Bloomsday in Dhaka
Bengali Literati ReJoyce

From my favorite local rag, The Independent

Seminar on Bloomsday
STAFF REPORTER

A programme to mark the Bloomsday was arranged by the well-known literary organization Shamprotik Shahityachinta (Contemporary literary thoughts) at the Bishwa Shahitya Kendra auditorium. This was perhaps the first time such a programme was arranged in Bangladesh. For millions of fans of the celebrated Irish novelist James Joyce Bloomsday, June 16, is an extraordinary day. On that day in 1904, Stephen Dedalus and Leopold Bloom each took their epic journeys through Dublin in James Joyce's Ulysses, one of the world's most highly acclaimed modern novels.

Zakeria Shirazi, the noted literary critic and senior journalist presented the keynote paper. He has been a keen student of Joyce and has translated into Bangla his autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and he is also currently working on translating Ulysses. In his paper he commented upon the unique style and content of James Joyce'' works. He compared Ulysses with the French writer Gustav Flaubert's Madam Bovary and said that the labour and experimentation that has gone into writing the novel is simply astounding.

He also said that many a discerning critic consider this novel as the most important novel. The novel which is nothing short of revolutionary in its form has influenced countless writers and continues to do so even now. Ulysses has 18 chapters and each chapter utilizes different narrative techniques to tell its story. Joyce has explored virtually all the possibilities of the novel. He dealt specifically on the last chapter where the heroine Molly Bloom indulges in a monologue. That chapter Shirazi said is peerless in modern fiction.

In the paper Zakeria Shirazi also spoke about Joyce's ambivalent attitude towards his hometown Dublin-the background of his most celebrated novel. Shirazi also commented upon the influence of James Joyce and in particular his magnum opus on Bengali fiction writers. He said that one can see traces of Joyce in the works of Akhtaruzzaman Elias in his descriptions of Dhaka.

Shirazi's paper generated a good deal of enthusiasm among the audience. Shahidul Alam who has translated some short stories of James Joyce said that translating James Joyce was an altogether different experience. He added when he first read Joyce he was simply fascinated and was almost forced to translate some short stories.

The poet Shamaresh Debnath next came onto the stage. In his brief and impassioned speech Debnath described Joyce as the greatest novelist ever and the novelist who brought modernity into the novel. He compared reading Joyce with conquering the Mount Everest and said the though extremely difficult both the endeavors give one a kind of sublime pleasure that is well-nigh impossible to describe.


Khalequzzaman Elias, the noted critic spoke about the similarity between Homer's epic Odyssey and Joyce's Ulysses. He said that Joyce never set out to write a mock epic and even if his characters at times seem lacking in the grandeur of Homer's creations they have their own stature. And that stature can be gauged only by a thorough reading of Joyce. Elias said he wanted to see more translations of Joyce's works in Bangla. He spoke about the reasons why Joyce was so fascinated with the character of Ulysses.

Among others who spoke on the occasion were Hayat Saif and Syed Mehdi Momin. Abdush Shakoor who spoke last said Bllomsday is being observed by Joyce enthusiast since 1928. Ahmed Mazhar was the moderator and the eminent writer Khaleda Edib Chowdhury was in the chair.

In spite of the heavy downpour throughout the day a sizeable number of people attended the discussion meeting proving that in Bangladesh too there exists a dedicated group of Joyceans. May be in the future the capital will see the Bloomsday observed on a much larger scale.

Holy Jackfruit Loaded Rickshaws, Batman!
A Canadian with a Missing Sham Wife Hits Bangladeshi Tea Country

In Dhaka last week, just before I hopped a train for Srimangal (Bangladesh's tea region), I realized that I had never before felt like I was literally at war with my environment.

It started the moment I arrived in the capital, teary eyed from the Compressed Natural Gas rickshaw ride from the airport (travelling down the same road Rumsfeld--peace be with his rotten heart--would travel two weeks later in his war fodder recruitment tour of South and SE Asia). I was crying because of the air pollution (not because of any fanaticism over my nation's defense secretary, though the beauty of natural gas rickshaws is almost worth shedding a tear over).

