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

My Islam

Hatiya, Noakhali. The village that made my Bangladesh.

It used to be that of a village Eid morning in Hatiya I’d get ready along with my Bengali brothers. After bathing in the pond we’d dress and walk the short distance to the mosque. What I wore varied. In later years I had fashionable Dhanmondi-style panjabis to choose from. Earlier I used to wear the greenish kabliwala set that my friend and brother Situ gave me. It was the only design readily understood by the local tailors.

The mosque is small and not old, and those who attend are family, friends and neighbours. There’d be a few personal prayers for Abba, who I never met but whose grave is there. We’d wash our hands and feet and I confess I often got a bit of stabilisation assistance from the others while dipping toes into the mosque pond so as not to fall over... Then we’d go inside.

Kids playing in the monsoon wonderland. Eid arrives in the monsoon months this year.

I like that mosque. The weekday Imam is youthful and friendly, and there’s no denying the distinctive qualities of his adhan call to prayer. It may not be of the sort that’s striking for its mystical, high beauty – such as an adhan I once heard while passing through Seremban, Malaysia, which seemed so intrinsic and harmonious that it may as well have been welded into the dawn.

No, our Imam’s adhan has a, shall-we-say, personal quality. When his voice wavers and the notes take on a more creative fluctuation – he’s doing his best, he’s really doing his best... When there’s the added flare of a high-pitched squeal from the PA system – being as it is... With the general muffled ambience familiar to current village-mosque technology... we love it all the more.

He is our Imam. It is his adhan – the one which by tradition at the Fajr dawn hour comes as finale to all the adhans in the area. It’s well-understood that not everybody can be a morning person. Although on Fridays and at Eid he bows to experience our Imam is always there.

My Eid mosque-going tradition arose naturally. Nobody told or encouraged me. Hatiyalas are too polite. It simply seemed strange that on a special day like Eid I would not share in the customs of the neighbourhood – in the same way we sometimes attend kirtan with our Hindu friends. It was my heart that took me to the mosque.

Hatiya's monsoon sky.

Inside, I used to find a place at the back so as not to get in anybody’s way. While we were sitting my legs would descend into pins and needles, eventually falling asleep such that at the end of the service I’d have trouble standing. While they were actually performing the namaz prayer I’d – rightly or wrongly, I could never decide which – add a little silent Christian-style prayer of my own. It was what I knew how to do – a way of showing respect for their beliefs and for them.

Afterwards there’d be the usual congregating on the road with those heart-to-heart salaams reserved for special days, a tradition in which I was entirely included. I was more than included because while I would have wished to say, “Thank you so much for not minding my attendance,” it was rather them who said, “We are so honoured that you shared our Eid.”

It’s a far cry from common perceptions of Islam in Australia, unfortunately.

The main road in Hatiya that became so overflowing with respectful greetings...

But I suppose the first meaningful contact I had with Islam was in Rajasthan, before Bangladesh. What I recall from those initial curious visits to various desert and semi-desert mosques was the strong sense of peace to be imbibed within, while sitting on the floor inside. It was easy to find a spiritual quality in that space. Incidentally I’ve known Iranian Muslims to admit as much about Sydney’s cathedrals.

Then there was the hospitality tradition. I came to expect it whenever visiting any Muslim majority country, and while culture also plays a role I have never been disappointed. Probably more than any other religion, Islam respects the stranger, the traveller, the guest...

A third early impression arose when it came to be that moving along the road in Hatiya meant encountering numerous salaams from villagers. It was quite a while before I genuinely appreciated it was not simply a ‘hello, hi’ but respect they were giving – the islanders are sincere in it. When it was explained, when it sunk in that it was more than a ‘hello’, I was really touched. Later – I was a little slow in adapting – I became better at salaam-giving also.

Meanwhile in Sydney where I used to speak of such experiences freely I don’t think I ever came to grips with the overwhelming but thankfully not entirely universal response to my chat: the sense of fear. It was so easy to underestimate and overlook the prejudices that characterise that society’s view of Islam, since the true complexity and diversity of Muslim communities was so blatantly clear to me. My Islam had become as our Imam’s adhan – original and personalised.

Monsoon road. Hatiya, Noakhali.

But I suppose not accepting that differences must divide us runs in my Australian family. My father’s clan were Presbyterian while mother was raised as a Catholic. One Catholic grandmother married a Lutheran grandfather and in those days due to denominational differences he was not allowed to walk in the front door of the Catholic Church – when they eloped he came in via the unceremonious side door. Sometimes in response to the protestant-catholic question I used to say I was Cathlotestant... and it’s surprising that some otherwise educated Australians had difficulty in accepting even that answer. Sometimes people are like buildings. They take their structure from walls. But I don’t believe God cares for petty categories.

