Many Words for Water

Across the Naf River is Myanmar.

Bank of the Naf.

North of Teknaf town, afternoon has reached sleepy Hnila’s Old Bazar, a few hundred metres west of the Naf River. There’s not much activity: most people are probably taking a rest after completing lunch.

Sitting at the temple.

We’re sitting in a perennial building site that’s half-flooded. It has planks of wood to balance across to venture inside. It’s here the local Hindu community worship and a good number of them are gathered in the front of the building just beyond the gate. They’ve arranged plastic stools from somewhere to sit on. A fruit platter is being passed around.

“This is the southernmost Kali temple in Bangladesh,” says community leader Bipul Pal. “It’s the only Kali temple south of Cox’s Bazar.”

Hnila countryside.

The Naf River is narrower in Hnila. On its far bank the periodic watchtowers of Myanmar are clearly visible, about the only evidence of habitation along an otherwise wild bank. The common view of Myanmar to be heard in Teknaf’s tea shops seems to ring true here: “Myanmar has lots of land,” people say, “but little development.”

The southernmost Kali Temple in Bangladesh, Hnila, Teknaf.

Touring Hnila with local Hindu leaders.

The river wasn’t always the border it is today. In the British period then Burma was like Bengal under British administration; and the Teknaf Peninsula was primarily inhabited by Buddhist Rakhines. Bengalis by all accounts were rare. Hindus were rarer.

Canal. Looking towards the Teknaf Range.

“We are fifteen families,” concludes Pal after a moment’s mental count. “Hindu families in Hnila run simple businesses like dairies and tailoring shops.” At least one fulfils an administrative role with an NGO. “None of us is rich.”

The Kali protima in Hnila Old Bazar.

The financial condition of the small community means that completing the refurbishment of the temple, in brick and on a grander scale than the original structure founded in 1833, will take time. Progress is slow.

Altar at the Radha-Krishna Temple.

Proud of their town, before evening there will be a tour of  a handful of other temples, tin shed and dilapidated village constructions dedicated to other incarnations of God. At the Krishna temple there lives a solitary monk who teaches meditation and yoga. The temple keeps a cow and he offers fresh milk to visitors.

Hindu monk. 'There are many words for water.'

“What is important is what is in the heart,” he says, “Islam says ‘don’t steal,’ Buddhism says ‘don’t steal’ and Hinduism says the same. If there is love for mankind in the heart it doesn’t matter if you go to a temple, a church or a mosque. Some say paani, some say jol… There are many words for water.”

As can be anticipated Hnila’s Hindus revere all of the local temples but the historic Kali Temple is the community’s focal point. “We don’t know when we’ll be able to finish its reconstruction,” says Pal.

Members of the small Hnila Hindu community at the forever ongoing reconstruction site of the historic Kali Temple.

Money in the Ground

Salt production in Moheshkhali Island accounts for more than half of domestic consumption.

In the fields at Tajiakata of Moheshkhali’s Kutubjom Union they’re lifting water, bucket by bucket. The criss-cross channels are hand dug to entice a little of the sea inland. Seawater is being lifted, litre by litre, to the first of four shallow tanks carved in the ground.

Salt is one of the main industries of Moheshkhali Island.

Even in the morning the sun is fire, but then they’re counting on evaporation. When labourers sweat, sweat is salty.

It’s a semi-lunar landscape, yellow and brown, treeless and arid. It’s a shallow water-trough landscape of salt heaps. Leaving his nearby home at some minutes before 7 a.m., Abdus Salam, 34, will soon be there. For eighteen years he’s been harvesting salt.

“Water collection is the most difficult task,” he says.

For Salam, salt is a livelihood; but salt is also much more.

Salinity in the human, salinity in the sea: for centuries poets and evolutionists have contemplated a distant ancestral link to the earliest life forms that from the primordial soup clambered ashore.

Labourers Mahamadul Karim and Shefatul Islam lift seawater by bucket to begin the salt making process.

More than food seasoning, more than food preserver, sodium chloride is life’s essence: where we came from and where we are. There can be no life without salt. Should we cry, we shed salty tears.