Then, still the first day, it was the insect powder that was my enemy. Crawling behind the computers in the dust at my new home, I reacted with fear for my own safety and sympathy for the crawling things, insisting we stop dusting the powder all over the flat, especially near the food. That same night, a dying cockroach attacked me. (Or was it trying to play?) Covered in dust, as if to taunt me in its death throes, it lurched at me again and again until finally I threw it out the window. As time passed, I began to throw many cockroaches out the window. (Peace be with their simple hearts). (Do insects have hearts?)

If only I could as throw out the insects that cause the mysterious red marks on my ankles, or the whatever that causes my feet to itch, the allergen that's causing mysterious hives to pop up like wack-a-moles all over my body, or the compounded effect of all those variables giving me dreams that make me think worms are coming out of my head. (They were earthworms to be exact--could be worse).

At least the leeches coming out of the tap have been taken care of. One of my housemates tied ripped bedsheets around all of the faucets. After a day, they turned brown and started spurting water all over. We didn't replace them. Why bother?

I have yet to wear a bandana over my face outside, mostly because I'm afraid the British colonial looking traffic cops in their high-waisted pants with knee-high boots and whacking sticks will think I'm some sort of bandit. Not to mention that, even though Dhaka has the worst pollution in the world, no one but no one wears a pollution mask.

So I bolted. Had to. Took my friend's advice to visit Srimongal, about five hours outside of Dhaka by slow train. I became Canadian and told everyone I was married. Little did they know that my wife was a sham and our marriage was but a gathering of friends followed by gleeful rolling about on the kitchen floor.

Srimongal, Tea Country, pretending to be Canadian

As expected, the minions of the town's best tour guide--Rashed Husan, who's due to appear in the next edition of the Lonely Planet--got to me during my rickshaw ride from the train station to the fabulous Taj Mahaal Hotel. At 60 cents per night on a record high dollar, the best boarding house for the money...ever. Despite the building shaking when busses rolled by outside on the unpaved main road, I slept comfortably).

After my afternoon nap, I supported the local economy by paying too much for a couple of saris. A man from the crowd yanked down the shorts of a boy whom I assumed was his own three year old child to reveal elephantized testicles the size of tennis balls. I retired back to the Taj Mahaal to finish Tom Robin's "Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas"--a must read, sez someone you shouldn't trust.

Biking Through Tea Country--And a Hindu Festival

The good thing about Sashed Husan (rasha-tg@hotmail.com, enjoylife-45@yahoo.com) was that he was dependable and he didn't want to rip me off. He got me a bike for $2.50/day and left me alone. He didn't warn about how I'd get mugged if I didn't hire his services, as did another fellow who wanted me to pry open my wallet. Sashed even congratulated me when I told him I got to visit the Bangladesh Tea Research Institute's factory. That day happened to be their "Internet Connecting Ceremony" day as well, when all the IT guys where there to marvel at the 5km DSL line. Oh the smell of tea was amazing as was the whole culture of the British empire's old tea country.

The curious thing about this tea area is that the British decided to import coolies from India instead of training the locals, so I men with lots of friendly Hindus along the way. It even happened to be the Hindu festival of Rathyatra, where Lord Jagannath (believed to be an avatar of Lord Vishnu) and his two siblings go on vacation. Devotees of the dieties throw fruit in the air and parade religious figures around in chariots. I was invited to a village ceremony to start the procession, but my tour guide's English was terrible.

I went back to the Taj Mahaal. Boy was the place shaking when that bunch went by. I thought of throwing my apples at the crowd, but an apple from the fourth floor ain't pretty. Neither were the half eaten bananas that landed on my balcony.

A Highly Reliable Guide

That night, the guy who worked for Sashed came up to my room to hang out with the other two tourist hustlers in the town. He invited me down to the street and then to his Hindu temple and then out for tea. In the narrow streets of Srimongal, I heard Hindu prayers coming up like whisping wind through blades of grass. Much more eerie than Muslim prayers, which are projected from huge speakers in the mosque towers for all to hear, Hindu prayer time springs up organically from all sides.

If you're going to Srimongal, (Srimangal) I highly recommend you contact:

Liton Kumar
litonkumar@yahoo.com
0176138081

Liton was a lovely boy who would have gladly served as my tour guide. Instead, he became my friend. With his more than decent English, he deserves to show someone around his town. He was a being with a beautiful heart. Whatever you could give him would be charitable. I didn't give him anything. He wouldn't even let me pay for tea. Still, his 12 hour work days in a Srimongal mobile phone shop earn him 50 taka per day. 85 cents.

