Teknaf Police Station, A Love Story

Cotton trees, paan gardens and the mountains, on a road east of Teknaf.

“It’s difficult to say what decision I would make,” says Ataur Rahman, officer-in-charge of Teknaf police station and a man clearly used to making decisions. “I’ve never had to face such a situation. Only if I did could I tell you what the decision would be.”

Cotton tree pods.

Rahman, from Sirajganj, is speaking of the conundrum of having to choose between an ailing father in Kolkata and a pending wedding to a betrothed Rakhine princess in Teknaf. While Rahman has never experienced such a dilemma, his early twentieth century colleague, Diraj Bhattacharya, famously did.

When police officer Bhattacharya was first posted to Teknaf to the south of Cox’s Bazar it’s unlikely he was thrilled. He was a town-man, born in Jessore, while Teknaf at the time was beyond-remote, barely accessible by road. For a young man like Bhattacharya, Teknaf must’ve seemed the end of the Earth.

Teknaf was once remote, barely accessible by road.

History says after settling into the residence in the police compound Bhattacharya found there was little to do. He idled away hours roaming aimlessly. He routinely sat in his rocking chair on the veranda, relaxing.

There wasn't much to do but roam and see.

Such an excess of leisure time is a circumstance Rahman could only dream of. “Teknaf was an outpost and Bhattacharya was alone,” he says. “These days it’s a police station with upwards of twenty officers and forty constables, all working hard.”

Besides, he could hardly sit in a rocking chair on the veranda even if he found the time. “There is no veranda,” explains Rahman. “That building was long-ago replaced. And anyway, I don’t have a rocking chair.”

What does remain is an old, preserved well in one corner of the police compound. It’s the well that Bhattacharya could see from his rocking chair, then the only well in the area.

Ma Thin's well, in the police compound, used to be the only well in the area.

In the course of each day the local Rakhine women would arrive to fetch water. It’s fair to say that in their colourful blouses and thami skirts they were pleasing to a police officer’s eye. Their lively chitchat brought cheerful enthusiasm to the compound, to resonate as far as the veranda.

Ma Thin's well. Preserved as a symbol of love.

Then one day Bhattacharya noticed Ma Thin, the daughter of a wealthy Teknaf landlord. She was particularly attractive and nicely dressed, such that there was little for a police officer to do but fall in love.

“In my experience, Teknaf police compound is no more or less romantic than any other,” says Rahman, contemplating how such love could have blossomed, “But the area is very beautiful. Teknaf is surrounded by the sea and mountains, with the historic Naf River nearby.” It’s geography in which Rahman believes love could understandably have flourished.

Fortunately for Bhattacharya, Ma Thin took similar note of the handsome officer, and there developed a habit for Ma Thin to arrive at the well before dawn where Bhattacharya would be waiting, on the veranda. The two enjoyed exchanging adoring glances.

Over time their relationship intensified and a wedding date was set. In the meantime, however, Bhattacharya’s family had come to know of the affair and one day he received a letter saying his father was sick and he should return home urgently.

Boats moored in the Bay of Bengal south of Teknaf. The coastline is Myanmar.

According to his family’s wishes Bhattacharya left for Kolkata, where they then lived. Although he promised to return, Ma Thin was devastated.

“The decision was up to him,” says Rahman, not one to judge, “It’s his business.”

The Naf River, to the north of Teknaf.

The affair didn’t end well. Bhattacharya never returned to Teknaf. Eventually he left the police service to become a movie star; and he wrote a book called “When I Was a Police Officer,” which includes an account of his love for Ma Thin.

Ma Thin was so heartbroken that she confined herself to bed, refusing all food and water until, prematurely, she died.

Unlike Bhattacharya, Rahman says he has never considered leaving his policing career in favour of becoming a movie star. “Diraj was handsome and it helped him a lot,” says Rahman, who points out he is already around 40 and has three children. “I am not like him. I don’t have such opportunities.”

A chilli field, east of Teknaf.

In any case, Rahman is uncertain that being a movie star would be a better job than a police officer. “The two careers are like sweet and sour, both good but entirely different.”

Among the current staff members of Teknaf police station, Rahman is unaware of any officer having to choose as Bhattacharya did, between a sick father and a Rakhine princess. While he is unsure if perhaps the police service has become less romantic than it used to be, he does state that times have changed and police are busy with all sorts of work related activities these days.

Nonetheless, Rahman is unwilling to conclude that a love story similar to Bhattacharya and Ma Thin’s could never recur at Teknaf police station. “Love happens naturally,” he says, “How could anyone say it couldn’t happen now? There’s always a possibility.”

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Teknaf Police Station, A Love Story

Love. Who's to say it couldn't happen again?

Continuity

A shrine at the Teknaf Buddhist Temple.

