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.

At the Coalface

The lift shafts at Barapukuria Coal Mine.

Dhaka, Khulna, Rangpur and Barisal: Mr. Zhang likes to travel. “Bangladesh is poor,” he says, interpreted from Mandarin, “but people are very honest, especially in the northern villages.”

As a Buddhist, Mr. Zhang believes in reincarnation. According to him, everything in this life is the outcome of a previous life. Something in his previous life brought him to Bangladesh this time around.

Office buildings at the mine.

The office buildings at his workplace are white tiled on the outer walls, with blue tiled angular eaves to break the monotony of a flat roof. The driveway, like the exterior of the stairwells, is circular. There’s a garden with neatly trimmed hedges. It could be any random factory office in industrial China except it isn’t. Mr. Zhang works as an engineer at Barapukuria Coal Mine in Dinajpur’s Parbatipur, and has done for a decade.

“I mostly speak to local colleagues in English,” he says, “but with the help of books and audio material I also learnt some Bangla. In Bangla it’s interesting how when people introduce how many siblings they have they include themselves in the number.”

Garden in front of the office.

Barapukuria is run by Chinese contractors. It’s unsurprising that the canteen serves Chinese fare and that signs commonly feature Mandarin characters. What’s more interesting is the mosque built for local workers in a similarly Chinese style, with white tiles and blue trim.

“At the core,” says Mr. Zhang, “all religions are the same.”

Barapukuria offices.

The Barapukuria gateway has seen better days.

Coal mining is a risky business and Barapukuria has not been a project free of controversy. Some risks are inherent: opening a new coal face where the air may contain carbon monoxide or methane, where temperatures can be high or a sudden inrush of water may occur.

Despite planning that currently includes the services of a British consultant, Barapukuria has suffered from land subsidence affecting surrounding farmlands; locals have complained of adverse impact on the water table; and some years ago workers went on strike.

The main entrance. The mine thinks it's a tea plantation.

There was also an underground flooding disaster that has since resulted in refined safety measures, put in place one hundred metres ahead of the drilling; and a concrete wall being constructed along the northern side at significant cost, to prevent further waterlogging.

The lift shaft.

There have also been issues with compensating and relocating villagers on whose former land the mine sits; though according to management most of these issues have since been settled.

Yet Barapukuria provides over 1000 jobs at the mine and a further 300 plus for Chinese workers; and it provides much needed coal for the country, most of which is used in electricity generation at the nearby power plant. Of national significance, not only does Barapukuria restrict the need for imports but due to its low-sulphur content the local rock is less polluting in power generation than the most-common, Indian, substitute.

From the surface, the first level of the mine is 293 metres down, sitting at 260 metres below sea level. From there, 1.5 kilometres of roadway and train track tunnels slope to a final depth of 430 metres below sea level.

Father-of-two Md Atiur Rahman, 30, from Mashpur, a village one kilometre from the mine, takes the lift down into the mine every workday. He’s been with the mine for nine years. “I had no work before,” he says, “We only have one bigha of land so life was hard.”

Local miner, Md. Atiur Rahman.

Underground, Rahman is responsible for constructing the beams and legs of wood along the tunnel that provide safety support. It’s a risky position because the new sections of tunnel are often hot and hold the greatest chance of roof cave-in.

Due to the risks his wife wants him to find another job, and there was a time when Rahman was scared underground, with fears of falling in the dark. But with years of experience “there is no time for fear,” he says, and although it’s hard work the mine enables him to manage his family’s finances.

Local miners attract a monthly salary of 9000 taka with 20 kilograms of rice grain and bonuses. There are four six-hour shifts per day.

The lift into the mine.

Rahman’s colleague Kabirul Islam, 33, has been working at the mine for eight years. “I like it when we get through our work quickly,” he says. The miners are given a task for each shift and if they complete it in three to four hours rather than six they return to the surface early.

He’s not scared anymore – the fear gradually left him in his first few months. But still, when leaving home of a morning he does sometimes wonder if he will ever see it again.

In 2009 seventeen miners were trapped by a cave in and one Ranjeet Chandra Roy died. “Those working at the coalface have the biggest risk,” says Islam.

Miner Kabirul Islam, after finishing a shift underground.

Miners in the lift.

Shift over.

Coal train engine.

Miners at the end of a shift.

Miners pose for the camera.

About cooperating with his Chinese colleagues, Islam says local miners have learnt to understand some Mandarin. “Kem cha means ‘train’,” says Islam. The word for train in Mandarin is actually ‘hǔo chē’ but in a tunnel with the sounds of a coal mine going on and a train quite possibly approaching at the time of use, ‘kem cha’ undoubtedly suffices.

Mr. Li, 'Om', looking busy while we chat.

Like Mr. Zhang and most Chinese miners, Mr. Li, locally called by the nickname ‘Om,’ is from the city of Suzhou in Jiangsu Province. For five years he’s worked at Barapukuria and in very basic Bangla and English he praises the skill of some of the managers.

But he misses his native cuisine. “Some of the Chinese food here is good,” he says, “but the variety is limited.” To supplement, miners have taken to growing Chinese vegetables on land beside their quarters. As can be expected, Mr. Li misses his one-year-old daughter and family who he sees only on visits home every six months.

Life at Barapukuria is strenuous and not without risk. Yet despite the hardships Bangladeshi and Chinese miners manage to cooperate in bringing the underground wealth of Bangladesh to the surface and into use. “External forces are not issues,” says Mr. Zhang. “What matters is internal attitude, which can turn any challenge into an opportunity and bring good fortune. Good deeds make for happy endings.”