Evaporation ponds. Salt is simple brilliance.

In South Asia there’s independence too in the white sea-spice. On 12 March 1930 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi began his famous Salt Satyagraha, a march from near Ahmedabad to the Gujarati seaside village of Dandi. At 6:30 a.m. on 6 April Gandhi collected salt by the shore.

Protesting the British salt monopoly brought worldwide attention to the non-violent independence movement and many in India took confidence from Gandhi’s symbolic act. Many followed his example and were arrested. Salt is a harbinger of coming freedom.

The afternoon sun illuminates the salt fields.

Salt taxes also encouraged the French Revolution and paid for Columbus to sail to the New World. At a time when half of China’s revenue came from salt, a Great Wall was made. At the centre of human civilisation you’ll find salt.

Aztec mythology meanwhile includes Huixtocihuatl, goddess of fertility who presided over salt and saltwater. In Hinduism auspicious salt is used in housewarmings and weddings. Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in a hadith recorded in Sunan Ibn Majah reportedly said, “Salt is the master of your food. God sent down four blessings from the sky: fire, water, iron and salt.”

Religion, civilisation, human life: salt has shaped history.

But Salam’s talk is not of this. He explains that older water will drain through adjoining, ever shallower troughs. He knows evaporation will take to its task. In the final polythene-lined tank after about a week, salt crystals awaiting collection shall sparkle, says he. Salt is brilliance in its simplicity.

The lunar landscape of the salt fields.

He predicts merchants will buy direct from his field. He understands that if he needs to store salt when the monsoon arrives he can bury it, wrapped in polythene, underground. “There’s money in the ground,” say the people of Moheshkhali.

More than half of Moheshkhali's population participates in salt.

When labourers sweat, their sweat is salty.

Salt is also a budget. From 5 kanies of land leased for upwards of 40,000 taka Salam calculates that with two labourers employed he can produce 300 maunds of salt per kanie during the January to April season. He’ll need 100 pounds of polythene for one kanie at 75 taka per pound.

There are contingencies to account for: a falling price caused by transport disruption and late winter fogs that bringing moisture to undo the sun’s work in salt’s disheartening dissolution.

Moheshkhali produces the largest portion of salt to meet domestic demand. Salt farming of about 19,000 acres enlists some degree of participation from most of the island’s 3-lac population.

Abdus Salam, 34, has been working in the salt fields for 18 years.

Yet ironically the Bay of Bengal is best suited for salt. While averaging 3.5% salinity, the world’s seas are not equally saline.

Salt crystals ready for collection.

Of open seas, the Red Sea is considered the saltiest at 4%, due to a lack of rain and river inflow, and because of its narrow connection to the less saline Indian Ocean. Enclosed water bodies can be much saltier still, like the Dead Sea with 34.2% salinity. 

The Yellow, Baltic and Black seas by contrast, like the Bay of Bengal, hold below-average salt content.

Afternoon at Tajiakata salt fields.

Salam can’t consider seawater but he does consider land. Sandy soils are not much good, where absorption is high. Suitable land produces salt more quickly, of higher quality.

As the word ‘salary’ shares its Latin root with salt: either money to buy salt or payment in salt, it’s easy to conclude that Salam has it right… Salt means food on a table and a family fed.

Should we cry, tears are salty.

The alien landscape of Shaplapur in northern Moheshkhali.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Moheshkhali's Money in the Ground

Salt. The stuff of life.

A Prayer for Nepal

Devotion at the Sree Sree Adinath Temple in Moheshkhali during the Shiva Choturdoshi festival held each Falgun month.

Moheshkhali's unique hilly terrain.

Unique among Bangladeshi islands for its hilly terrain, Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar is assumed to have separated from the mainland some centuries ago. It is recorded that Moheshkhali Channel, dividing island from mainland, first arose in 1559 as the result of a devastating cyclone coupled by a powerful earthquake.

Moheshkhali’s hills are essentially the most seaward extension of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, a part of a range linked through northeast India to the Himalayas; and it’s not solely this geography, nor a history of earthquakes, that ultimately joins Moheshkhali to Nepal. There is a spiritual connection.