Protests mark Suu Kyi's birthday
Hundreds of pro-democracy activists have gathered in the Burmese capital, Rangoon, to mark the 59th birthday of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

From the BBC News

They went to the headquarters of her National League for Democracy (NLD), where monks offered prayers and party representatives called for her release.

The commemoration came as the US State Department again called for Ms Suu Kyi and her deputy, Tin Oo, to be freed.

The two have spent more than a year under house arrest.

Ms Suu Kyi has also been confined on two previous occasions and has now spent nearly nine of the past 15 years in some form of detention.

In Saturday's commemorations, supporters released nine doves of peace and sent balloons floating into the sky.

They shouted "Free Aung San Suu Kyi" before marching towards the city's famous Shwedagon pagoda.

International concern

US Secretary of State Colin Powell sent his personal greetings to Ms Suu Kyi, while a statement issued by the State Department described her continued detention as "without cause and unacceptable".

The State Department urged the Burmese government to work with the NLD to restore democracy - but the BBC's correspondent in the region, Kylie Morris, says that is unlikely to happen.

Our correspondent says the Burmese government's trenchant position is causing problems with its neighbours - fellow members of the Asean group of nations who normally do not comment on one another's internal affairs.

Despite this, Thailand and Malaysia have both raised Ms Suu Kyi's continued detention with Burma's Prime Minister Khin Nyunt, who has now postponed plans to visit a number of other countries in the region.

Last month, the Burmese government opened talks on a new constitution, but NLD members refused to attend while Ms Suu Kyi was still in detention.

Printed without permission of the BBC. So sue me. (Please don't sue me).

Word On the Street:
I Like Hitler Country

Random: Where are you from?
Narrator's Roommate: (not lying) Germany.
Your Narrator: (Looking German, says nothing).
R: Ah, Hitler country!
NR: Yes, Hitler country.
R: I like Hitler.
YN: Why do you like Hitler?
R: Patriot.
YN: Hitler wasn't even from Germany.

Gettin' Wiki With It
Information Wants to be Free

Wiki's a tech that puts software in control.

Wiki's the web real estate for for squatters, the icky for the squeamish, the place where the permanence of your post is only as good as your writing.

If this were a wiki page, you could overwrite this page. Lucky for me and too bad for you, A Backpack and a Keyboard is for narrators only.

Try Wikitravel for all your travel needs.

Try Wikipedia for all your information needs.

Some Locals Get Vocal about Aun San Suu Kyi
The Fair Leader of Burma Still Under House Arrest

Burmese nationals demand release of Suu Kyi

6/20/2004

About 100 Burmese nationals Saturday celebrated the 59th birthday of their democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi, asking the ruling military junta to release the leader immediately, reports BSS.

"We are celebrating the birthday of Suu Kyi. She is now under house arrest and we want her immediate release," Director of Narinjara Khaing Mrat Kyaw told journalists at the Supreme Court gate in city.

Kyaw said Burma could not be an accepted country to rest of the world until and unless it's 'patriotic' and elected leader Suu Kyi is released.

Describing the military junta as unauthorised force he said that any move by the ruling junta would be dubbed as undemocratic and unconstitutional in future.

Here's another article from The Independent

Myanmar nationals celebrate Suu Kyi’s Birthday

STAFF REPORTER

Dhaka, June 20:Myanmar nationals living in Bangladesh celebrated the 59th birthday of leader of the country’s movement for restoration of democracy Aung San Suu Kyi in Dhaka yesterday asking the ruling military junta to release their leader immediately.

Over 100 Myanmar nationals gathered at the Bangladesh Supreme Court gate yesterday morning to celebrate the birthday of Suu Kyi, undisputed leader of National League for Democracy (NLD) daughter of Myanmar’s liberation war hero Aung San.

Khaing Mrat Kyaw, leader of the Working Committee for Democracy Restoration in Burma (WCDRB) talking to the journalists at the Supreme Court gate said, “We are celebrating the birthday of our great leader Suu Kyi. She is now under house arrest and we want her immediate release.” The military government kept Suu Kyi under house arrest since May 19.

The WCDRB leader said most of countries of the world and the UN condemned the military government in Myanmar.

Kyaw, flanked by a number of Burmese men and women, urged the world community to boycott ruling junta in Myanmar until its “patriotic” and elected leader Suu Kyi release.

