Bangladesh: Land of Pathos, Paradox and Natural Beauty

(All photos by Hasan Z. Rahim)

In my previous post, I had written of a dear cousin, a physician from Connecticut, who I was hoping to meet up with in Bangladesh this winter. He had arrived in the country of our birth in mid-December, two weeks before I was scheduled to arrive from San Jose, California.

But the transience of life and the absurdity of human planning cruelly manifested themselves. Suddenly he became ill and in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, he breathed his last. His body was taken by road from Dhaka, the capital, to Chittagong, the port-city by the Bay of Bengal, about 150 miles south. From there it was taken to our ancestral village 15 miles further south. He was buried in the family graveyard, 8000 miles away from Connecticut to which he had booked his flight to return in the third week of January.

And so it happened that I found myself on the 2^nd of January standing by my cousin’s grave, still bearing the evidence freshly dug earth, surrounded by ancient mango trees loud with birds. I prayed for his soul and wept.

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Modernity has come to Bangladeshi villages. City folks arrive by car to visit relatives, unlike the boats and the steamers we relied on few decades ago. There are shopping centers and banquet halls and the hustle and bustle of the marketplace, more than agriculture, has become the norm. Farmers still carry hay on their head but instead of wearing the traditional lungi, they now wear jeans.

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I visit Bangladesh every winter to see my mother. She is in her mid-80s and is rapidly sliding downward. She cannot talk. The guttural sound she makes to express herself is indecipherable to me. But it doesn’t matter, for my sister, a leading pediatrician of Bangladesh and our mother’s principal care-giver, understands her perfectly. Mother is literally and metaphorically in the best possible hands. There are round-the-clock nurses and maids but it is my sister’s sublime touch that sustains and nourishes her. I am a side show, but mother is still thrilled to see me and asks if I have been served food to my liking. "You know I can't cook anymore for you," she says with a wan smile. I look away to hide my tears. Then I look at her and see the tireless woman who raised six boisterous, often rowdy and difficult children, while father, a doctor, was mostly busy earning to support the family. Father had passed away almost two decades ago. Mother’s eyes well up when I recall the things father used to say, a funny man, and her shoulder sinks into the wheel chair. “Sit up straight,” mocks my sister. “Stop being mischievous,” she tells her with a twinkle in her eye. We all share in the laughter. Another day followed by another unchanging night. Only time marks the passage of sorrow and a generation with a grace that I can only sense but cannot explain.

*

I take a stroll along the shore by the Bay of Bengal. It is the Patenga beach of my childhood, as timeless as ever, boatmen plying the Karnafuli river and ship slowly moving toward the Bay. A
3-mile long tunnel under the Karnafuli is being built. When it’s completed in about 2 years, Chittagong and the outlying villages will be linked, and commerce will flourish, particularly the garment industry, and the economy will undoubtedly boom. Yet I can feel that something is being lost, that what was once unique is giving way to the commonplace and the mundane, that villages that were once a haven for restless city souls will be no more. The path forward is relentless, trampling beauty and peace in its wake.

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Inequality is stark in Bangladesh. With a population of about 165 million and a per capita income of $2000, there are 10 billionaires and over 23,000 millionaires, most of whom got wealthy through graft and political shenanigans. There are very few beggars but frustration and repressed anger among the general population are palpable. Who can exploit whom to get ahead seems to occupy the waking (and sometimes the sleeping) hours of many Bangladeshis. But I have also seen a proliferation of philanthropic organizations managed by the locals - young and old – whose only aim in life is to serve the poor and the destitute. My own family operates a hospital in our village in Chittagong where every Friday, my sister operates on about a dozen children afflicted with life-threatening illnesses. On the outskirts of Dhaka, I visited a
self-sustaining and sprawling experimental “Park” that serve the local village population with everything from schools and clinics to groceries and theaters.

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The natural beauty of Bangladesh is taking a hit from rapid industrialization, particularly from brick fields that continuously spew out harmful chemicals in the air to only partially meet the insatiable demands of the booming construction industry. But if you make the effort, and not worry about time, you can still discover the breathtaking beauty Bangladesh used to be known for.

Before bidding mother and my siblings good-bye, I save a day to do nothing but seek beauty even as it becomes more elusive by the year.

Safe Return a Distant Dream for Rohingya Refugees

(You can also read the article in Mercury News.)

What is most jarring at first sight is the juxtaposition of natural beauty and human misery: Waves from the Bay of Bengal lapping at sandy beaches while desperate refugees fleeing genocide next door are packed 1,000 per square mile into unhygienic camps.

I am in Cox’s Bazar in the southern tip of Bangladesh, where more than 655,000 Rohingya Muslims fled to Bangladesh since August of last year after Myanmar’s military and Buddhist mobs carried out a genocide against them. As an American of Bangladeshi origin who grew up in the port city of Chittagong 100 miles north, I was compelled by conscience to see firsthand the current situation and the future of the most persecuted minority on earth.

Visiting one of the most congested settlements, in a place called Ukhiya, the first thing that struck me was that no Rohingya was starving. As Commissioner of Relief Control Mustafizur Rahman explained, the months from August to October were rough because the government and the NGOs were unprepared for the massive exodus. Now food was plentiful and Rohingyas were eating rice, lentils, vegetables, fish and fruit. What has helped was the takeover of camp management by the Bangladesh army from corrupt civilian administration that mismanaged aid while doing nothing to prevent local predators from exploiting the vulnerable Rohingyas.

Health organizations have also found their stride. I saw a physician named Dr. Mohsin treating patients for anemia, high fever, pneumonia and respiratory diseases. He lauded UNICEF for vaccinating children, Bangladesh-based BRAC for providing sanitation, and People’s Health Center for providing pre- and post-natal care for pregnant women. A surgeon named Dr. Tahmina identified Florida-based HOPE Foundation and Doctors without Borders  for providing critical surgery and OB-GYN services.

The problem, I found, was not humanitarian but political. The Rohingyas have stirred the conscience of humanity, but their political status is in limbo. Chemon Begum, a woman in her mid-20s who was violated but escaped death, told me of her dreams of returning to Rakhine, Myanmar, where her ancestors had lived for hundreds of years but doesn’t see it ever happening. China, eyeing the Rakhine State’s reserves of timber and gas, has threatened to veto any Security Council resolution critical of Myanmar. India, which has turned Bangladesh into a captive market for its products and policies, has sided with Myanmar, as has Russia. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and some congressional members have labeled the Rohingya crisis as ethnic cleansing, but as Usman Sarwar, a camp administrator, told me, everyone finds it a cruel joke that President Trump will help Muslim refugees from Myanmar while imposing a travel ban on Muslims to America.

Bangladesh and Myanmar have formed a joint commission on repatriation but with no clout at the negotiating table, Bangladesh has meekly accepted terms dictated by Myanmar. Two points make any meaningful repatriation risible: 1) Returning Rohingyas must offer proof of residence, an absurdity since they have lost everything, and 2) Even if some are accepted, they will be confined to concentration-like camps.

The Rohingyas I met, particularly adolescent and pregnant girls, seemed stuck at the threshold between life and death. Thanks to the generosity of members of San Jose’s Evergreen Islamic Center, I was able to distribute some clothes and blankets to the neediest of them. But as heartbreaking as my interaction with them was, my moment of truth came when I distributed some candies to the children. Eleven-year-old Jannat smiled through tears and said, “I have never tasted anything sweet in my life.”

She meant “until now” and she was obviously being literal but unknowingly, in a single spontaneous sentence, she summed up the sorrow and the tragedy of her hapless people.