…and I’m not quite ready to go. The AUW shuttle will pick me up in 90 minutes to take me to the airport. My stuff seems to have multiplied in the dark while I slept. How will all of it fit in my one suitcase?
I’ll leave that disaster until the last minute. At least it’s a choice.
Random photos with pithy captions (or not). Goodbye, Bangladesh. I hope to come back.
Concrete portal to nature in the Chittagong Railway Colony.Rickshaw wallah down the road from the Asian University for Women.Family portrait. Mural outside the Chittagong University School of Fine Arts.Mural outside the Chittagong University Business School. I think they could have left out the (questionable) middle sentiment and still made their point.Painful story. Who will succeed? Public art outside the Chittagong Zoo.Professor in his panjabi (a gift from his wonderful students) next to evidence of grade inflation.Last day of class. They gave me a panjabi. I bought them pizza. Life is not fair.It must have its reasons.Many surfaces at the ISKCON temple in Chittagong. Haribol.Cool, graceful hallway at the Bangladesh Railways building. Chittagong.Obliging couple on oldest train in Bangladesh. As my friend M.K. Jatra pointed out, “It’s good that they didn’t have to change the initials from ‘British Railways’ to ‘Bangladesh Railways’.” Not sure what they did for the 24 years as East Pakistan.Anglo-Indian architecture at Railway office.Enormous trees covering cricket game at outdoor performance space in the heart of Chittagong. Such a beautiful city.Murals everywhere, this time at the Fine Arts complex at the Chittagong University urban campus. More murals near the Asian University for Women. Heartening use of public space.Foy’s Lake, a reservoir-turned-amusement park in the center of Chittagong. A man from the public-relations arm of this amusement park videotaped me making an endorsement. I observed that “The nature is everywhere.” My sincerest apologies to the people of Bangladesh.Documentary film-making students at AUW, interviewing me about the effect of violent video games on children. I hope my response–that there isn’t a direct line between gun violence and video games, but there seems to be a dreadful desensitizing effect of watching constant casual violence on young (and old) minds–did their project justice.
POST SCRIPT:
From the tarmac at the Chittagong airport. Thank you, Bangladesh.
I’m home, exhausted. Are humans meant to travel half-way around the world in 36 (and then some) hours? How can we make sense of the barrage of impressions?
Glad to have ice cubes in my potable water; miss the sounds from the loudspeakers outside the mosque near my apartment in Chittagong.
Sat next to Christian missionaries on the flight from Doha to Seattle who are helping to feed the war-torn, dispossessed people of Ukraine; they refused to wear masks on the plane despite the constant, gentle reminders of the flight attendants.
Grateful for my home and for Dennis and the ungrateful, mysterious cats.
Thanks for listening.
Wise cat, making the most of a cool, granite surface in a park in sweltering Dhaka.
I got this wise suggestion from Carol, one of a group of high school friends who have been Zooming together since the beginning of the pandemic. We are all proud graduates of Riverside Polytechnic High School (Class of ’77 rules), and I’ve known some of them (hi, Laurie) as long as I’ve known my brothers and sister. Last Saturday night, after two days in Dhaka, I’d been on Zoom expressing my misgivings about being here during Eid al-Adha, the Muslim festival of sacrifice. I was freaking out a bit about witnessing the slaughter of cattle and goats on the streets of this city. In fact, just before the Zoom call I’d read this quote from the Dhaka Tribune:
On the first day of Eid-ul-Adha, the roads in Dhaka look to be painted red because there is so much blood; bones, horns, heads, and the blood-soaked mats are thrown on the roads or in the drains.
So. Much. Blood. I wouldn’t say I was dithering–although of course I was–but I will say I needed some good advice on how to proceed from people who have known me long and well.
“Just be curious,” my friend Sarah added. When I balked, she said, “Or you can also just stay in your room.”
The view from my third-floor hotel room in Dhaka.
In improv we aspire to practice radical non-judgment, so I’ll try to be an improviser. I’ll simply observe my days here in Dhaka and throw in some pictures to do the heavy lifting. Four days in a row, beginning on Thursday and ending on Sunday’s Eid festival.
Chittagong to Dhaka in five hours.