And on 11 September 2001 after I knew that my Australian brother in New York was okay, my main concern was for the inevitable anti-Muslim backlash. I made a personal vow: whatever happens, nothing will come between me and the Hatiyalas. That tiny but rather wonderful history we made together was more important than ever.

And yet it is sadly true that Australians can have no confidence in mature, moderate governance, especially in the country’s security sector. It is sadly true that hysteria reigned and division still does. Somehow I kept my Hatiyan Islam anyway...

Monsoon landscape. Hatiya, Noakhali.

The church in Aizawl, Mizoram.

On the other side of the coin, a few years ago came the first convenient opportunity for Situ to experience a church service – just to see how it is. We were in Aizawl, Mizoram and the Presbyterian evening service was in Mizo. We sat up the back so as not to get in anybody’s way. While one lady down the front became so moved when the music played that she started an animated dance and sang a loud lively solo, we did our best to simply follow the song book, singing in unknown Mizo language which is written with familiar European script, without knowing the tune. It must’ve made our Imam’s adhan seem as traditionally beautiful as that Malaysian adhan I once heard.

With the difficulties of transport to Hatiya I will share Eid in Dhaka this time. For the past eighteen years Islam has been a part of the mix of religious influences that make me. It’s something for which I am grateful. I’ve always felt it was life-enriching. But perhaps it’s simply Bengali: differences shall not divide us! So from a non-Muslim to Muslims and non-Muslims all, I wish you a happy and joyous Eid!

After the rain comes the sun.

Me in modern Dhaka panjabi.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: My Islam.

The Banyan Tree, Kansaris and Raja Parasuram

A kansa cup under manufacture.

On the empty road from Jamalpur town to Islampur the wind is telling of liberation. In that open country the crop fields speak of struggle and overcoming. Three on a Honda: a little lawlessness, technically, but like everybody else we get by and make do. It’s an enduring landscape that inspires. Let Bangladesh tell its own story.

Of the banyan tree, the bat gach of Battala, there is all the complexity of the movement of the market that has grown up alongside root and branch. That tree could’ve embarked upon a lengthy, winding monologue – does it remember from its sapling youth when Jamalpur was called Singhjani? Can it recall the arrival of the sufi saint, Shah Jamal, reportedly a younger brother of Sylhet’s Shah Jalal, to spread the word of Islam and bequeath to the broader area a newer name? Such a history is at least spoken of.

There have been kansa artisans at work in Islampur for 1000 years.

Like in any small Bangladeshi community everybody seems to know everybody in Islampur and the banyan, centre stage in the middle of its self-created roundabout, sees all. The tree hears the disputes, gossip, discussions and confidences. It knows that tea comes with ceramic saucer and welcoming words for visitors. And it remembers a once thriving kansa or bell metal industry.

Of the legendary King Parasuram the banyan must also have heard. Although his capital at Bogra’s Mahasthangarh lies distant – across the Jamuna and all too distant when a king’s available transport would’ve been palanquin and boat rather than three-by-Honda; although in all likelihood he never reached Islampur the monarch is remembered there. It comes down to this: even a legendary royal has to eat.

Team work. It takes two to shape a plate.

Legend says that bell metal, that version of bronze used for making utensils in the subcontinent, first reached East Bengal from some Indian elsewhere – Assam, Odisha, Pashchimbanga – to serve at Parasuram’s court. In this current age of melamine and steel, of easy glass and ceramic, it’s a simple matter to forget that kansa cups and plates were once standard for any raja needing to make impressive devotional offerings at temples and wishing to dine in style.

A kansari shapes a musical cymbal.

From Mahasthangarh the kansa industry branched out like the banyan, so legend says, to a handful of other manufacturing centres: first to Dhaka’s Dhamrai, from there to Kagmari, Kalipur, Mogra and Charibari in Tangail, also to Chapainawabganj and to Islampur. The later British conquerors encouraged the trade; kansa still meant luxury to them.

It’s true that even a banyan mightn’t have endured since the time of Parasuram. Of Islampur’s kansa tradition, if the tree did not see the first of it, it knows at least the subsequent history. It saw – say, twenty-five years back – a thriving kansa industry employing up to 350 kansari artisans in Islampur. It heard the story of Jagat Chandra Kamakar, the local kansari whose kansa work is said to have taken first prize at a World Handicrafts Exhibition in Birmingham many years ago. Still now there are around twenty families with perhaps fifty kansaris in Islampur to carry on the ancient trade.

“For nearly one thousand years my family was in this industry,” says Ankon Karmakar, secretary of the Islampur Bell Metal Society and one of Islampur’s two principal kansa traders. “I know at least the name of Prashanna Kumar Karmakar, my ancestor from a hundred years back who did this work.”

Preparing a plate for refining.

