A small mystery

Travelling to and from Dhaka over the last few days, I stumbled upon something quite curious. In the roadside hotel that the bus stopped in, the old glass bottle placed on my table for drinking water caught my eye. Although the bottle’s label was long gone, there was something familiar about the logo impressed on the glass – some kind of coat of arms, perhaps – but something I had definitely seen before. Then I looked at the bottle on the neighbouring table, where a scrap of label still stubbornly clung to the glass. Just three letters remained, but I realised what I was looking at. The washed out red ‘-off’ that remained was instantly recognisable to me: it was an old vodka bottle. Glancing around the room I saw that each of the fifty-odd tables was graced with a similar glass bottle as a centre piece. Different brands, different sizes, but all vodka.

Now tell me. In a country like this, where alcohol is officially frowned upon, where does such a supply come from? How did fifty old vodka bottles wind up in this little service station, bang in the middle of nowhere? And more importantly, why has no-one let me in on this little secret?

Green mangoes (17/5/09)

I’ve been waiting for mango season since I got here, and it is with GREAT pleasure that I’d like to inform you all I enjoyed my first mango of the season the other day. Mmmhmmm.

However, perhaps more excitingly, I also tried green mango for the first time yesterday. For a long time, I’d heard talk of these green mangoes. Some spoke of them reverentially, with glowing eyes and salivating mouths. Others spoke more disdainfully, dismissing them as ‘women’s food’. Some of my male colleagues were even ruthlessly teased when they confessed to being fans. Of course, this led to many a heated argument about gender stereotyping amongst my colleagues, and a great deal of curiosity on my part as to what all the fuss was about.

Green mangoes are basically just normal mangoes picked before they’re ripe, and served with lots of salt and red chilli. A lot of fruit here is served with salt and spices on it (watermelon, for instance) and usually I cannot abide it, despite my friends’ protestations that it just ‘brings out the sweetness’. Total rubbish. It makes the fruit taste foul. I definitely wasn’t expecting to be won over.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover that, when it comes to green mangoes, the salt and chilli combination works like a charm. They go perfectly with the incredible sourness of the fruit, to make a lip-smacking, eye-watering snack (get the proportions slightly wrong, however, and you end up in physical pain, as happened today when some total amateur had clearly prepared our mango).

Luckily, there are dozens of mango trees outside the GBK office, now temptingly laden with slowly ripening mangoes. Unluckily, some big boss man has ruled that the mangoes should be left to ripen, and should not be eaten green.

Of course, this is not enough to put off a die-hard mango-fan such as I have become. I mean, the green mango season is short enough as it is, without any time-wasting tactics from the ‘management’. So in a quest for mango satisfaction, my friend Sarah and I have been perfecting our techniques for covert mango consumption. This involves sneaking over to the trees when everyone in the office is suitably distracted, spiriting the plucked fruit to the kitchen staff, then coming up with separate but simultaneous pretexts on which to visit the canteen.

Once there, we sit giggling and devour the fruit amid much wincing and smacking of lips, while the kitchen boy keeps watch.

This may sound like a lot of palaver but trust me: green mangoes are worth it.

Reflections from the Sonargaon Hotel (5th May 2009 )

The Sonargaon is one of Dhaka’s premier fancypants hotels. To a VSO volunteer like me – and to most of the population of Bangladesh – it’s the kind of place one can only dream of. Perhaps you hear stories of the wonders contained within, but the chance of your seeing them with your own eyes is slim to none.

So imagine my surprise when I found myself in the lobby of this very hotel, witness to the luxurious parallel world that it offers to those who can afford the (absolutely outrageously extortionate) prices.

It was an accident, really. Places like the Sonargaon are hardly on my radar in Dhaka, so far are they from my range of possibility. But I had a meeting to go to (discussing the legal system and violence against women in Bangladesh, don’t ya know), and the Sonargaon just happened to be the closest landmark. When I asked for the Sonargaon hotel, my CNG driver assumed I meant actually inside the hotel, and by the time I realised what was happening, it was too late to turn back (there’s a stupid one-way system and a lot of guards with rifles to enforce it). Then, the man outside hotel (you know, the one that opens the doors – I don’t even know the proper name for that) also assumed I was a guest and ushered me inside. I can only assume it was my bideshi status that made him think this – nothing else about my rumpled and sweaty appearance can possibly have given him that impression.