I’ll start by immediately violating my declaration of non-judgment by saying I loved every minute of the train trip from Chittagong. True, I had a backward-facing seat that lead to some woozy moments as the scenery rolled past. We crossed rivers and barreled through villages and rattled past stations with clusters of men sound asleep on the platform. My eyes would try to capture an image while my stomach raced along with the locomotion. Several times I had to close my eyes and breathe through my mouth. I was thrilled when my seat mate turned on the overhead fan. Still, I couldn’t get enough of the unspooling view. Here’s one static frame:
From the window of seat 36D, about an hour outside of Dhaka.
I made it to the hotel, settled into my room, and took a walk around the neighborhood.
A park around the corner from the hotel.
Twenty-one million people live in Dhaka. The traffic is obscene. The pollution and the heat and the insidious gray mold press against every surface, including human skin. The dust settles like talcum powder. And yet, just off the main streets, tiny parks with even tinier ponds fend off the pandemonium. Dozens of turtles break the surface of the water, nipping at bugs and creating endless overlapping circles. In these moments, Dhaka is beautiful. I strolled, happy to be in Bangladesh. I didn’t even try to keep up with the power-walkers (one very friendly gentleman noted that I was moving slowly but, in his words, was “not fatty”). By the time I got back to my room I was drenched, despite my snail’s pace. It’s a three-shower day here in the capital.
It’s not a competition, although he won.Turtles creating Venn diagrams with Union Sets.
I slept soundly, took another early morning walk, and returned to the hotel to eat my weight at the complimentary breakfast buffet (Congee! Sour Yogurt! Figs and pomegranate seeds! Yellow watermelon, like from the streets of Yangon! Eggs and dal and garlic mushrooms!) Since it was the Eid holiday and museums were closed, I had signed up for a tour of several archeological sites in the area. I splurged. The driver would pick me up at 8:00 in the lobby and we’d be back by 5:00. Lunch would be provided. The Eid festivities were two days away, so there might be traffic.
He was moving; we were not.
The tour lasted twelve hours, nine-and-a-half of which were spent sitting in (brutal) traffic. The driver and the guide were perfect companions for this situation. After telling me about Rupban Mura, the eighth century Buddhist monastery we were going to visit, the guide–who has a name, one I said 85 times and can’t remember for the life of me–and I sat in silence while the driver (not nameless, of course) would seize any opportunity to lunge into a momentary break in the gridlock. It was like a really, really, really slow game of checkers. Five hours later we reached our first destination:
It really is the journey, not the destination (this is actually Itakhola Mura, a Buddhist monastery complex just off the highway to Comilla, Bangladesh).
We were all numb by the time we wandered around the remains of the stupa. I have to say I’m not a good tourist; my head was pounding from the heat while lethargy had dulled my vision about three hours prior. I had a hard time taking in the fact that these structures were built 1300 years ago. That’s remarkable, but at the moment all I could think about was finding some water and a bathroom (in either order).
This woke me up:
“If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading.”
Across the street from the archeological remains was a Thai-funded temple, dedicated to the people of Bangladesh in 1995. I spent a summer in 1977 as a foreign exchange student in Bangkok; seeing the gleaming white temple and the lithe, golden Buddha took me back to my almost-18-year-old self. I thought about explaining my burst of enthusiasm to the guide (“You see, I thought if I went somewhere else I’d become someone else…”) but instead we both nodded and pointed and agreed that Thai temples are “very beautiful.”
I also met this helpful officer who gave me his business card, saying “I have a YouTube channel! Please watch!” I did! Really impressive.
Follow this link to see Jatir Pitar (Father of the Nation): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xuuYWcZiSs
The only thing more tedious than traffic is writing (and reading) about it. I’ll just say this: by the time we got to Panam City, an ancient Hindu-then-Mughal-then-Colonial European city, I had forgotten why we were doing anything. Four hours after the Thai temple we were approaching Panam City, but it would take another half-hour to make the left turn into the parking area. The Eid traffic was pouring into Dhaka, honking flatbeds crammed with furious goats and wild-eyed, loose-boweled cattle. I’ll remember their faces for a long time.
Panam City:
New Orleans or Lucknow or somewhere in Colorado. Many influences.Imagine this.Summer is gone/But our love will remain/Like old broken bicycles/Left out in the rain. (Tom Waits)Come in.
Panam City was stunning. In time I’ll know it was worth the drive.
We made it back to the hotel. I slept face-first on the mattress until 5:30 the next morning. Took another long walk. Ate breakfast.
Staged.