What's That Slurping Sound?
Is That Your Narrator Sipping Tea or Is He Being Milked?

Srimongal, Bangladesh

Depending on your temperament, Bangladeshis have just the right level of English to be slightly amusing or highly annoying. With my months of skin thickening treatment in the Middle Kingdom, I find they usually fall into the former category. I wave off the most vocal of elementary English speakers like water off a duck's back.

Despite the decline in English levels since the withdrawal of the Raj's highly visible hand, a competent Bangladeshi speaker of the world's language of necessity is easier to find than the equivalent Chinese or even Thai. This makes Bangladesh--despite its being an obstacle course of open sewers, muddy streets, constant construction and bumper to kneecap traffic--an easy place to get around in. If one is willing to ask for directions, that is.

Drawbacks abound, obviously. Fame is most sweet when you've done something to warrant it. My whiteness is no cause for celebration. It's a cause for worry when my sunscreen sweats off in the afternoon sun and I come home looking like a lobster. My whiteness makes me feel like a freak show attraction at a tea shop. But when I try to charge the crowds admission--"five taka, five taka"--I get only blank stares.

So what. Stares are common any place where Europeans decided their mission civile couldn't be turned into a mission touriste--or, more importantly, a mission commerciale. Bangladesh has a much worse combinations of variables.

Combine fairly across-the-board English competency with a country ranked more corrupt than any other nation on earth, and you have a recipe for the kind of dilemnas I find myself in whenever I venture out. It's far too easy to get entangled in what one rolling stone (Big Will) called "derelict philanthropy". (He wanted to make himself a business card).

Teeth aching from nearly unavoidable tea overconsumption, I often hover caffeinated into the muddy or flooded streets to fend off the raised eyebrows of rickshaw drivers, the saluting hands of shop owners, the "hallows" of children, the hands of beggars, and the various tricksters, slicksters, gawkers, hawkers, talkers, baulkers, walkers, stalkers, squawkers, and faux pauxers. In this milieu, the kind hearted and slightly naive such as yours truly get drained of their liquid funds faster than a shredded can of "Starship Brand Condensed Milk" leaks its sweetjuice into a cup of Golden Broken Orange Pekoe.

Here's how my street charity has worked so far. I've almost got a system worthy of export.

Kids don't get money because they're likely working for someone else, but if they are selling sweets or flowers, I indulge and buy more than my stomach or my wallet--if either spoke faster than pity--would have me buy.

Cripples don't usually get money because they may have inflicted the damage to elicit pity. Gouged eyeballs, tied arms, and other deformities don't get me reachin', even when they're displayed prominently before train windows. Cripples and beggars may also be working for a collection cartel--a beggars' mafia.

Music always brings a tinkling sound to the beggar's bowl.

Women with chidren don't usually get money, but the witch with the mark of the devils' cock (Betel nut red) around her mouth got a spare bill from my pocket last Bloomsday because I pittied her child. "Where do you think that money went to?" my friend asked, irritated. I knew the anwer. Highly addictive, highly carcinogenic Betel nut. I regretted my indirect investment in her drug addiction almost immediately.

Did I trust the man at the train station who was "not a beggar" and had "a terrible skin disease" that left him "unable to find strength to work" and wanted "only five thousand Taka?" No, I can't help everyone in Bangladesh.

I did help a man today who showed me the way to the Srimongal Post Office and helped me buy some green tea. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but he seemed truly desperate.

He told me his Peptic Ulcer had burst. I told him I was Canadian.

He showed me a doctor's prescription, which he said he could not fill with his own money until his friend from America (his boss from Occidental Petrolium) came to pay all his expenses in August.

At first he requested 1700 Taka ($25US) for tests and drugs and I told him he'd have to find another way. He gave me his address and phone number, said he'd pay me back if I gave him mine. I declined.

Then I decided I'd try buying him a week's worth of medicine directly from a pharmacy. This I did and it ended up costing 300 Taka ($5US). Knowing that the man could likely sell the drugs back to the store when I snuck into the tea shop for a roti, I just thought back to the few times in my life when--deep in the pits of suicidal depression--I spent more than $5 gorging myself on fast food at McDonalds. Never mind that I may have gifted the man an average Bangladeshi's weekly salary. If he was lying, I will never know. His story is between him and his god now. Peace be with him whether he's a sick man or a liar.