Now, I know I could have stopped this turn of events from unspooling at any point. I’m not saying I was a helpless victim who was forced into the Sonargaon, kicking and screaming. But I also didn’t plan to end up there. I want to make that clear. I’m not the kind of person who’d choose to hang out in such mindboggling dens of indulgence. I suppose there were a range of factors at work:
1. I was intrigued. I don’t think I’d ever been inside such a fancy hotel in my life before being swept into this one. The sight of the indoor fountain, the starched uniforms and the GRAND PIANO rendered me temporarily dumb, and sadly unable to protest as I was shown inside.
2. I was ninety minutes early for my meeting. I know, I know, quite ridiculous, but I didn’t have a clue where I was going and the traffic in this city is usually shocking.
3. I was flattered. Don’t think I don’t recognise my own pride. I was definitely flattered that anyone might think I belonged in such a place, despite my torn clothes and my dusty hair and the generally dishevelled appearance I cultivate here. If it had been England, I’d have been out on my ear in moments.

As soon as I came to my senses, however, I began to panic. My palms began to sweat, despite the powerful air conditioning. I knew I had to act as if I knew exactly where I was going, or there’d be suspicions. And so began Operation Blend In With The Ridiculously Privileged Crowd.

I spied a comfortable and thankfully empty seating area, and made a beeline for it. The ‘Guests Only’ sign nearly felled me as I strode towards the seat I had already selected (I have a schoolchild’s fear of signs and instructions), but my nerves held out. I’d chosen a seat a safe distance from the waiters’ station, but which also faced the main atrium of the hotel, so I could keep an eye out for any armed guards coming to escort me from the premises.

But the first person to approach me was a bow-tied waiter, who enquired if he could bring me anything. I smiled my sweetest smile, and told him I was waiting for a friend. I graciously accepted the menu he offered me, and let out a deep sigh of relief as he glided silently away.

After a few moments, when it appeared that I wasn’t going to be ejected from the building imminently, I began to relax and take in my surroundings. The lobby is all pale stone, polished to a high shine, and vases and vases of real orchids. The staff are legion, and all dressed in a theatrical array of different uniforms, presumably marking out their place in the pecking order. But the truly incredible thing – the thing that made my jaw drop in astonishment when I first stumbled through the doors – is the grand piano. A full-size grand piano sits in one corner of the lobby, being played by a small Bangladeshi man in a dinner jacket. The medley of songs he treats passing guests to is quite astounding, from Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata to a nineties boyband power ballad that I couldn’t quite identify (owing to my poor knowledge of pop music rather than his playing, of course).

The range of guests was intriguing. The majority seemed to be Middle Eastern businessmen, in expensive-looking shirts and dark sunglasses, talking quietly in groups around the lobby. Then there were the middle-aged white business men, marching through followed by porters toting briefcases and suitcases. I spied one white guy, in shorts and a multi-pocketed fisherman’s vest, who was almost definitely a journalist of some kind. The porter dragging the enormous tripod was a dead giveaway.

I couldn’t help but wonder at the kind of people who would use such a hotel. I mean, I know all the practical reasons of convenience and comfort, of course. But my brief perusal of the café menu informed me that a coke would set you back 115 taka, and a cup of tea 177. Although this might be cheaper than in England (that’s about £1.20 and £1.80), outside on the streets of Dhaka, coke is expensive, at maybe 40 taka, and tea is a snip at about 4 taka. Clearly only the very rich and the unhinged would come here. Perhaps there’s not much of a distinction between the two…

Although my fears – and my pretend telephone conversations with the ‘friend’ that I was meeting – proved unnecessary, and I was not unceremoniously booted out, I couldn’t help but wonder what the other people in the lobby thought of me. Perhaps because of the colour of my skin alone, people I assume I am a guest, one of them, the kind of person who belongs in that kind of hotel. That thought makes me a feel a little bit sick: I don’t want to be one of these people, I don’t want to be the kind of person who stays in such a bubble of luxury while outside there is both a lot more life and a lot more poverty. I’m guessing my ripped salwar, my dirty sandals and my chipped toenail polish are surely glaring signals that I’m not exactly five-star hotel material? But perhaps, the fact that I am a bideshi, that I come from the UK and can go back any time, (probably) get a decent job and live with the comfort of social security and an adequate salary my whole life sets me apart. Maybe – in fact probably – I am more like the people in the Sonargaon than those on the streets outside, and no amount of wishing will make it otherwise.

