujah.

And by golly, can she roll a chapatti!

My friend Jo came to stay last weekend. She’s the first person who’s ever come to stay just for the sake of it. It was my first chance to entertain – ie cook up a storm– since arriving here.

As I got the Saturday morning tunes cranking on my laptop, I began the early preparations. The menu included three dishes Janine and I learnt to make during our trip to India (samosas, stuffed paranthas and chapattis) as well as a baba ganouj of sorts. Smelling the onions cooking and the incense burning and listening to the feel-good music made me feel like I was back at Juliett St preparing for a party. Aahhh.

It was a lovely and relaxing day of cooking and bathroom cleaning. Anju was of course wonderfully interested in the exotic menu and cooking methods. She was especially perplexed by the eggplant sitting directly on the gas burner, skin blackening more and more by the second. I couldn’t work out how to say, “It gives it a nice smoky flavour” in Bangla, so she was left wondering about that.

When the time came to make the chapattis I was very careful to do it exactly how Ruchi did it in India – roll the dough into a ball, then roll once with the rolling pin, pick up, turn, roll, pick up, turn roll, until you have a nice, even circle. Anju watched patiently as I meticulously ironed out any uneven bits. In then end, I managed to get something that looked a bit like a squircle (half square/half circle).

Time began to tick away a little too quickly, and so I asked Anju to roll out the rest of the chapattis while I started on the samosa cases.

What I saw at this moment has given me yet another huge dose of respect for Anju. Admittedly, she does this every morning, but when it came time to rolling the dough into a circle, she rolled back and forth with the rolling pin, putting just enough pressure on the right end of the pin so that the chapatti turned ITSELF and within about ten seconds, she had the most perfect looking chapatti I’ve ever seen.

I’m sure she was quietly having a chuckle to herself as she watched my pathetic attempt. But she said nothing, and with that, she once again showed what a fabulous woman she is.

Tribute to Anju

I'd just like to acknowledge what a champion Anju (my cook and general helper) is.

Not only does she have to put up with fussy Mr Hussain yelling at her all the time; cooking for sometimes over 100 people on her own; killing, gutting and cutting up chickens and getting up really early every morning (amongst other things, not the least being putting up with me, the pathetic westerner, and my weird and occasionally whinging ways), but she handles all this with the most beautiful and positive attitude and ALWAYS with a smile. She is an absolute trooper.

One example was this morning, when I woke up and began my usual routine of filling a saucepan with cold water and putting it on the stove to heat up for my morning bucket bath, and realised that there was no gas in my cylinder. I was already running late for work and as the minutes ticked by, I became more and more horrified at the impending possibility of not being able to have my morning coffee.

I called out to Anju in the hope that she could save me from this terrible ordeal and heat up some water for me on Mr Hussain’s stove. I went back into my room to send my other saviour, Nizam, a text message to tell him I needed a new gas cylinder. A couple of minutes later, I looked out my window, only to find Anju happily stoking a FIRE using dried palm fronds, with my saucepan sitting atop an interesting arrangement of bricks. Apparently Mr Hussain’s gas cylinder had run out too. Whatever it takes, this girl will do it with a smile. And, to prove just how tough she is, once the water was boiling, she picked up a couple of leaves to use as “oven mits” and walked the 20 metres to my bathroom to pour it into the bucket.

The new gas cylinder was easier to organise than I thought – it was literally delivered about 10 minutes after I’d messaged Nizam. And Anju, who had gone to all that trouble with the fire, was still smiling when she realised that all her hard work had been for nothing. She even swept the corner, behind where the old cylinder was, before the new one was put in.

The Call to Prayer

As The Call rings out over Bangladesh, something tells me that the Imam from Naora Mosque must be off sick. The usual guy is normally fairly dull, calling the local Muslims to the mosque in an almost lacklustre fashion. His Allah-o-akbars tend to blend in to each other, although he is able to hold at least some sort of tune, so I manage to feel a sense of warmth and community when I hear it.

The substitute Imam does the exact opposite – he calls with so much gusto that even I feel inspired to go to the mosque, and he is terribly out of tune. An awful combination and, to add insult to injury, his call to prayer sounds as if someone has put a microphone up to the mouth of a dying cat.

Ki Khobor?

One of my co-workers has a habit of asking me questions beginning with the words: “What is the news of...?” whenever he sees me. The subject tends to differ, but it is often either, “What is the news of Jack?” or “What is the news of your family?” Fair enough.

But today, he said, “What is the news of your body?”