I know it’s unseemly to complain about these opportunities. It is. I’m lucky to be here. And, since this blog is purportedly about improvisation, I need to remember an aspiration we–as improvisers– strive to implement: Each moment is the best possible moment (it’s also the only possible moment–given how moments tend to be singular by nature–and so we do have some choice in how we respond).
I tested this premise when, in a moment of tourist-panic (WHAT NOW???), I made the questionable choice to go on a complimentary “shopping excursion” offered by the hotel.
I hate shopping.
That’s my declaration. I tend to let every choice become an existential crisis (“Will this shirt widen my carbon footprint?”; “What does this belt say about me? Is it authentic, or am I giving the belt too much power?”; “Why do I have disposable income when so many don’t?”) (a good question, actually) (“Back to the belt. It’s made of leather. And where does that come from, Jim?”) (“Performative guilt, much?”).
Still, I went.
Resist, half-heartedly.
I told myself I was on an excursion, good grief, that I needed to look beyond the fact that I was spending my precious time trudging around an air-conditioned mall in Bangladesh. Perhaps I could practice some ethnography; I could learn as much about present-day Bangladesh by eating at a food court as I would by roaming the streets.
I tried.
[Scientists]found that those people who said cilantro tastes like soap share a common smell-receptor gene cluster called OR6A2. This gene cluster picks up the scent of aldehyde chemicals. Natural aldehyde chemicals are found in cilantro leaves, and those chemicals are also used during soap-making (The Internet, 2022).Keep it.Beautiful clothes at the borka and saree stores. Flips fashion on its head for this Westerner.
After an afternoon of over-thinking at the mall I went back to the hotel. These creatures greeted me:
Just one more day.As my friend Stephen said, “their fate is assured.”
The soon-to-be reality of animal sacrifice in the streets shook me. And yet, slaughter is the fate of most domesticated animals. For better or for worse, we hide this fact. With Eid, there is no way to deny this reality, no way to make it casual or inconvenient. People witness the ritual and they witness the sacrifice. The meat is given to the family, friends, and the poor, not commodified. Muslims are asked to remember, in a visceral way, the requirements of their beliefs, the celebration of community, the call to generosity.
Dinner (vegetarian, always, for what it’s worth). Sleep.
The CNG–Compressed Natural Gas–taxi with driver in old Dhaka.
I got up early (again) and walked back to the park, threading my way through the faithful while the call-to-prayer echoed off the buildings in the neighborhood. The goats and cattle were still on the street. I decided to go into old Dhaka that day rather than hiding out in the air-conditioned room; the cool air and the (wonderful) food were starting to atrophy my resolve to be present. With the help of the entire hotel staff I got a CNG taxi (see above) and we headed down to the river.
Rickshaw art of the Buriganga River
On the way we passed along roads “painted red” with blood. We saw bulls sitting placidly next to carcasses being skinned, the severed heads dangling onto the pavement while the offal was being cut and piled on enormous gray platters. Three-foot bundles of new hides were stacked next to hooves and horns and tailbones; shopkeepers hosed down their storefronts where the blood had pooled. I had to turn away when we’d come upon a group of men holding down a bull as the knife was lifted above his neck. The sound that followed was ghastly.
I couldn’t take photos. It all seemed too intimate, my presence too intrusive.
By the time we reached the river lines of people had formed to collect or distribute the meat. Some were dressed for the holiday, the women in pastel shalwar kameezes and the men in charcoal panjabis; others wore tee-shirts and worn out jeans. The atmosphere was somber. The parties that evening, according to the men at the hotel front desk, would be festive, focused on family and gratitude.
“Glad” isn’t the right word, but I am glad I saw this. I think I would have regretted doing otherwise.
Moving on, if possible.
My swollen feet at the mall. Not bad advice.
For the rest of the day we drove around Dhaka. Here’s what I saw:
Ahsan Manzil, former home of the Nawab of Dhaka. Naturally, I arrived at noon when the place was closed. This is my way.Fascinating blend of European and Mughal architecture at the University of Dhaka.On campus. University of Dhaka.Dormitory with shoes and laundry.Future pharmacist and engineer. “Please, forgive the room. We are bachelors.” Looks fine to me. Helpful tour guides when I stumbled onto campus.Framing nature.Portrait of Professor Muhammad Shahi on the building that bears his name.
And, this:
Eid cakes and chocolates at the hotel.