Ankon explains the kansa recipe: about 25% tin and 75% copper. The tin ingots arrive from Malaysia and Indonesia, the copper from Malaysia and supplies are bought from the Mitford market in Old Dhaka – although mainly recycled metal is used these days.

“Kansa is healthy and hygienic,” he says, “No acid forms when it’s used and it’s attractive, nice designs are possible. But the work is laborious. It’s an inhuman job and production is low. My son will not be involved in this trade and within a decade it will be gone from Islampur, just as some years ago it disappeared from parts of Tangail.”

Indeed, up the road in Kansaripara, the labouring kansaris care little for the dining requirements of Parasuram. The workers, from both the Hindu and Muslim communities, barely have leisure time to visit the banyan tree.

Sharifuddin working on a plate.

“Many kansaris are leaving to go to Dhaka to drive rickshaws,” says Sharifuddin, 30, taking a break from beating metal. “We start at 6 a.m.,” he says, before describing the process by which mixed metal shavings are melted then poured onto a plate to cool into a metallic lump. With tools the items are then shaped, one kansari pulling a rope backwards and forwards to turn a wheel while another scrapes and pounds out a cup, plate, devotional pot, musical cymbal or other item.

“We mostly use recycled materials,” he says, “copper from the motor coils of irrigation pumps, old copper wires or old kansa wares.” The entrepreneurs provide the raw materials each morning and five labourers over ten hours can turn four kilograms of material into eight plates. At a profit of 150 taka per plate, the team can earn 1200 taka per day – 200 taka take home pay per day per kansari. “It’s not enough to live on anymore,” says Sharifuddin, “Shohijal left, Morgu Bhai left, many left...”

Kansari Md Lal Mia, 32, details the practice of adding one bhori – 11.664 grams – of silver to the mixture. “Without silver the plate is red and discoloured,” he says, “With silver you can see your face in it. It’s more glamorous.” Besides, a kansa plate without silver will react to milk to make it taste sour and the shine will fade faster. But silver costs money: without it a finished plate sells for around 2200 taka; with it the sale price is around 4500 taka.

Kansaris Sharifuddin,30, and Md. Lal Mia, 32.

Yet Ankon Karmakar maintains there is good demand for the product. The difficulties he lists for the industry’s future include a lack of capital to purchase modern equipment. A circle machine costs about one crore taka while a finishing machine is cheaper. In India the kansa manufacturers are using both, which reduces the metal required in each item by half and produces a lighter kansa ware. “If the government or an NGO does not offer assistance with logistics and loan facilities the industry has no future despite the demand. Without the equipment it’s time consuming and very hard work.”

Indeed, encouraged by the laboriousness of their trade, three years ago the kansaris of Kansaripara made a legend of their own: one night they all packed up and secretly ran away to Dhaka to ride rickshaws. After some days Islampur’s kansa entrepreneurs found them and, following a word to the rickshaw renters, persuaded them to return. “They wouldn’t rent rickshaws to us anymore,” recalls Sharifuddin.

A musical cymbal.

But 200 taka per day is not enough to run a family. Many of the kansaris have second jobs, riding rickshaws locally of an evening when they should be sleeping. In the days of their forefathers working as a kansari was beneficial but living costs have risen.

“So why do you do it?” the banyan tree might ask.

“Because our ancestors did,” is the kansaris’ answer – and they did, so legend says, from some time around the reign of Parasuram.

A plate with silver in it brings Lal Mia's face to its reflection

It's hard to make ends meet as a kansari.

The workshops of Kansaripara. Within ten years' time they may be no more!

Lively Islampur market with the banyan tree in the background.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: The Banyan, Kansaris and Raja Parasuram

Metal shavings and tools.

What Ronjon Biswas Can Do

Ronjon Biswas with wife Shopno and his parents.

I’m imaging the morning. Bird sounds arrive, to discover a new day in the rediscovery of the limbs of the yard’s trees beyond the window. Scraping and pot-clanging of the kitchen variety arise; and perhaps the squelching beat of clothes being washed will wander up from the household pond’s makeshift ghat. There should be the sound of voices creeping about, discussing morning matters in sleepy tones. Do the waking fussy quacks of ducks and first contemplative cow groans bring greeting to the day?

There must be other signs. The coolness of air is a giveaway to mark the winter, while the sunshine’s warmth can easily represent the other seasons. Sometimes it might be that the damp kisses of wind-and-rain find their way, through the window, on the forehead, on the cheek. The firmness of the wooden bed and cloth feeling of bedcovers are among the welcomers surely, not less than the shuffling of feet, the finding of sandals in somewhere-down-there places on the cool mud floor.

What is morning like in Rundia village? What are the usual signs that greet 45-year-old Ronjon Biswas as he starts each day?

