Timeline: October 9 – October 11

Setting up the Khulna center was my last assignment from Relief International. I’ve been working for this international aid agency since May 2005, and I finally realised that it’s time to quit. I resigned last month, and September 31st was officially my last day at work. For last two weeks, I’ve been helping them out as a volunteer, and mentoring my assistant Alamgir whom I’ve nominated for my position.

My work at Khulna took only few hours, so I got a good chance to roam around the city. I visited the zero point, Khulna University campus, Khulna court, the “Jail Khana Ghaat” on the banks of Rupsa river, the New Market, Meena Bazar, and Daily Purbanchal office.

The Khulna Meena Bazar is almost the same size of the Dhaka one, but has one third of the products that our one has. I went there to buy Playboy deodorant for myself but couldn’t find it.

Overall, it was a good trip. I boarded at Hotel Royal as usual and I’m giving them 8.5 out 10 for their service. No beer this time since it’s Ramadan.

Timeline: July 18 – July 19, 2006

Public transportation service from Khulna to Bagerhat is extremely poor. These two districts are only 30 kilometers apart, though the bus takes almost an hour to reach. Rupsha river separates the districts, and the newly built 1.4 kilometer bridge stands high. Yes, it’s named after Khan Jahan Ali as well.

I stayed overnight at Khan Jahania Gono Bidyalaya, which is less than a kilometer away from the famous Shat Gombuj or the “Sixty Dome” Mosque. Contrarary to it’s name, the Mosque doesn’t have sixty domes, but a total of eighty one. Seventy seven domes are over the roof and four domes are on four corners. There are sixty pillars supporting the mosque, and that’s how it got it’s name. Built in 1459 entirely with stones and red burn mud, the mosque measures 160′ x 108′ and the interior is beautifully decorated with terra cotta.

Bagerhat Museum is just beside the mosque, and it has quite a good collection of local antiques, mostly pottery and terra cotta.

The burial place of Khan Jahan Ali was near too, and I gave it a visit. My guide was a local electrician cum folk singer cum painter who has a very good relation with the people taking care of the burial place, or the maazar. The scenario inside the maazar looked a lot like what goes on inside Hindu temples. Some people have turned this sacred place into a business venture, and charges money from the visitors. I didn’t had to pay anything since my guide was their friend. The religious radicalism surrounding this place has got nothing to do with Islam.

Beside the burial lies a very big pond called “Thakur Dighi” and guess what’s in there! Crocodiles! Yes, dozens of crocodiles! They lived there for more than 500 years, and my understanding is that their ancestors were brought from Persia or Arabia by Hazrat Khan Jahan Ali. Interesting, huh?

It took eight long hours to reach Khulna, the so called industrial capital of Bangladesh. The 335 kilometers journey wouldn’t have been so boring and tiresome if the Volvo service of Green Line was better. Their AC acted weird, the TV blew up, the seats were uncomfortable, the mineral water had a bad odour, and the guide never apologised despite of so many problems. If I wasn’t carrying my iPod, then I would have surely died of boredom. A good lesson learnt, I’ll never ride on Green Line bus again.

I checked in at Hotel Royal, the best hotel in the region. Their services were of international standards, but surprisingly the room rent wasn’t too high. The room was well groomed with international standard fixtures, the bed was comfy, the room service was quick, and the room attendants appeared well trained. They have a bar too.

I roamed around the town, visited the New Market, but I wasn’t too impressed. Despite being the divisional head quarter of the division, the city was much smaller than I expected. It’s not too developed either. There were handful of cars in the road, and the buildings looked pale. Load shedding is a major problem of the city dwellers. Khulna city had nothing that can be compared to Dhaka, not even with port city Chittagong. Just imagine what kind of city it is where the shutters of shops get closed by 9 PM!

Just a few observations: 1. The dialect of Khulna people isn’t too difficult to understand. 2. The rikshaw fair is pretty cheap. 3. People of Khulna seems to be too obsessed with Hazrat Khan Jahan Ali, the 15 century Islamic religious leader and a ruler. Roads, schools, shops, buildings, companies, and a lot of installations are named after him.

