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.

Temple & Mosque

Md. Aminul Islam and Ratan Chakraborty can't recall any discord between Muslims and Hindus in Rajapur.

“Dhan, nodi, khal – e tine Barisal.”

In the calm alleyway mix beyond the centre of Rajapur in Jhalokati; where the shady homestead yard may be ditch-and-mound ribbed – the mounds for trees in rows to gather contemplating while in each ditch water reclines for longer days; in that wooded zone yet to shed its rural heritage in its newer semi-suburban age; on an afternoon when rickshaws politely and without bell squeeze to pass on that forgotten arch of a bridge over whichever canal – the paddy might be some way off but it’s easy to sit back and think, easy to recall the old rhyme of that Division. “Paddy, river, canal: these three are Barisal.”

Yet in that area beside the not-so-busy bitumen road, beyond the yawn of the motorcycle repair shop to the right, beyond the shack of a tea shop too, where locals seem to loiter even when the kettle is off-the-boil and the tea is seemingly on its way from Sylhet, prior to the uninteresting junction where the road to the back of the college leads off between the trees, there’s something that’s a little more Jhalokati perhaps and less broader Barisal – and it starts with the mosque.

At the Baitul Aman Jamia mosque in Rajapur.

To say there’s any remarkable feature to the Baitul Aman Jamia mosque building would be a lie. It’s clean and functional, tiled in white with Arabic inscriptions across the doorway. The adhan call is in every sense usual. It’s the image of a mosque of the ordinary type to be found across the country.

Diagonally opposite, over the road and entered through a colourfully signposted green gate off a side lane, the Sri Sri Hari temple likewise cannot claim extraordinariness in either grandeur or historical merit. It’s peaceful and has a banyan tree in the midst of a largish yard that no doubt devotees take enjoyment from – but even that hardly makes it outstanding.

It’s a fifty-fifty world in Rajapur – Muslim and Hindu. Temple and mosque share fellowship as possibly their greatest reward; and that’s a phenomenon as natural to Rajapur as the shady blessing of the canopy.

“We go and sit in the temple sometimes,” says a Muslim man at the tea shop, “Nobody disturbs us there.”

Now let’s speak of two men – locally important and pious. It didn’t start with them but there they are: madrassa assistant professor Md. Aminul Islam has been the mosque’s Imam for the past three years while primary school teacher Ratan Chakraborty has filled the temple’s post of Prohith for the last five.

“Islam always wants freedom for everybody,” says our Imam, “It gives the chance to everybody to enjoy their religion. Islam does not like any violence, clashes or anarchy. Islam wants peace.”

A Durga motif at the Sri Sri Hari Temple.

“In the Gita it states that we should honour all religions,” says our Prohith, “All religions are one.”

“Communalism is a great crime for a man. A Muslim cannot do it. Those who have committed such things are not real Muslims,” are our Imam’s words.

“Communalism decreases relations between the communities. People should not be doing it,” is our Prohith’s speech.

There’s a natural beauty to Rajapur: of rain tree, chambol, mahogany, jackfruit, banyan, Hinduism and Islam. Drastic change is nowhere in the forecast.

“We have our weekly service on Tuesdays,” says our Prohith, “We celebrate many pujas – Kali, Durga, Lokenath, Shiv... Muslims are always invited to join our pujas and funeral processions – and they do. There’s never been a quarrel.”

“When they perform namaz prayer the temple stops to show honour,” he continues, “Hindus and Muslims are like brothers here.”

“We don’t disturb Hindu functions,” says our Imam, “Some Muslim youths help with their pujas. I never saw any problems between Muslims and Hindus in Rajapur.”

News? What news? There’s no news here...

One of the protimas at the temple.

At the time of Eid ul Adha there are many invitations – Hindu families will be busy visiting Muslim homes to sample shemai, noodles and fruit. At the time of Durga Puja, Muslims too dig into their pockets to help fund the festivities. The temple sends jackfruit to the mosque each year. Each Thursday after namaz and recitation of hadiths and Quranic verses at the nearby meeting hall there’s the kichuri rice dish to be savoured – and shared – to comers of either faith.

And so on and so forth it goes... the chambol stretches out another branch, new roots of the banyan find their earth, the mahongany trunk ever so slowly thickens – it’s all show for the first one hundred years. The tea meanwhile is still on its way from Sylhet – an entirely natural phenomenon – and the one community of two faiths continues to share and to respect each other beneath Rajapur’s canopy.

At the time of the Babri Mosque’s demolition in India in 1992, when also in Bangladesh communal relations reached a particularly low point, Rajapur Muslims came out onto the road to assist the police in defending the temple and Hindu homes. Some troublemakers came from further afield but sure as the trees closed in on the open sky as they approached Rajapur, they found no scope for harassment or havoc.

For about a week the temple was continuously protected. And a beautiful nothing happened.

“All Hindus and Muslims are citizens in Bangladesh,” says our Imam, “People here are educated and religious. They do not make anarchy or harm others.”

“Hindus don’t leave this area for India,” says our Prohith – and five years ago he recalls, “My kitchen accidentally caught fire. My Muslim neighbours saw it and quickly put the fire out.” Now that’s a beautiful something to consider!

“Muslims have to apologise and compensate Hindus for losing their houses,” says our Imam about the recent troubles elsewhere, “Either the Muslim community or the government should compensate them. They should try to develop their brotherhood with Hindus.”

But wait... finally there is something remarkable – something has happened in the one-canopy one-community backblocks of Rajapur... at last there’s news, quite literally, brewing: the kettle is boiled and from somewhere far in hilly Sylhet the tea seems to have arrived...

And that is, for Rajapur surely, a worthy leading story.

Our Imam and our Prohith at the temple gate.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Temple & Mosque