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.

Harnessing the Strength of the Octopus

The view from Amtoli Para of Himchhari Beach and the Bay of Bengal.

Amtoli Para, Himchhari.

In the hilltop community of Amtoli Para in Himchhari of Cox’s Bazar, 20 women from the 70 households are gathered on a mat. With sweeping views down to the beach and across the Bay of Bengal the scene is idyllic, suitable for a picnic if it wasn’t quite as hot. Below, along the coast were once their permanent addresses, their homes, shops and gardens. Cows grazed foreshore grasses; goats roamed.

The 1991 cyclone changed all that, proving that a permanent address isn’t always permanent. In one respect the villagers were lucky. Although the nearest cyclone shelter was 1.5 kilometres away nobody died; and the worst of the cyclone was destined to be met elsewhere. But crops were ruined; cattle and houses were swept away. With villages destroyed and land no longer inhabitable they turned from the sea.

There was no choice but to move into the sand-rock hills.

The track to Amtoli Para.

Nurul Haque, 23, outside his home.

Needing new livelihoods the villagers took advantage of the only available resource: the trees of Himchhari National Park. Still today they are primarily wood-cutter families and Nurul Haque, 23, originally of Croalia village, is typical. The father-of-two ventures into the forest four to five days per week, leaving at 9 a.m. to return by mid-afternoon. He walks four kilometres to find trees, hauling fuel wood back to sell in Himchhari that evening or on the following day. He earns a meagre 200 – 400 taka for one day’s efforts.

“Wood cutting is painful,” says Ismat Ara Sultana, 20, who, like most of the area’s women, pursues the same task as her husband for about half his income, given the smaller loads she can carry and her competing home duties.

It’s a livelihood that degrades the national park and has caused the forest to shy away from the coast over the years, exposing the area to even greater erosion risk.

But more recently the village women of Amtoli Para have turned attention back towards an oceanic theme, in the form of crocheting toy octopuses.

The women of Amtoli Para learning to crochet.

It is hoped the women won't need to sell firewood anymore.

From March 2015 the social enterprise Hathay Bunano and the Chittagong-based NGO Community Development Centre, in liaison with relevant government departments and under the auspices of the Climate Resilience Ecosystems and Livelihood project, have begun implementing a new project in the hope of finding sustainable livelihoods for the villagers while better protecting the forest.

Crochet training in Amtoli Para, Himchhari.

The project will teach 28 local women to crochet, with guaranteed buyers of their toy octopuses and other items arranged abroad. Their products will likely find homes in babies’ cots in the UK, USA, Australia and South Korea.

“There will be 28 fewer pairs of hands cutting wood,” says Livelihood Facilitator Ruma Majumder, “and that’s good news for the forest.” With two months’ training, it’s hoped each woman may earn up to 4,000 taka per month if she works full-time.

“I like it,” says Sultana, “Yes, there’ll be some difficulties in learning the new skill but it will be okay.”

Amtoli Para. After the 1991 cyclone there was no choice but to move into the hills of the Himchhari National Park.

The road from Amtoli Para to the beach.

Unfortunately nearby Rohingya households cannot be included for lack of residency rights. They will have no chance to move out of forest harvesting.

With only a non-formal NGO school to rely on, that currently teaches to class 5; in a place where few children study beyond that due to the 25-taka transport cost to the nearest government primary school proving prohibitive, basic entrepreneurial activities come with the hope of improved opportunities, even where the household income rise is modest.

Amtoli Para scenery.

Through crocheting, through harnessing the strength of the toy octopus, Amtoli Para’s women are set to better contribute to finally overcoming the multigenerational consequences of the cyclone, to the benefit of their families and the forest.

A house in Amtoli Para.

New construction in Amtoli Para, Himchhari, Cox's Bazar.

This article is published in The Daily Star, here: Harnessing the Strength of the Octopus in Himchhari

A lone tea shop in Amtoli Para.

Where Santhal Wisdom Shelters

Suddenly in the forest there are faces...

A sal tree in Nawabganj National Park.

Perhaps it’s generally true that shade follows sunshine. Beyond Sitakot in Dinajpur’s Nawabganj the sal trees gather. Though geographically unlikely locals believe Nawabganj National Park might be the last remnants of the forest where Sita of the Hindu epic Ramayana lived in exile.

From field and farmhouse, the cycle van winds along the track into this darker but not-less-beautiful world. Beyond is Ashurer Beel, a picturesque waterhole favoured for picnics and famed for migratory birds.

Into the forest...

And suddenly in the forest are faces… not the middle-class motorcycle-riding ones of picnickers but curious, distinctly non-Bengali faces…

The national park keeps another history. Under its canopy, at its edges, the culture and wisdom of the Santhals finds shelter.