Timeline: July 11 – July 13

It was my first trip to Joypurhat, a North Bengal district 380 km from Dhaka. It was infact my first trip to North Bengal as well, the vast region on the other side of Jamuna river.

Since there isn’t any AC bus service available on this route, I had to travel by Hanif Paribahan. I listened to my crazy collection of trance music through out the journey, so I didn’t get too bored. More over, crossing the 4.8 km Jamuna bridge (which is 110 kilometers northwest of Dhaka) was exciting. To date, it’s the longest brigde in South Asia, and 11th longest in the world.

It took 8 long hours to reach Joypurhat. My destination was further 15 kilometers from the town, a village in Pachbibi upa-zila. Pachbibi is completely an under developed rural area, with rikshaw vans as the only means of transport. It was quite surprsing for me see only a handful of real rickshaws around. The Indian border and Hili land port was near to where I stayed, I was informed that a lot of villages are involved with smuggling.

There’s a good number of indigenous population in the area, making it a heaven for a lot of local and international NGOs. A Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) mission school is also in the area, and I was told by my guide that they receives a huge funding from USA. I was told that they have their own backup generators, water supply system, air-conditioned rooms, computers lab with 50+ PCs and so on. I wanted to visit them, but couldn’t manage the time to do so.

An interesting point to mention before I end. If you go to a tea stall in Joypurhat, then this is how they’ll serve your tea: they’ll fill two-third of the cup with milk, and then one-third with tea! Should we call it it tea with milk, or milk with tea, that remains the question.

Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake) was released today, making it the perfect day to announce the new home of Ubuntu Bangladesh.

I’ve been working on-and-off on the site for the last few days, tried MediaWiki, MoinMoin and TikiWiki, but finally decided to go for PHP-Nuke, which is not a wiki but a CMS. The site is happily running from an US server, hosted by our sponsor Dualnic. Check it out!

Whenever someone mentions Sonargoan, it’s very likely that he’s referring to Pan Pacific Sonargoan, the luxury 5-star hotel in Dhaka. What most people don’t know is about 25 km away from Dhaka lies the former capital of Bengal, the great historical city of Sonargoan. It’s not their fault either — other than Shipakarja Jainul Adedin, no one, no goverment ever took any initiative to protect and promote the great heritage of this this city. Pathetic, but true.

On the entrance to Sonargoan Rajbari is the famous sculpture of bull wagon by Jainul Abedin, which symolises toil and struggle. Jainul Abedin has always been one my favourite artist and I took a chance to get a pic of mine infront of the sculpture:

Just a few steps ahead to the left is the 2-storied palace, or the Rajbari, which is now being used as a museum:

The palace has over 100 small rooms, and it’s completely like a maze inside. All the rooms are of same size and design, and now they are home to different cultural and architectural masterpieces collected from different parts of Bangladesh. I was told by my guide that this palace was used by few rulers, including the Hindu Jamidars who ruled during the British regime. It’s open for visitors from 10:00 to 17:00 everyday, except for Thursday.

Brief history of Sonargoan, as told by Dr. Abu Sayeed:

Sonargaon, which literally means “golden village” in Bengali, was the capital of the Banga province or Eastern Bengal, which was one of the three political units of this territory during the Delhi Imperial rule. In 1338 Fakhr-al-Din-Mubarak seized the provincial government of Sonargaon and declared himself independent from Delhi and was the first independent Sultan of Bengal.

In 1352, he was overthrown by the Sultan of Gaur Ilyas Shah, and from this time Sonargaon formed a part of the independent kingdom of united Bengal until the advent of the Moguls (1575).

In the reign of Akbar, it was the chief city of Isa Khan, who maintained his independence for several years. After Isa Khan’s death it became a part of the Great Mogul Empire. The decline of Sonargaon started with the establishment of the Mogul capital in Dhaka in 1608, and with the conquest of the kingdom of Isa Khan by the forces of Islam Khan in 1611 it became one of the Sarkers of the Bengal Subah, losing its former prestige forever.

The history of Sonargaon for the next two hundred years until the establishment of the commercial belt of the East India Company in Panam is still unknown to us. The colonial city of Panam came into being in the nineteenth century and continued to flourish till the end of the Second World War.