When the garden’s silence meets the quiet of dawn, U Nanda Loka, 50, begins his prayer of meditation and whispers. At 5.30 a.m. for half an hour he will seek blessings for all the people of the world, just as he has done every day for the past twelve months since he first took up the post of sole monk at the roughly 200-year-old Teknaf Buddhist temple.

While the temple grounds are largish the congregation is small. There are only 14 Rakhine families remaining in Teknaf town, joined by the handful of other Buddhists who have moved there for work.

“There should be at least one monk,” says 19-year-old Mong Swui Thing, a Marma teenager from Ramu sent by his father, a farmer, to take advantage of the temple’s tranquillity in preparing for school exams. He aspires to a government job eventually.

Buddha's footprint at the Teknaf temple.

Due to the small size of the community adjustments have been made. Where in a larger location it is customary for monks to walk through morning markets carrying pots into which people place food, all that the monks will eat for that day, in Teknaf the fourteen families organise to supply the provisions for the monk and temple staff on a rotation basis.

“The issue is continuity,” says temple visitor Aung Kyaw Tha, “Temple goers are few but it doesn’t matter; we want our religion to stay.”

Gautama Buddha said if there is a quiet place it has its own happiness, explains Tha. “Alone or with people, in town or village, no matter where, one has to keep Buddha’s teachings in mind in order to live peacefully.”

A smaller temple in the garden complex. Note the distinctive Rakhine style roof.

The temple complex which consists of a main building raised on stilts in Rakhine tradition, together with a smaller temple to one side and a golden stupa featuring a footprint of Buddha towards the back, is tucked away from the road, barely visible.

Once its grounds were larger still but roadside portions were progressively sold as many of Teknaf’s Rakhines moved to Myanmar in the 1990s.

Tea shop talk says the then-majority Rakhine community was favoured in the British era. There are tales of how the few Bengalis in earlier times used to take off their sandals to carry them underarm while passing a Rakhine shop in the bazaar, as a sign of respect. It was considered improper for a Bengali to wear a wristwatch or open an umbrella in front of a Rakhine house, people say.

The temple was undoubtedly busier then.

U Nanda Loka, the sole monk at the Teknaf temple.

Such talk of political history stands in contrast to the views of the monk. When asked to speak of other religious communities he says, “Of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam I have no knowledge. I don’t understand. I only do what Buddhism says.”

Mong Swui Thing, a Marma youth sent to the temple by his father to study.

Central to his beliefs is the importance of avoiding any form of envy or jealousy; one reason why it cannot be fruitful to consider how others practice religion. This tenet does not mean, however, neglecting concern for non-Buddhists. “Everyone in the world I will bless,” says the monk.

Similarly when I was foolish enough to ask the monk his favourite food he struggled to answer. When the goal is to seek enlightenment away from one’s physical being and the physical world, the question makes no sense. “What is given, I like,” he says, “My preference is nothing.”

By tradition monks eat only one plate of rice, without looking up to see what others are eating while they complete a meal. A second serving is to risk gluttony; to see what others eat risks envy. Moreover at Teknaf Buddhist temple the monk will eat nothing after lunch at midday, until the next morning’s breakfast.

The stupa at Teknaf Buddhist Temple complex.

U Nanda Loka says he first became a monk after his parents died when he was 16 years old. “I didn’t like regular life anymore,” he says. With his two sisters married he moved to the temple.

Secondary temple at Teknaf complex.

Being a monk is not inherently a permanent position but one that lasts “as many days as it makes you happy,” though most commonly it is for life.

In describing Buddhism, the monk refers to five principal tenets: don’t kill because life is sacred; don’t take what isn’t yours; treat women respectfully; don’t lie and; don’t use alcohol or drugs, including stimulants such as betel leaf. “To explain more than these basic beliefs,” says the monk, “is to embark upon an ocean of knowledge.”

The latter part of each morning is spent reading texts, completing bath and lunch and retiring for half an hour’s rest. In the afternoon is more prayer while it is common in the evenings for people to arrive at the temple to seek the monk’s advice.

The pattern of each day is simplicity repeated right up until it meets once more the quiet of dawn. These are traditions followed in temples around the world, right back to the 4^th – 6^th century BCE, the time of Gautama Buddha. The Teknaf Buddhist temple is but a footnote in a far greater story of continuity.

Teknaf Buddhist temple, said to be over two hundred years old. The main building.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: A Prayer for Continuity

Among the Garjan Giants

Shilkhali's age-old garjan trees are unique in Cox's Bazar's coastal belt.

Transport through the forest.

In Shilkhali the setting Bay of Bengal sun sends golden light from beyond the beach and through the first fields to meet the towering trunks of the garjan trees. Hundreds are lit as candles by the orange glow. It’s quite a show.