Floods of Money vs the Commonwealth
Bill Moyers's Take on What's Wrong

From his keynote speech, "This is the Fight of Our Lives" at the Inequality Matters Forum
New York University
June 3, 2004

...the idea took hold that we could fix what was broken so that our children would live a bountiful life. We could prevent the polarization between the very rich and the very poor that poisoned other societies. We could provide that each and every citizen would enjoy the basic necessities of life, a voice in the system of self-government, and a better chance for their children. We could preclude the vast divides that produced the turmoil and tyranny of the very countries from which so many of our families had fled.

We were going to do these things because we understood our dark side -- none of us is good -- but we also understood the other side -- all of us are sacred. From Jefferson forward we have grappled with these two notions in our collective head -- that we are worthy of the creator but that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Believing the one and knowing the other, we created a country where the winners didn't take all. Through a system of checks and balances we were going to maintain a safe, if shifting, equilibrium between wealth and commonwealth.

In my time we went to public schools. My brother made it to college on the GI bill. When I bought my first car for $450 I drove to a subsidized university on free public highways and stopped to rest in state-maintained public parks. This is what I mean by the commonwealth. Rudely recognized in its formative years, always subject to struggle, constantly vulnerable to reactionary counterattacks, the notion of America as a shared project has been the central engine of our national experience.

Until now. I don't have to tell you that a profound transformation is occurring in America: the balance between wealth and the commonwealth is being upended. By design. Deliberately. We have been subjected to what the Commonwealth Foundation calls "a fanatical drive to dismantle the political institutions, the legal and statutory canons, and the intellectual and cultural frameworks that have shaped public responsibility for social harms arising from the excesses of private power." From land, water and other natural resources, to media and the broadcast and digital spectrums, to scientific discovery and medical breakthroughs, and to politics itself, a broad range of the American commons is undergoing a powerful shift toward private and corporate control. And with little public debate. Indeed, what passes for 'political debate' in this country has become a cynical charade behind which the real business goes on -- the not-so-scrupulous business of getting and keeping power in order to divide up the spoils.

We could have seen this coming if we had followed the money...

read the rest here.

"The Guerilla Soldier"
by Karen Connelly

Together, from opposite sides
of the small pagoda, we watched
the wasp attack the fly
and carry it, pierced,
out of the gold shaft of twilight.
Then we looked at each other.
Mocking eyes, a mouth wet with bitter water.
His face did not change when I smiled.
The silence became so heavy I knelt.
The Buddha started past us
as we bowed three times,
wordlessly, almost in unison.
I believe his lips touched
the worn stone. I believe his lips
were made of stone.
Outside, a child began to cry!
His face did not change.
The scent of jasmine
was like fingers
touching my mouth!
Later we sat outside
in the jungle, sharing a cheroot,
remembering the smell of the tea shops
in Mandalay, the scent of Burma.
Finally, I understood the addiction,
the longing for fire, a chain of
fingertips. The breath in
means I am alive!
The red coal burned like a target
among the white fireflies.
The fireflies flickered off and on,
salting his shoulders, his black hair.
I whispered, "they are beautiful."
He turned his head
to look at whatever he could see
of me in the dark.
He said,
Fireflies make me think of their
white shirts.
The university boys so often
wore laundered white shirts.
Later we sat outside.
Fourteen of my friends
died, downed by soldiers
in the lake near the university.
Hundreds more were shot in the road
I walked to school on every day.
Do you understand?
Ni Lay, the girl I would have
married -- Ni Lay means sapphire --
was raped, raped again.
She bled to death,
from a ruptured uterus.
Yet I am still alive.
My face will never change
because I am a survivor.
I will always be shocked.
I pay for my life each day, again.
No merit is enough.
The fireflies, their white shirts.
Do you understand?
That is why I came to the border.
My life is the memory
of the dead!

A False Identity
A View of My Nation's p"Resident"

Bangladeshi: Where you come from?
Your Narrator: Germany
B: Ah, Hitler country.
YN: Yes, Hitler country.
B: Hitler just like Bush, hahahahah!

Bloomsdee Greetlings? Punny ewe Should Ax, Earlicker!
Dublin of Yesteryear Dhakatted, Bang the Dash!

noat: encode ink: Simple tide Chinease
Buy SamueL. Sighman, esq., your B-rated ne'er rater>

News线条（She 'n' tea, ow!): Bhikka, Backtodesk (Indea's stankie, postlimbing LIM.Tbit.