“My husband can do everything,” says Shopno Biswas. “He can catch fish. He can cut paddy.” His father Porimal Biswas says it was Ronjon who found those lost jewellery items at the bottom of the pond when nobody else could.

It’s already afternoon by the time we’ve arrived in the village of Narail Sadar Thana and the crowd of family members has gathered in the yard. They’re excited to share experiences of Ronjon’s abilities. From him the family takes pride. And it’s a sign of love, isn’t it – all that focus on the things he can do? Yes, as sure as the swishing sound of the broom that must shuffle about that house each morning there’s love in their descriptions of him.

Acceptance seems to have long ago taken up residence in the Biswas household, to have triumphed over that unimaginable despair and brokenness that must’ve engulfed the family originally, when Ronjon, as a three-year-old child, became blind.

The Biswas household in Rundia village of Narail.

They blame chokh utha, conjunctivitis – a common and usually mild disease that clears up without treatment, though eye drops or rinsing the eyes with fresh water might be of help. As likely it was trachoma which is sometimes linked to poor sanitation and conditions familiar to those living in poverty or indeed, as refugees. Whatever the exact cause, it took just twenty days for blindness to take hold – as short a time as that.

There’s history’s turmoil in his blindness. The last sights he saw were not of Rundia but of India. It was 1971 and like many Rundian families, his had left for India’s safety upon hearing that the Pakistani army was on its way. Uprooted, after fleeing for their lives, it was in the chaos and uncertainty of the refugee encampments of Duttapukur near Barasat that Ronjon’s world grew dark. There was no chance for treatment.

After liberation the family returned to Rundia, but in Rundia there’s not a great deal of assistance for a child who cannot see. Ronjon could not attend school – and of course he had to learn his way about the house, his way through each day by himself, with his family’s help.

When he understood there would be no recovery for his son’s eyes, Porimal Biswas held no hope for him. How would he survive as the years passed? Besides, there were two other sons and four daughters to think about.

As a child there were some in the village who did not wish to mix with Ronjon, but Rundia being as it is, the villagers began to accept him. “Sometimes people made problems,” says Ronjon, “but mostly people loved me.” I suppose villages are often like that.

It was when he was already twenty-five that Ronjon’s life really changed – and we can thank one Amal Bose who had recently purchased a salo machine, a water pump for irrigation. Seeing Ronjon sitting in the yard without much enterprise to his day, Bose decided to take Ronjon as his helper. They went from field to field giving irrigation services to village farmers, and Ronjon had soon enough learnt how to start the machine.

From there his confidence grew. “He finds his way to the field himself,” says his father, “He can negotiate the between-field aisles and it has never happened that he accidentally irrigated the wrong field.” More remarkably, Ronjon learnt how to fix the machine – by sound.

I’m imagining I have Ronjon’s abilities – that I would actually know a carrying shaft from a wheeze pipe. It might be something if I could remove the magnet cover, attach a ring to a piston or point to the cam pinion when asked. At the very least it would be a step forward if I could identify the head – the one on the machine as opposed to the human body. But like most of you I’d guess – with apologies to any mechanics reading this – these are not abilities which I have.

How does he do it? Is it only with sound? He must feel, smell and taste the white smoke rising that might indicate a broken piston or valve, so another mechanic told me. There’d be heat if the radiator was without water and the machine won’t start at all if the nozzle goes or the liner is finished. In between all that should be the various sounds – an odd metallic clank and subtle degrees of the motor’s chug-chug-chug to indicate ailments.

I could not say with any degree of certainty how he can take an engine completely apart and put it all together again. And I imagine the other villagers of Rundia don’t know either. But they bring their malfunctioning irrigation pumps to Ronjon at the first sign of trouble and there can be little doubt it’s a talking point, a source of pride not solely for his family but for the whole village – what their Ronjon can do.

“The day I learnt to fully repair a machine,” says Ronjon, “was really memorable for me.”

Ronjon at work, repairing a water pump machine.

The irrigation pump repair season runs during the boro paddy season, from December to February. It’s when Ronjon can make 2,000 taka per month, while at his busiest with machine repairs. He receives a further 300 taka per month in disability pension. It’s not enough to cover family expenses Ronjon estimates at around 5,000 taka per month – and outside of peak irrigation season his income still falls to around zero.

“My dream is to open a salo repair shop,” says Ronjon.

It was nine years ago that he got married. “He can cut straw,” says Shopno. “He can operate a mobile and return a missed call. He can climb a coconut palm and take a coconut.” As if words were not enough his family encourage him and Ronjon starts up the palm tree.

When any villager attempts this feat it’s impossible not to hold one’s breath until they are safely down again – those palm trees are tall. But sure enough, a few minutes later and without incident, the taste of refreshing green coconut water has arrived to greet Rundia’s afternoon.

What Ronjon Biswas can do.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: What Ronjon Can Do