The air is cooler, the day is done and locals haven’t passed up the chance to stroll among the leafy giants that tower over the scattering of nearby tin and thatch homes. Unique in the coastal belt for having stood the test of time, this age-old forest in Cox’s Bazar beneath Teknaf’s range holds a beauty that cannot be denied.

Fishermen with fry in the back of a jeep.

Trees rise before and after the Marine Drive; and what’s more interesting right in the middle of the road, as though the forest barely tolerates the line of pitch passing through its enchanted territory. In the several places where roadway is divided into narrow lanes squeezing either side of a resolute garjan trunk the shared CNGs and small trucks must weave courteous s-curves to get through. It’s as though the traffic tips its hat in honour of the trees.

Nearby a few tea shops are coming to life. Customers are ready to reacquaint themselves with neighbours after a day of labour. Nearby, on a shady field a football match is underway.

A CNG three-wheeler weaves, where the trees own the road.

Football under the garjan trees.

Such activities could characterise the life of many a village but in Shilkhali the forest grants an added degree of calmness to proceedings. In the tea shops it seems impossible to retain tension. Over the football ground the garjan canopy presides as silent, ever present referee.

Fading eastward into the shadow before the mountains, the garjan forest is a site that any passing tourist will want to see.

Tea shops come to life in the late afternoon.

To the north in Shilkhali Bazar proper there’s talk of a wild elephant group that sometimes arrives by 8 p.m., wandering down from the hills to trample paddy in search of food. The villagers are yet brave and ready to chase them off.

And besides, if the group doesn’t arrive there’s a lone individual, a regular elephant who can be relied upon to grace the hillside farmlands from 9 pm until dawn.

Shilkhali: looking inland from the beach.

A fishing trawler on wheels: a kind of hovercraft?

Local Abdul Karim, 18, who studies in class 9, leads the way with his friends along a country lane, a short walk to the east, to show a trampled fence and a large, recently broken jackfruit tree.

“Elephants eat coconut, banana and jackfruit,” he says, adding that the betel and areca palm gardens are spared. “You should see how an elephant headbutts a coconut palm to make the coconuts fall; how they open green coconuts with their feet.”

It's as though the garjan forest isn't quite comfortable to let the road go through.

Crab patterns on the beach.

Crab art.

Asked if the elephants worry him he shakes his head. “I wasn’t scared of them when I was little. Why would I be scared now?”

A short walk to the west meanwhile brings us to the beach with a minor lagoon to wade through before reaching the empty, stunning sand stretch. The red crabs by their hundreds scurrying into burrows were clearly not expecting visitors.

Trawlers by the shore.

Alone on the foreshore further down, fisherman Hasan is hoping for shrimp, busy with nets.

The Teknaf Range.

The jeep on the way there.

To the Bay of Bengal.

To the south of the forest meanwhile new plots are well-marked between road and beach, with signboard names of hotel this and hotel that. Accommodation has made a long term booking it would seem to stay in the area along Teknaf’s northern coast; and what will the garjan forest make of it should sun seeking crowds arrive in coming years?

Yet for the moment, the area is quiet.

The garjan forest: see it before the tourists get there.

Fisherman.

The crabs aren't expecting visitors.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Among Shilkhali's Garjan Giants

Me with Abdul Karim and his friends.

The Quest for Eternal Life and a Large, Black Python

Away from daylight. Kudum cave, Whykeong, Teknaf.

A home in Harikhola village, Whykeong.

There once was a powerful Buddhist seer who lived in Myanmar, when it was called Burma in the time of the British. He was a simple fellow, anyone would say, except that with his eyes he could see the whole world at a time; but he was old, his power would soon be gone from the world. It was a pending reality that concerned him.

Seers have, of course, their own reasons for doing things; it’s not for ordinary folk to question why he decided to embark upon a journey precisely when he did. What we do know, what people say, is that his destination was the expansive estate of the landlord of Whykeong, nowadays in the north of Cox’s Bazar’s Teknaf upazila.

Harikhola Buddhist temple founded in 1903.

Pagoda rooftops in Harikhola.

More specifically the seer sought to visit a cave in the hilly terrain of the Teknaf Peninsula where, he had seen, there lived a porimei, a creature not dissimilar to a fairy.

Today that cave is called Kudum Cave and it lies within the Teknaf Game Reserve beyond the historical Chakma village of Harikhola with its 270 families.

Village pagoda.

One imagines Forest Beat Officer Abul Kalam, 43, was pleased for the company when he agreed to go with our small party to find the cave. He’s usually posted to remote Raykong Beat where he stays alone, at night, in the hills. “Twelve nights ago,” he says as a look of grave concern spreads across his face, “nine elephants came close to the bungalow.” I ask if it’s scary to stay alone in an isolated forest location and he says it is.

