The overflowing tuning-orchestra of street sounds caught on the small square opening in the back wall of a tailor’s forest of garments and all that remained was a thin veil of dust hanging around the bare bulb and the crackling straining voice of a radio in the other room. Slum life left behind. Cacophony of horns and whistles left behind. …
Cow bells jingle and echo among the mountains. High bells returned by resounding resonance. Wind blows the music around as it plays amongst the trees and rocks. The folds of mountain and hill in the distance become the waveform of the bells as they dangle and jangle and clink and toll. In the distance, the music is muted by the …
People often ask me what Bangladesh was like, and I guess, as a country with little presence in anyone’s mind except Boxing Day 2004, not many people have an idea of the people, the place, the cities or the landscape. From what I’ve heard of India, I’d say it’s a little like that. Being almost surrounded by India, and with the land …
We got the coach from Darsana to Dhaka on the 27th, leaving as the sun rose up the main road out of town. Our seats at the front of the coach left us next to the horn, which the driver used with reckless abandon as he powered down the centre of the road, tilting round corners and swerving away from …
The day was dark. Dirty silver clouds created a smooth ceiling above, greying the world. Our train to Darsana was due at 6am and already the station squirmed with life. Mosquitos swarmed like flies at a dead carcass. Legless cripples shuffled across the station floor, dragging their torso with one arm and extending the other up to the waists of …
The main road running through Gowair extends westward towards the railway and airport, building in busyness and messiness as it passes tight communities in unfinished concrete homes and collections of dirty teashops set up in rotting wood shacks at the side of the road. To the east, the road heads away from the worst of the mess, lined with wood …
Swirling sarees and silk scarfs, bodies gyrating like enchanted snakes, hands twisting to pounding beats and the warbling overtones of harmonium and voice. Crowded in a dark square opposite the guesthouse, the residents of Gowair gaze up at a shaking stage, bathed in fluorescent light. The audience sat in blue plastic chairs, cheering and bobbing their heads to the beat. …
We took a year 7 class for English and had them writing stories for the whole lesson, giving them a structure of introduction, climax and conclusion. Some ideas were given to do with using heroes, heroines, villains, and victims, as well as a few helpful hints to start sentences and keep their ideas flowing. Many of them took ideas from …
A short tuc-tuc cage ride out of Gowair towards the airport and we came across a familiar mass of horns and rattling engines. There was a hold-up ahead from a striped red pole across the road. Cars, trucks, richshaws and easybikes huddled together, filling every space and disregarding any orderly queuing fashion. In the tiny passageways between vehicles, passing pedestrians …