"Joy of Joyce, it’s SHWEltering!" fast broke the glibely guttereening Wickersham, "S'wat the sent to read’s Bloomsdee rearrived by way of South Orientia! ENOC of the war, forget streats, we fright on this sumfiner day.

Fr'over the the arco-iris, ex-age rated, eye a tack! Unto the shreats.

Some Hard Careeran broilmen aren't expecting the topple, so what a day to activize. Lurch ever steady against SureWay 管道Goo And Tao. Hear the seeiN'Gene of 三lunes and give the folks chances, you sheeting oilmen! Mind the drilling or Lilley'll half yee, Chainyee for Bushwacking the man groves of airy can't. Coast on hum fr'over the short see. If E'er I can, e'er eye swill, you Shweauntering Shangban们, you egoces, yule 面 woah!! Weave gut $hellves of books on U! No Cal? Total D. Nile. Tieland, Four run Police see, and also Mine Kamphoring up half the err aye breathe.

Sense? Woah. May... Yo! N'hope. Take a dolor for peasake, ya mother 'n' sucklin’ gou neckkid; heh: beetled kisser’s like the grates of fell! Fakin' tah tah! Grime off! I'm zoeing. Just kan meat.

Go driver! Carry thequips--one Jawshwaelf (the amIfairinspan), a bookself, a flying Hennkraut, the Mauking bird, so Loon--backtahome!

Me? (You!) Phit! Tick on! Tockle the peddles! Ontoward! Mere pour of strength--eat Borscht, did ye?--and--one to ten--holm again! Tell Rick Shaw the Pizza 清 marks land and have I told you isn't it a telling tailing that those two penguins are the first and second trash respectables scene in the hole shitty of Caca?

Har har har, Mr. Wickersome, you're bound to be scummed again!

Way very nice里可 to the teek cravers, cake sellers, T boylers, door pdeepeners, and huff up the sixflights. Whew, what a v--eew--you exit rooftop wise! 大！Ka！ Wee step towarchtipstopfull end of the bluedifice. Brake! outta thunderspake to the fall
(ahllaahmoohackbahallaahhhhshamwhambhamalamshuminshuminshamshambamsammiches!!!) on the brick smashers' hovel.

Ach, my back, my brack! Look at the dead fee lying on the spoof! In stall prowess gram, webshite. Upagain, funagain's spake. Something Hopeful Waddles Everywhere.

Zen, ma! (Hummm) Shit between otro reunion? Coolo it, think Detroit. Thing space. Headlung bunnge. Ooh, Dhaktor, it hurts! I never meant oneapply the leakses, they Come outta the trap! Oh mercy bouqcoup wat phalctoids your figure Erupts. Without boundations!

To wade the streets an ark is kneaded. In a lucky table made a litter ofthemed visible, Leopold shaved his frace in the bloodpaddle. Blahbaryans! All on ya! Ethylnic inflighting! You prouduct of skeen'n'stories! What a Bloomsomething inneed!

What Comes Out of the Tap in Dhaka
Related to What Comes Out of the Sewers in Dhaka?

Today a live leech came out of the tap for a swim in the bathwater.

Every day sinewy men haul black earth from open manholes with buckets on strings.

Are the two phenomena related?

Where is Your Country?
Part One

Pedestrian: Where is your country?
Your Obviously Anglo Narrator: Thailand.
Pedestrian: Oh, really? (In all seriousness). That's what I thought!

Meme Wars.....and the Second Gulf War
Step by Step Failures of the Press, Documented

The New York Review of Books: Now They Tell Us

Which Countries Has Your Narrator Visted?
Check Out the Two Big Red Blobs on the Map Below



create your own visited country map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Want the Real News in Dhaka?
Read this Blog

Hasan Iqbal Wamy blogs all the news I'm too afraid to share with people back home. So if you want to read about bus fires and visits from Rumsfeld and all the other stuff happening in my neighborhood, check out moodlogic.

