The flight from Kolkata, India to Dhaka, Bangladesh took approximately forty five minutes. We had returned to Kolkata from Jaipur, attended a wedding for some days, and then it was time to say goodbye to India.
As we descended the steps from the small plane, and entered the airport, the differences between Kolkata airport and Dhaka airport (now inexplicably called Hazrat Shah Jalal International Airport), were stark.
Dhaka was clean.
Yes, surprisingly, it was very clean. Even the city, as we drove through it to my uncles' place, was surprisingly neat and tidy. Maybe it was just the comparison with Kolkata, but more on Dhaka later. This post is about Rongpur.
Rongpur is my ancestral city, that I last visited over three years ago (day 1 and day 2). This time, after a day of resting in Dhaka, we (us, my cousins and my uncles) headed for Rongpur.
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A boat on the rivers of Bangladesh.
Picture taken by my cousin Asrar Chowdhury.
©Asrar Chowdhury, 2011.
Picture taken by my cousin Asrar Chowdhury.
©Asrar Chowdhury, 2011.
The next morning, I woke up bright and early to explore Rongpur. It was cold - 8 degrees C! And villagers live here without central heating or hot water.
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A fog descends on Rongpur. These villagers are taking their produce to the weekly market. It is now bitterly cold, even to this Canadian.
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Returning home to eat some bhapa pitha, with gur inside.
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Later on, it was time to see the fishermen of the village do what one called "exercise for the fishes". They take this huge net and surround the pond with it. For my wife and I, this was something we haven't seen before. This "exercise" is to help the fish grow bigger, so as to fetch a good price when sold, and to help cull the diseased and smaller fishes.
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The fish that did not make the cut. These fresh fish will be taken to the market and sold, while the rest are returned to the pond. You can see these are fresh Tilapia, sold in Canada for $2.99 - 4.99 per lb!
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We bought this long fish, called "shoal" in Bengali, as well as some Tilapia.
After this 'show', it was time to start touring the village. Many of my relatives still lived here, so we had a long list of houses to visit.
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A couple of cows are kept warm with their "sweaters" (which are really rice sacks redesigned to fit over their humps).
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I also learned something interesting about the way the villagers prepare rice. Do you see these grains are that are spread on to the road? These are rice grains. I found that there are two steps to separate the rice grains.
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Step 1 involves placing the rice grains on the road (seriously), and being separated when people (and goats, cows, chicken, etc.) trample on them (yes, that's what you eat). So here's some grains absorbing sunlight and ready to be trampled.
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The separated rice grains are now swept up and collected.
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Using these tools, stage 2 (finer separation) is now done. And I hope - cleaning.
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Rice, ready to be stored in sacks and taken to the market.
So there was I, roaming around the village, photographing stuff, when suddenly some kids shouted, "Snake"!
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Brave kids who offered to hunt and kill the snake for me. I politely declined.
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These "sticks" are dried cowdung that are used as fuel in ovens to cook food. Yes, they are environment friendly, you control the heat by controlling the amount of dung, and since they are dried solid, there's no 'yuck' factor or smell. And yes, the food we ate was cooked in such oven.
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FOOD! The best part of any visit to Bangladesh. If you visit a Bangladeshi household, you will see there HAS to be several items on the table. On this day, can you spot FIVE (yes, FIVE) different species of fish alone?
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Rongpur was beautiful. It was clean, the air was crisp and unpolluted, the night skies amazingly clear and the stars visible, and the fresh food (fresh fish, freshly laid eggs, and had we wanted, freshly slaughtered cows!) were amazingly delicious. It was a great departure from the busy cities we were visiting, and a nice break. After a couple of days, we were ready to go back to Dhaka.