The Sree Sree Adinath Temple, Little Moheshkhali.

Atop Mainak Hill in Little Moheshkhali Union, with sweeping views across the interior, the channel and mainland, Sree Sree Adinath Temple has attracted pilgrims for centuries. It is said to be the site where Ravan, primary antagonist of the Ramayana, set down a sacred Shiva Linga stone he had promised Lord Shiva to carry uninterrupted from Kailash to Lanka in return for being granted immortality.

In Moheshkhali efforts failed him and the Shiva Linga remained there. But the story of the temple's beginning is not the origin of the connection with Nepal. Rather it stems from the experience of a solvent Moheshkhali Muslim named Noor Mohammad Shikdar.

The Shiva Linga.

Trouble began when one of Shikdar’s cows suddenly stopped giving milk. At first he blamed his cowherd who in turn sought to discover the cause of the matter. The cowherd watched the cow one night, to find that during the dark hours it left the barn and made its way to the Shiva Linga where milk began to instantaneously flow over the black stone. Only when the flow of milk stopped did the cow return to the cowshed.

Shikdar did not, however, believe the cowherd’s narration of events; until he had a dream to tell Moheshkhali’s Hindu zamindar landlord to build a temple at the site.

In a subsequent dream, in 1612, Shikdar was ordered to steal a protima statue of Lord Shiva from the Nepal State Temple to place on Mainak Hill. To complete the task he assigned one Naga Sannyasi who was, unfortunately, caught in the act. On the night before his trial however, the Sannyasi found favour with Lord Shiva who appeared before him, advising that he simply tell the truth and answer the judge’s trial questions calmly.

 It is said the protima was brought by Nepal's king, fulfilling the divine wishes of Lord Shiva.

On the following day the judge asked the colour of the protima. While the King of Nepal replied that the statue was a touchstone colour, the Sannyasi said it was white. As the latter answer was correct it was understood the Sannyasi had divine blessing in his task. As such, the Nepalese king asked forgiveness and on his own initiative arranged for the protima to be brought to Mainak and with due honour.

Inside the shrine.

Since that time the Adinath Temple that has become an icon of Moheshkhali Island has been honoured by the Nepalese, with Nepal’s government continuing the tradition of providing grants, including recently, according to locals, to construct the impressive jetty below the hill adjacent to the channel which provides for easier temple access.

Pilgrims from near and far continue to seek out the temple every year, especially during the renowned two-week Shiva Choturdoshi festival each Falgun month, including pilgrims from Nepal. There it is common to tie string around tree branches in the temple grounds as a request for a blessing, with strings untied and puja performed once a divine blessing has been granted.

In recent days at Moheshkhali’s Adinath it would be as well to offer a prayer for Nepal, to ask for the blessing of a speedy recovery from the recent earthquake devastation, at a Bangladeshi place that’s spiritually connected to the Himalayan land. The strings of any such wish – let’s hope they can be soon untied.

Pilgrims at the Sree Sree Adinath Temple in Moheshkhali during the Shiva Choturdoshi festival held each Falgun month.

Pilgrims.

This article published in The Daily Star: Moheshkhali's Adinath: a prayer for Nepal

The Adinath Temple jetty.

The jetty.

Bangladeshis seem to have added a tea shop underneath the jetty. 

Adinath Temple jetty of an afternoon.

Passengers leaving the jetty.

From Moheshkhali, island of hills.

Where People Are Still People

Dinajpur District hosts many elaborate Durga Puja pandals every year.

Initial observation: it was deep night as the bus from Dhaka crossed the border of Dinajpur District. A few minutes later a woman needed to get down. It spurred discussion among the driver, the conductor and other passengers. Was she sure? Was it okay to leave a woman alone on a dark road?

She repeated the place name. It was right. She got out.

The bus moved forward. The bus stopped. The bus reversed. No, it couldn’t be done. She was delivered instead to the safety of a late night barber’s shop nearby. And I wondered…

I’m not alone in anticipating that assuredly considerate temperament from people of the country’s northwest. Simply mentioning a person is from Dinajpur is a kind of character reference.