Alekutia village is home to 40 Santhal families.

Peeling jungle potatoes.

In Gabriel Hemrom’s leafy yard a little beyond the park boundary, in Alekuti village along the same track, women sit on the ground preparing date leaves for weaving. Another is busy with jungle potatoes, which are soaked in water for several days and eaten with molasses-like jaggery, known in Bangla as ‘gur’.

A well-constructed mud brick Santhal home.

Alekuti is home to forty Santhal families, Hemrom estimates. “Our ancestors are from a place called Dumka,” says the forty-year-old father of three sons. “But we were all born here.”

House detail.

As in Bangladesh, Santhals are one of the most populous minority peoples in India. Mainly they live in Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar, Assam and Jharkhand. Dumka is a district in the last of these states. There are also a small number in Nepal.

Nearby Ashurer Beel with boat and fish traps.

By tradition Santhals engage in hunting, forest clearing and farming.

The village’s forested location reflects the Santhali tradition of forest clearing and subsistence farming. They are also famed hunters, with bow and arrow. But in Alekuti, along with some small-scale farming, most earn as they can through cycle-van riding or day labour. It isn’t much of a living.

House painting. Santhals capture their history and daily lives in design.

“For the poor, food is always a problem,” says Hemrom.

In contrast to the dire economic reality of Alekuti, in India it’s not uncommon for Santhals to be living in cities and working in areas as diverse as medicine, engineering and the public service.

In Alekuti meanwhile, are traces of the well-developed, unique culture of which any Santhal can be proud. Most visibly it’s in the painted designs on the walls of their well-constructed mud-brick homes. By tradition Santhals present history and daily life in wall paintings, although the Alekuti examples are modest.

“Those who can paint do so,” says Hemrom.

Painting around an internal doorway. 50 - 70% of the villagers in Alekuti are Christian these days.

The forest nearby.

The Austroasiatic Santhali language, of the Munda languages and distantly related to Khasi, Khmer and Vietnamese, is sophisticated and well-studied. Its unique script, called Ol Chiki and invented in 1925 by Pandit Raghunath Murmu in response to deficiencies in representing the range of Santhali sounds in Roman or other Indic alphabets, has thirty letters.

Santhals are famed hunters with bow and arrow.

In general, the Santhals have preserved their language well; but in Alekuti it’s facing difficulties. “Our children used to study Santhali at the mission schools in Dhanjuri and Patarghat,” says Hemrom, “but now they only learn at home. We use our own alphabet but it’s explained in English.” Including Bangla, Alekuti relies on three languages.

The church in Alekuti.

Hemrom estimates that like his family, 50 – 70% of the families in Alekuti converted to Christianity some thirty years ago. The village features a small church attended by visiting clergy.

The remainder observe the old religion, which worships Marang buru or Bonga as supreme deity. It features a court of spirits to regulate aspects of the world, from whom blessings are sought through prayer and offering. There are also evil spirits to be protected from.

An old mango tree on the forest road.

Traditionally, Santhal villages feature a sacred grove on the edge of the settlement where spirits live and sacred festivals occur. In Alekuti neighbours participate in the rituals of both religions.

“We dance and sing in Santhali and in Bangla,” says Hemrom, “The children enjoy the festivals the most.”

In their political history Santhals can also take some pride. In response to land grabbing and enslavement, on 30 June 1855 leaders Sidhu Murmu and Kanu Murmu mobilised 30,000 Santhals to fight the British.

Sal tree trunk.

Caught by surprise, initially the Santhal Rebellion met with some success, but ultimately bows and arrows proved no match for British guns. Battles were akin to massacres. Many Santhals, including the two celebrated leaders, were killed; and subsequently the Nawab of Murshidabad used elephants to trample Santhal huts.

More recently, the Santhal community was instrumental in successfully advocating the creation of Jharkhand state in India, which was carved from southern Bihar in 2000. It was hoped that statehood for Jharkhand would allow better representation for the various minority peoples who account for about 28% of the state population. Santhals are the largest group.

Yet Gabriel Hemrom speaks of his heritage humbly. “Everybody likes his own culture,” he says.

Despite the current hardships of life in Alekuti, it’s not possible to be entirely pessimistic. Santhali culture has survived great hardship before. And, as when leaving the forest, perhaps it’s generally true that sunshine will inevitably come to replace the shade.

Gabriel Hemrom, 40, with his son Remechus Hemrom, 10.

Where Mystery Meets History

Under the earth there's a story to tell. Sitakot in Nawabganj of Dinajpur.

Sitakot detail.

Sun-bright, heat-baked, sweat-dripping, glare-straining: is this the scene that greeted Sita when she followed husband Rama into exile in the wilderness? She would’ve needed a glass of water.

