A Villager’s Guide to Feeding Foreigners
If you’re a straightforward villager like me, you’ll be curious to entertain the foreigner. Before you do there are things to consider. Foreigners have foreign ways; allowances are required. Yet, despite the inherent challenge it’s good to feed one. Even foreigners need to eat.
5y ago
Corporate training needs a Bangladeshi spin
Importing corporate training modules is fraught with danger. It’s time to recognise the uniqueness and strengths of Bangladeshi corporate culture, and for training providers to tailor sessions accordingly.
5y ago
Life lesson in Sylhet
Away from the news. Away from the enormity of a planet on the brink. Away from inner restlessness there is yet life. It’s what I learnt in Sylhet.
5y ago
At home in the saddle
She's determined and courageous: at the tender age of twelve, Tasmina Aktar from Chak Subolpur village in Naogaon's Dhamoirhat upazila has quite a reputation in horse racing circles. The seventh-grade student is accustomed to placing first or second in any race. As a jockey she's participated in around fifty events. Tasmina is a girl undeterred, happy to compete in a sport usually reserved for men.
6y ago
Natore's princess poet
For seven generations from the early-eighteenth century, the zamindars of Dighapatia near Natore were landlords of a vast estate,
6y ago
When darkness falls
Morzina Begum from Daktarpara in Rangpur town works in a bidi factory, rolling cheap cigarettes. Aged 75, it's not an ideal
6y ago
Bloom and grow, forever
In and around Mathorpara village, in Gaibandha's Shaghata upazila, it's become usual for every newborn child to be welcomed into the world with the planting of a tree. The tradition began three years ago by 28-year-old visual artist Gopal Chandra Barmon, as an extension of a tree-planting hobby carried from boyhood.
6y ago
Cost of floating farms on the rise
In wetland areas of Pirojpur, farming on floating seedbeds called “dhap” is a tradition that spans centuries. Primarily constructed from water hyacinth, the seedbeds that are up to 180 feet long, four feet wide and two feet thick, allow farming in areas otherwise unavailable for regular crops. But this year, the rising cost of floating cultivation has farmers worried.
6y ago
February 28, 2016
Heart of gold
Far from home and still further from peace of mind, nobody knows how the handful of mentally ill outsiders arrived over the years, in Sagoria Bazar of Noakhali's Hatiya Island. Locals speculate they accidentally hitched a ride on a Hatiya-bound ship and, once on the island, never found a way off.
February 2, 2016
Tourism in Bangladesh, backpacking is the missing link
The Isan region of north-eastern Thailand is famous for insects as part of its regional cuisine. According to locals, the tradition of
October 11, 2015
An Australian's perspective
I feel I know enough, not about life and the universe, but to assess the current security situation for foreigners in Bangladesh. At the least, from having lived here for several years, I should know about as much as I need to know.
October 6, 2015
Re-humanising death in the media
I feel that I still know nothing about these two individuals. I want to know, because the tragic irony is that reducing humans to a list of basic facts is not altogether different, though of course less extreme, than what fundamentalists do.
August 20, 2015
Teknaf Police Station, a love story
“It's difficult to say what decision I would make,” says Ataur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Teknaf police station and a man clearly used
July 30, 2015
The Philosophy of a Local Bus Trip to Teknaf
“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it,” wrote American author John Steinbeck. What would the great philosophers of journey think of a local bus trip to Teknaf?
July 23, 2015
Among Shilkhali's Garjan Giants
In Shilkhali the setting Bay of Bengal sun sends golden light from beyond the beach and through the first fields to meet the towering
July 17, 2015
Wading into Mysterious Kudum Cave
There once was a Buddhist seer who lived in Myanmar, when it was called Burma in the time of the British. He was a simple fellow,
July 10, 2015
The CK in TeCKnaf Chic
New York. Milan. Paris. These are the powerhouse cities of haute couture where fashion seasons matter and the release of a new
July 9, 2015
In Search of Teknaf's Elephants
The Teknaf Peninsula is ruggedly beautiful. With the rise of the rocky range that divides the land strip between the Naf River and the Bay of Bengal it's impossible not to feel elated, to know that Teknaf is quite the destination.
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