This writer was determined to find out: what makes the Dinajpuri?

Goods for sale at a Hindu fair.

Observation: in Dinajpur town no rickshaw driver asked for more than the exact fare; one can’t say that of all regional centres. Indeed twice I was unexpectedly called back. “You paid too much,” rickshaw drivers said, referring to the little extra knowingly given. Now that has hardly happened elsewhere…

I asked our local The Daily Star correspondent Kongkon Karmaker his opinion; and he himself exhibits many of the admirable qualities one might associate with Dinajpur, albeit just between us there’s a bit of Barishailla in his blood.

He spoke of Hindu families preparing shemai, vermicelli, for Muslim Eid al-Fitr; of Muslims leading Durga Puja committees, with some taking the chance to perform aroti dance in front of Ma Durga’s pandal. The town’s prominent temples seem to confirm religious tolerance.

“Dinajpur has one of the highest percentages of Hindus in the country,” Karmaker says, “Disharmony is rare.” The district is also diverse with ethnic minorities, principally the Santhals. Meanwhile, according to Karmaker, local hijras are better accepted and less pushy than elsewhere.

Perhaps there was more to learn in the villages.

Locals at the Nurul Mudir tea shop in Taiabpur, Birol.

At Mahadeppur village in Birol Upazilla, at a nameless shop in the row called Bashudev Supermarket, proprietor Sanatan Chandra Roy agrees to the premise, “People are good here. There’s no conflict between Hindus and Muslims. Why I don’t know. It just is so.”

“What’s in Birol?” proposes a customer. “Everything is here: betel, cigarettes and tea.”

And history agrees. The Dinajpur District Census Report of 1961 as reported in the government Gazetteer observed that Dinajpuris are “nostalgic to a degree, and unless they are very hard pressed they do not leave their homes.”

Kali Puja, Dinajpur. 

“Few experience the pangs of hunger as our own countrymen do in times of distress,” wrote a Briton, Major Sherwill, about Dinajpur, much earlier in 1860, “They may wholly abstain from labour for weeks or even months and still manage to feed and clothe themselves and their families. Their wants are few.”

According to the Gazetteer land has traditionally been more plentiful and population density less than other regions. Have these factors influenced an easygoing attitude?

“There is no district in Bangladesh as thanda [cool] as Dinajpur,” says Md Fazlul Haque at the Nurul Mudir tea shop in Birol’s Taiabpur village. The Upazilla administrative officer spent years in Khulna, which he liked, but “Dinajpur’s people are best.”

Dinajpur's Kali Temple.

His hypothesis: “People are occupied with their own business. Nobody has intention to harm someone. We don’t like conflict.”

“At any Durga Puja pandal,” interjects shopkeeper Mozammel Haque, “for every four Hindus there must be eight Muslims. Everyone enjoys. We are one.”

“The land is good,” he reflects, “That’s why people are gentle.”

“People here are very simple,” suggests farmer Sri Manmohan Chandra Roy of village Andharmucha in Chirirbandar Upazilla. “People are not much desperate so we don’t quarrel.”

Observation: evening on a narrow road in town and I’m surprised by overpowering music blasting from a red-light flashing amplifier, street-side. “Inconsiderate,” is the first thought, but then I notice the other side of the street: the long concrete wall of Dinajpur gaol. Perhaps somewhere inside a prisoner was smiling from hearing the distant rhythms of their favourite Bollywood and Bangla dance numbers? Perhaps a prisoner was having a birthday, knowing they were not forgotten? It takes volume to conquer concrete.

Motorcycle parking area at a Hindu fair. 

And yet the Gazetteer mentions mass migration into Dinajpur, especially at the time of Partition’s upheaval. It lists periods of famine. And news out of the district over the past several months is peppered with instances of violence, some political, others not. Surely such facts remind us: every rule has exceptions.

Regardless, in Dinajpur you’ll find it in general: that helpful, sincere majority – a little more tolerant perhaps, a little more peaceful perhaps…  Exactly why, I’m still unsure.

Kali  Puja in Dinajpur. 

 A ride at a village fair.