Wall with chambers, Sitakot.

Divine daughter of the earth-goddess Bhūmi; found in a furrow and adopted by King Janaka of Nepal; married to Rama; avatar of Lakshmi and wife of Vishnu: Sita’s life story takes pride of place in Valmiki’s epic Ramayana.

First she followed her husband and they made a home in the forest. Later, abandoned by him and pregnant, she wandered the forest again, taking final refuge in the hermitage of Valmiki. He was the author of the Ramayana revered as Ādi Kavi, the First Poet. He is credited with inventing śloka, the epic meter that defined Sanskrit poetry.

A brilliant grass rectangle.

As a single mother she raised her sons and once they had reunited with their father, she sought refuge once more in the arms of her divine mother Bhūmi. Hearing her pleas, the Earth split open. Bhūmi appeared and took Sita from an unjust world.

Brickwork at Sitakot.

Brilliant grassy stretch over hillock and rectangular ruin: Sitakot in Nawabganj of Dinajpur. The place is as shimmering as its legend.

“I heard the name Sitakot from long before, from my grandfather,” says one villager. “I heard Sita was here.”

At the main-road tea shop, noise has come. Any visitor will attract attention and enthusiastic chatter. In the local psyche, a part of neighbourhood identity, Sitakot is like a relative. So, you’ve come to visit the ancient site? Then you’ve come to visit all of us.

The carved hillock of Sitakot.

Enthusiasm in the local tea shop.

Delighted mention follows of a sal forest further in, the last remnants of Sita’s forest so locals say. There’s the waterhole, Ashurer Beel, within it; and arrangements are quickly made for a cycle van to take you. Meanwhile a shopkeeper gives free betel leaf to chew.

When advised you may never see him again, he says: “That’s just why I want to give it.” Friendlier people have become difficult to imagine.

Farmhouse gateway.

Neat mud farmhouse and chicken yard lie along the bright dirt track. Sitakot occupies its sundrenched hillock to the right. Rice field and plough: it’s quintessential rural Bangladesh and not hard to imagine one Sita found there somewhere, as a baby in a furrow. If only it had happened that way…

The road to Sitakot.

Despite the legend that has long mingled in the locality the site has no relation to the Ramayana.

Mudbrick houses nearby.

For one thing, Sita’s actual forest, the Dandaka, the Panchavati, is near Nashik, beside the Godavari River in Maharashtra. It’s not Nawabganj National Park. For another, Valmiki’s hermitage is on the bank of the Tamasa in Uttar Pradesh; not beside Ashurer Beel. So what is Sitakot, then?

From the central courtyard of the complex.

A wall nice in a cell. For a Buddha image?

Historically, Sitakot is not born of Hinduism. It’s a Pala-dynasty Mahayana Buddhist monastery from the 7^th – 8^th centuries. Roughly sixty-five by sixty-five metres, the site features 40 cells around a large courtyard. Its broad entrance measures 1.8 metres. Unlike many monasteries of its vintage there is no evidence of a central temple. Rather, on three sides are larger cells with pedestals that might have housed divine figures.

Beyond that not much is known; two bronze images of Bodhisattva Padmapani and Boddhisattva Manjushri were recovered, helping to give an approximate date to the site. Ink pots, terracotta toys and ornamental bricks were found.

Sitakot: actually an ancient Buddhist monastery.

Local Morfidul Islam, 30, of Golabganj village, speaks of the discovery of an axe. “When a cowherd pushed his koti (the stick to which cows are tied) into the ground he heard a clang. When they dug they found the axe.”

“Foreigners come once or twice a year,” he says, “Sometimes Hindus perform puja.”

There is further excavation work to do at Sitakot. Islam thinks he knows why the archaeologists keep their distance. “The earlier diggers had a dream that if they keep digging they will die.”

The start of Nawabganj sal forest.

It might not be that Sita was there – and the Buddhist history is impressive enough. But to think of it in another way, Bhūmi surely dwells wherever there is soil; in a landscape as idyllic as that, Valmiki’s poetic meter must find its home. In capturing village imagination Sita has nonetheless staked some claim to the place. Sitakot is of her memory, at least, if not her slated geography.

The cycle van.

 
Perhaps it’s generally true that shade follows sun. Beyond, the sal trees start and the cycle van winds into a darker, not less beautiful world. Suddenly, in the forest are faces… curious, different-looking, non-Bengali faces…

Nawabganj National Park keeps yet another history. Under the canopy at its edges the culture and wisdom of the Santhals shelters… 

Suddenly a new history... the surprise of Santhal faces.

Me on the cycle van, Nawabganj National Park.