The Ibrahim/Ishmael story mirrors Abraham/Isaac. All day these lyrics–co-written by Joan Baez–have been playing in my head:
Hard times, hard times in Canaan land Trouble in the mind of a man A voice came whispering softly to him Go offer, offer up the lamb
Abraham took his only son High up on a hill His test of faith had finally come As the wind, the wind begin to chill
Cold steel, cold steel in the father’s hand Tears falling from the sky The angels, the angels did not understand Why the righteous, the righteous boy should die
Abraham most mysteriously Laid down that deadly knife Said, “My darlin’ son, I wish I was the one Who spared you, spared your precious life”
Oh Isaac, the light of all your days Will shine upon this mountain high And never, never fade away And never fade away
Here’s a link to the song itself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU5h02mWipk.
When the Bengali movie “The Home and the World” was released in 1985 I dragged my friend Kathy to the Beverly Center in Los Angeles to see a weekday matinee. South Asia had begun to fascinate me and Kathy was a good sport. I still remember wandering around the food court afterward; it was too early for dinner and so we rode the escalators and waited for rush hour traffic to die down. The movie spawned a million jokes that afternoon, mostly because we were too young to be sensitive to the movie’s themes (the perils of staying close to home; the perils of leaving; the perils of passionate devotion to a cult leader) and too in love with our own banter. We cracked each other up.
A few days ago, after using the ATM at the Radisson Blu in Chittagong, I sat in the air-conditioned bar and, again, waited for the traffic to ease up (it never does). To pass some time I went over to a bookcase that stood just to the left of the bar (not sure which is weirder: a bookcase in a bar or a bar in dry Bangladesh). I scanned the English-language paper, flipped through a spy novel to see if there were any racy scenes, and then picked up a compendium of Rabindranath Tagore stories. And there it was: The Home and the World.
Reading in public again.
I suppose I could have paid for a full night at the Radisson to finish the story, but I do have housing through the AUW and I’m not wild about traveling in a three-wheel taxi after dark, so I left after the first chapter with only a vague recollection of what happens to Bimala, the story’s heroine. In that first chapter, Tagore writes of Bimala’s desire to revere her husband and of her husband’s desire for her to be emancipated. These competing views of the world unsettle Bimala, making her open to the demands of a third character, a charismatic political figure whose desires for Bimala prove to be dangerous and self-serving.
Bimala, of course, has her own life, one that neither man takes into account. For reasons honorable and nefarious, these men want to define this woman’s experience. They want to control her, make her fit into their view of the world. They’re willing, too, to let her pay the price for theirdesires.
Tagore wrote The Home and the World in 1916; would this book be banned in Florida or Texas in 2022 because it questions gender roles? Because it is anti-authoritarian at heart? The story is also an allegory about the ravages of colonialism. Won’t some people feel bad about that, particularly if they weren’t colonialists themselves?
And what about the children?
I was served bitter gourd at dinner last night. It was a bracing side dish, but I wouldn’t want to make a meal of it.
The past, emerging. A wall near my place in Chittagong. The face belongs to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, founding father of Bangladesh.
The world is too much with us, at least in this digital age (apologies to Wm. Wordsworth). Am awash in news from the States, most of it disheartening, while trying to be here in this very temporary home. Weird to fall asleep and wake up in Bangladesh after dreaming about home. Hard to recognize either place.
Teaching continues. I was invited to Cox’s Bazar, the longest beach in the world, to lead a class and conduct an improv workshop at Cox’s Bazar International University. I loved it. Some photos to capture the strangeness:
A Leonard Cohen song?
I took the bus from Chittagong to Cox’s Bazar; the 90-mile trip took nearly five hours. The windshield did not lie: it was harrowing (and beautiful and exciting).
Over the driver’s shoulder on the drive home. I didn’t mind slowing down for traffic.
Rainy, dreary, muddy when we arrived. I walked down to the shore before lunch, making up my mind that not only was Cox’s Bazar the world’s longest beach, but also the most depressing. Then I saw this:
Hard to be blue when horses are galloping by the umbrellas.
And this:
Bags and bags of dried fish. Did you know our sense of smell bypasses the thalamus, making it our most undiluted?
And this:
I love the unbridled optimism.
By the time I made it to the university my mind was changed (or opened). Cox’s Bazar, long as it is, may even be the world’s most bizarre beach, and that’s fine with me:
Sharks directing traffic at the roundabout in front of the university.
M.K. Jatra, my host, took me on a tour of the school. Climate change is affecting low-lying, alluvial countries like Bangladesh at a terrifying rate. The recent monsoon rain had drenched the school–mostly through the ceiling and windows–and the wreckage was immediately visible:
Aftermath.Berms at every threshold to keep the water out.The only thing dry was the upcoming lecture.