But then again, maybe my superb acting fooled them all. Those fake phone calls were the work of a genius, keeping all overly-attentive waiters at bay until it became clear that my ‘friend’ had been held up and I’d have to go and help him, and would be returning soon. Maybe my top-quality dissembling caught them all in a magnificent double-bluff, and the last laugh will be mine. I couldn’t say for sure, but I’m plumping for the last option.

The unbearable harshness of honesty (22nd April 2009 )

I came out of my house this morning, as I do every morning, and walked up the dirt track, past the goat pasture and the mosque, to Parbatipur’s main street. I was wearing a spanking new salwar kameez, fresh from Dhaka, with a racy new style (no sleeves!), and I’d even bothered to put make-up on that morning, despite the fact that, although it was only 8am, the sweat was already running off me. I was feeling pretty good this morning, let’s just say.

My friend Mahabub was waiting on his motorbike a short way down the road, as he does every morning. Now, he’s an awesome guy and I really would despair without him, but on this particular morning I came close to severing our friendship forever.

He took one desultory look at my glamorous new outfit and grimaced. My feel-good bubble trembled. When pushed for an explanation of this churlish behaviour, he informed me that my kameez was ‘so rubbish’ and that I should not wear it again. Ever. My bubble promptly burst

Although he eventually decided that it wasn’t so bad on closer inspection, it was too late for my self-esteem for that day.

Bluntness is one Bangladeshi trait that I simply cannot make my mind up about. I think Englishness wires you against it, so my kneejerk reaction is always discomfort and disapproval. But it can sometimes be endearing – if someone thinks you’re looking nice, they’ll definitely tell you about it. However, it can also be soul destroying. You know that when you are paid a compliment it is genuine only because you know that, if someone thinks you’re looking rough as a bear’s arse, they’ll also let you know. And there’s no cushioning of the blow.

The list of faults that have been pointed out about me is endless. Spots is a big one. If you have a spot, don’t think you’ll get away with everyone pretending not to see it and tactfully not commenting on it. Oh, no. Instead, the offending zit is immediately pointed out. Sometimes, you’ll get a loud “What is it?” which will be followed by a long discussion about why people get spots and how unfortunate it is that spots are so obvious on white skin. Sometimes, if you’re not quick on your feet, someone might even try to remove it for you.

Another favourite subject is teeth. I know the English aren’t famed for their shiny white teeth (I like to think it’s because we’re too strong to succumb to the pressures of the orthodontic industry), and I know my own teeth are far from perfect. But it can be demoralising to have the crookedness of your teeth pointed out to you in the middle of a meeting. Whilst you’re trying to deliver a presentation.

And then there’s weight. I’ve lost count of the number of times I smiled happily when someone told me I was looking ‘healthy’, as I tucked into a second helping of rice or my fourth paratha of the morning. Then a friend helpfully pointed out that ‘healthy’ is generally used to mean fat, and that maybe I had gained some weight since coming to Bangladesh? When I had to get a few of my kameez’s taken out at the tailors, there was lots of guffawing about all the rice and misti I must have been eating. I just rise above it all.

The list goes on. I’ve been given a pitying once over and told I’m looking ‘not so fresh’ on more than one occasion. I’ve been informed that, although sometimes I look very stylish, on this particular day, I have ‘no style at all’. I’ve been told that my hairstyle is rubbish, and that I should change it in order to please ‘the people who have to look’ at me. I don’t think there’s any aspect of my appearance that has not been criticised. But like I said. I rise above it.