In Memoriam



I was too young to remember much about the Gipper. During most of Reagan's two terms I thought anchorman Tom Brokaw from NBC Nightly News was president, so I'll probably feel sadder when others from "The Greatest Generation" pass. Still, here's one decent retrospective, the likes of which I won't likely read in the firey op/ed pages of Bangladesh's English daily The Independent or any other print publication. There's rotten.com's "tribute". Then there's HIV/AIDS, which Reagan let spiral out of control because he thought it was God's plague on gays. Reagan wanted American to stand tall, but I just want my country to share the wealth and stop killing in my name. And I'd like some truth too.

A Country Stops
Your Narrator's First Hartal (Strike)

Bangladesh is a strange place. When one of the country's two political parties holds a majority in parliament, the other party fights like hell to oust them, even at the expense of the already shattered Bangladeshi economy. Today I get to experience my first nation-wide transport strike, called a Hartal, aimed at the Bangladesh Nationalist Party.

As if it weren't already difficult enough to get around Bangladesh. Now the workers in the country's only two forms of public transport-- bus operators, and rickshaw drivers--are calling it a day before they even get started. Luckily I don't have anywhere to go and I have the second season of the Simpsons on DVD.

But then again...there are busses travelling down the road. Maybe the "opposition" realizes that Hartals harm everyone.

Dataline: Dhaka
Broadband? Try 4KBps. Help? Try Dr. Frankenfurter



I was excited when my friend told me he was getting broadband for his apartment and asked me to help wire his three computers. I thought: Wow! Bangladesh has broadband? Thailand doesn't even come close. Must be the Indian influence. Hey Bangalore! Thanks for sharing the bandwealth! Then I got here and found things much more complicated than I could have possibly imagined.

I thought setting up the network would be easy. Just buy a router/hub/firewall at one of the many IT cities that spring up like circuited mushrooms all across Asia, plug it in as a DHCP server and set up the computers for file sharing. Then plug that router into the line strung from the sixth story apartment window. Couldn't be more simple.

Welcome to Bangladesh.

On the second day of pulling our hair, we enlisted the help of the owner of our local ISP. He said the problem was that we were not actually connected to a DSL modem system, but that we were just connecting to what I call a Bangladeshi Wide Area Local Area Network. (Geeks, settle down. I know there's probably no such thing as a "wide area local area network." Let me explain what I mean by BWALAN).

A BWALAN is a cable strung sometimes to a local hub, sometimes directly over public electricity poles to an ISP down the road). A BWALAN service provider recognizes his clients' computers by using their hardware addresses, not by assigning multiple IP addresses. A BWALAN plugs right into a client's network card. A BWALAN is not DSL. It is not broadband. It is narrowband. BWALANs commonly connect at 4KBps. Yes, we're measuring the speed in Kilobytes, not kilobits and we're connecting over a 100Mbps ethernet system at half the speed of the average 56k dial-up user. (But at twice the speed of a Bangladeshi dial-up account, which the government limits to 2KBps). Cost: about $20US per month.

Four KiloBytes per second for "broadband"? you ask. How could this be?

Bangladesh has no internet backbone connections. The country is right next to the IT hub of Asia (India) and Bangladesh doesn't have an Internet backbone.

"Maybe we get a backbone connection next year," says the ISP owner. Right now we buy our bandwidth from private carrier through satelite to Hong Kong. My 256KBps connection cost 85 thousand Taka [about $1,400US] per month."

So we can't use the router to dish out IP addresses because he can't connect it to his network (or claims he can't). Thus began the arduous process of turning my friend's new PC into a server and connecting the other two computers to it as clients. Because we couldn't find the drivers to use on the updated server, we decided to pile into a cab, brave the rickshaws, pollution and honking of the Dhaka streets and head to another IT city.

On the third floor of one of the city's many dank concrete buildings, in a 1.5 by 2 meter office, we met the man who assembled my friend's PC. At first I couldn't place his face, then it hit me and my companion at the same time. Doctor Frank N. Furter! He had the same lips, eyelashes, hair and cheek bones as Tim Curry in Rocky Horror Picture Show. The only difference was his dress--and his Bangladeshi/Indian accent. As eerie as this was, he got our computer up to speed and at no extra cost. The only cost was the CD we got our pirated version of Windows 2000 Server on. Luckily, all software in Bangladesh costs only a buck, so our copy of Windows NT Server came at next to nothing. (DVDs are a buck fi'ty, so email me with requests).

You can guess the next movie I'll be looking for on DVD.

Oh Rocky!