We began the workshop with formal speeches from the dais. My biggest hope is that M.K. Jatra’s Bangla translation enhanced my introductory talk. In my limited defense, I didn’t realize I’d be speaking until he handed me the microphone and said, “You go.” Thank goodness I’m an improviser:
I think I talked about Improvisation and Mental Health.
The students–all taking a certificate course in “Expressive Psychotherapy”–showed no signs of despair over the ravaged building. With the translating help of M.K. Jatra, they joined in the exercises with enthusiasm and laughter. In the debriefs they made connections between being in-the-moment and being free from the dread of anxiety. More than anything, they supported each other. At times three or four would cluster around a classmate, confer wildly, and then find the right English word to express their thoughts. When I tried to conduct a warm up using Bangla numbers (my Bangla language learning has stalled) they leaned in to help me, cheering at my rudimentary skills.
They were improvisers! Collaborative, curious, committed. It was a great afternoon.
The workshop is over! An engaging, committed, funny group. Very lucky to work with them.
As mentioned, the students above are getting certified through the Expressive Psychotherapy program; they’re exploring artistic processes–theater, painting, music–as a way to conduct therapy with traumatized clients. Due to this training, a culture of self-disclosure has taken root among the students. They share a lot. After a vigorous game of Zip-Zap-Zop, I asked if anyone had any questions. One woman did:
“What do you do when everyone betrays you? How do you trust again?”
Um…
Her classmates joined in, excoriating some guy who had promised love and then changed his mind. After submitting the evidence, which was vague but expressive, the students looked at me with high hopes. Surely the visiting professor must have an answer.
“I don’t know.”
I said I was sorry this had happened to her. I reminded her that this was an improv class, so I was going to frame my response in improv terms. I talked about how improv is always about honoring the moment, not ignoring what was happening, and then starting from that point. She had been hurt. Betrayed. As an improviser, she needed to recognize the pain and begin to find inspiration there.
She and her cohort shook their heads and murmured, “No, no.”
Rabindranath Tagore’s Bimala knows her own mind. Beware of advice.
I (sort of) stand by my answer. In retrospect (improv essentials: don’t look back!) I wish I’d said, “You seem disgusted by his behavior. Good! You know you deserve better. Start from there.”
I also could have said, “I love your openness, your unwillingness to shut down. I think that will serve you, even if it leaves you open to another betrayal. It’s not easy being a human being.”
“We all grow at different rates.” (“No, no.”)
Or, even better: “That’s a great question. What do you think?”
Sunset at Cox’s Bazar
After class M.K. Jatra and I had tea and samosas and then walked for two hours along the beach. It was glorious, peaceful, quiet. The tide was high, leaving pools of water on the sand. It was like walking on a mirror.
Now I’m back in Chittagong, working with my students at the Asian University for Women and conducting a workshop for the Bangladesh Therapeutic Theater Institute (BTTI). Everyone has been welcoming; it amazes me that they’re willing to let some bossy stranger into their midst and then wholeheartedly jump into these crazy exercises (“pretend you’re a lumberjack”; “now be a clam”). I’m a lucky man; I should be smiling on the BTTI banner:
I could get a big head.
I leave in a little over a week. I’ll miss these students. I’ll miss this place. The other day I went with another faculty member to the site of the future Asian University for Women, just outside of Chittagong in a beautiful, green valley. I felt a little sad that I’ll most likely never see the new school. Ground had been broken eleven years ago for the new campus, but very little construction had begun (money woes), and at this rate of progress it could be a while before students arrive.
And yet: tucked into the brick-and-mortar entrance to this imagined school was a marble plate with a poem by Rabindranath Tagore, writing about home and the world. The elements have already worn down his lofty sentiments, but the words still inspire:
Heaven of Freedom: Rabindranath Tagore
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls, Where words come out from the depth of truth Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit Where the mind is led forward by Thee Into ever-widening thought and action Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake
Tagore wrote this poem for India, before it was broken into East Pakistan and, later, Bangladesh. Still, it fits for this strange, troubled time we’re living now. We seem to be fragmenting, cut off from one another by “narrow domestic walls.” Here’s hoping the new AUW campus expands and does the poet proud.
This is for Kathy. What I wouldn’t give to wander the mall just one more time.