Drought stricken countryside.

In any case, in the British era the landlord, who was a Rakhine, presided over a great area of forest which is now the game reserve. He had six hundred buffaloes that he let run free.

Relaxing on the serang in Harikhola village.

Every year the landlord would order his cowboys to fetch some buffaloes from the forest, and it so happened that long before the seer arrived from Myanmar, one cowboy stumbled upon that cave and moreover, saw the porimei at its entrance.

Kudum Cave entrance.

“Son of man, come here!” said the porimei, “I have something to discuss.” The porimei then offered the cowboy a mohor, a gold medallion, on the promise that he wouldn’t tell anyone he had seen her there. The cowboy accepted the medallion and, returning to the landlord’s house, spoke nothing of the encounter.

It’s unclear how long it must’ve taken the cowboy to reach Harikhola from the main area of Whykeong Bazar but these days it’s a thirty-minute CNG ride through picturesque countryside.

Moni Sowpun Chakma, 37, entering Kudum cave near his village.

Village Buddhas.

It’s an attractive village with several Buddhist temples, called kyangs, including one dating from 1903 which features a large wooden bell and a monk from Myanmar who’s asleep after lunch. According to Moni Sowpun Chakma, 37, a villager who’s been working as a guide for the last decade, 1903 is probably when the first seven families arrived to settle, pursuing traditional slash-and-burn jhum agriculture. Many of their descendants still reside in Harikhola.

Pagoda.

Across the road from the kyang is a raised wooden platform called a serang, the perfect spot to rest out of the sun as long as one can climb onto it, up a log with basic ladder-like notches. Further inside the village on the crests of minor hills are several attractive ching ghar, pagodas.

A ching ghar, Harikhola.

Village Buddha image.

After consulting Birandan, 52, current headman of Harikhola, Chakma is ready to lead us on the twenty minute walk to the cave.

Many years back when the seer arrived in the area after crossing the Naf River he made his way to the landlord’s residence where he would stay as a guest. He took the opportunity to ask the landlord about the cave and the porimei he had seen with his powerful eyes; but the landlord said he knew nothing of either. The cowboy stayed silent.

However, on the following morning the cowboy relented, probably feeling it his duty to speak in good faith to his landlord’s guest or out of fear of the seer’s power; thus as the seer was taking his morning bath he confessed that he knew the cave and had seen the porimei as well. The seer asked the cowboy to accompany him to the spot.

Along the track to the cave. Forest bounty collected.

The track to the cave traces muddy overgrown gullies with high clay hills rising on either side. There’s a bit of jumping over streams required to get there and in front of its entry is a small pool that continues inside, to chest height depending on rainfall, into what presents itself as an endless tunnel.

“Nobody knows how deep the cave goes,” says Chakma, and Kudum means ‘long’ in Chakma language. “They say it runs right through the hills to the Bay of Bengal.” Others say the cave, unique for being of clay-mud rather than stone, is 38 metres in length.

He explains that far inside is a high cavern with a platform that can be reached by ladder. He says it’s not advisable to go that far since a large, black python inhabits the platform, descending into the front of the cave to feed on the several fish species in the pool.

When the cowboy and the seer reached the cave, the seer told the cowboy to wait outside the entrance to catch the porimei that he would chase out. “How do I catch a porimei?” asked the cowboy; and the seer gave him two handfuls of sand to throw at her.

The forest path to the cave.

When we reach the cave I would happily wait outside too but Chakma is already taking off his shirt to go inside. Cautiously we wade into the darkness, torches in hand and with a polythene bag over my head on account of the hundreds of bats inside who relieve themselves like rain.

A local shop in the village centre.

With the entrance but a sliver of sunlight behind us Chakma asks if we wish to go further. “The water ends shortly,” he says, “But beyond that, somewhere is the python.” I am more concerned that the python might be beneath us, in the water, looking for fish. So we head back.

We didn’t see the porimei but the cowboy did. As it tried to escape the seer, it flew out of the cave and the cowboy as instructed threw the sand at it. When the sand hit, the porimei transformed into a great tiger and ran off into the forest, the seer in pursuit. “They say the porimei was killed at Colemamarang, some distance from here,” says Chakma, “There’s a rock which looks like a girl fallen over that people say is the porimei turned to stone.” The seer meanwhile took the porimei’s eyes for eating as her eyes could do the one very thing that his couldn’t: grant eternal life.

“Doesn’t the python in the cave scare you?” I ask Chakma as we walk back to the village.

“No, but the wild elephants do. It’s easy to encounter them along this track.”

The return.

Back at the ching ghar.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Wading into Mysterious Kudum Cave

Me at the cave.