With thanks to Ms. Olivia Qu for interpreting from Mandarin.

Bangladeshi miners at Barapukuria.

Barapukuria landscape.

 

Chinese miners at Barapukuria.

 

Mine landscape.

As the canteen (not pictured above) serves Chinese fare...

 

...sometimes the Bangladeshi office staff prefer the tea shop. And who could blame them?

In the Service of the Fungus

In Sujjannagar there are two large factories and one thousand household distilleries.

Spikes added to an agarwood branch.

For centuries those of ambition not predestined to be born of royal lineage or to some stocky, loaded philanthropist have sought fortune and fame. It’s a matter of being noticed by the right people, of being talked about, written about. What’s needed is an attractive trait, a charming disposition – to move in the right circles. Then, ultimately, one becomes indispensible. Nobody cares about the origins of a prized companion.

In the villages of Sujannagar Union of Moulvibazar’s Barlekha it’s possible to observe that this age-old strategy is not exclusively pursued by humans but may be adopted by other life forms too. There, an upwardly mobile fungus, phaeoacremonium parasitica, has done rather well.

At the Noor Hazi Miah factory.

The air at the large Noor Miah Hazi factory in Shartika village is corky sweet. Village men are sitting along the veranda corridor each holding a lump of wood by their feet and chiselling. They’re focused on the dense heartwood patches and chiselling. They know the lighter, healthy parts of the wood are of little value. For 500 taka per day they’re working for the factory. In a way, they’re also working for the fungus...

Neither plant nor animal, fungi demand their own kingdom. They have always been special. This particular fungal species, phaeoacremonium parasitica, infects agar trees by habit. The autoimmune response of the trees is to produce a resin designed to stop further fungal growth. In the process the infected wood emits that exclusive, pungent smell known as agar-attar or oudh. 

Chiselling...

It’s a scent that’s never been reproduced artificially. It’s a corky sweet scent so sought after that, at premium quality, agarwood has attracted prices abroad of up to $10,000 per kilogram. Agarwood is reputed to be the world’s most valuable living raw material. It’s the agar-attar scent, in the wood or when steam-distilled into oil – a small sacrifice – that has been the secret of phaeoacremonium parasitica’s success.

At work in Sujjannagar.

Because when they’re not chiselling, Sujjannagar’s villagers are busily maintaining plantations of the fungus’s favourite agar tree. Although it takes an agar tree a century to reach maturity, saplings can be harvested after ten years, encouraging many to dedicate lands to the species – and for the fungus that surely makes for a more civilised arrangement than a forest.

Phaeoacremonium parasitica keeps people busy in Barlekha.

While in the wild, only seven percent of trees will become infected with the fungus, Sujjannagar is organised to achieve a one hundred percent infection rate. 

While other fungi must rely on animals, wind or water to rather randomly disseminate their spores, phaeoacremonium parasitica has cajoled humans into that task too – not only do workers deliberately infect new trees, they even hammer nails up and down the trunks a few years prior to harvest to permit the fungus untroubled entry.

Indeed, with almost every family engaged in the agar-attar industry in several villages, a bright and secure future for the fungus is assured. All it requires is the sacrifice of some of its members to the fame-enhancing agar-attar scent industry. It’s certainly not a bad arrangement for a parasitic dark-walled mould to have.

Agarwood infected by phaeoacremonium parasitica.

New agarwood arrives at the factory.

Still, the social rise of phaeoacremonium parasitica hasn’t occurred overnight. From time immemorial Malaysian aboriginals, the Orang Asli, have harvested wild agar trees for the agar-attar that in Malaysia is called gaharu, using a slashing technique that reveals the infected heartwood without felling the tree. Thereby the Orang Asli can re-harvest from the same tree a few years later... and the fungal community continues to thrive.

The agarwood chips are first soaked.

The fungus’s future certainly received a boost through references to agar-attar in the Sanskritic Vedas. It also features in Chinese author Wa Zhen’s third century chronicle “Strange Things from the South,” which records the collecting of agarwood from the mountains of Rinan, now central Vietnam. The product is included as a medicinal product in several ancient texts, and in Xuanzuang’s travelogues of the seventh century agarwood products are recalled as being used for writing materials and oil in ancient Assam’s Kamarupa – traditions that persist.

Distilleries at the Ansarul Hoque agar-attar factory.

With the rise in renown of the agar-attar scent evidenced and furthered by these writings, phaeoacremonium parasitica has indirectly achieved an enhanced pedigree beyond its humble mouldy origins, which must’ve led to its later finding favour at the Mughal court. For centuries the wood-mould by-product has been quite at home at royal parties; dabbed here and there on the clothes and in the underarms of princes.

The humans put nail holes along the agar trunk to allow the fungus unhindered entry.

In Japan there has even developed a tradition of ‘listening’ to the agarwood, with a burning chip taking centre stage in a closed room while aficionados meditate in its scent. All of this has been good news, no doubt, for the fungus.

Agar-attar businessman Afjal Uddin.

In Sujjannagar the agar-attar industry dates from the 1940s when the harvest of wild agar trees began. These days there are two large factories and perhaps one thousand household distilleries in the area. There are middlemen such as Afjal Uddin, 40, of Gankul village, who sell to exporters, constantly renewing the scent’s acclaim around the world and in particular in today’s principal markets which include Mumbai, Singapore and especially the Middle East.

Agarwood chips in a steam distillery, Barlekha.

“The scent lasts for six months,” says Afjal in favour of the product, “It does not leave any spot or stain on the clothes.” In addition, agar-attar is popular in Muslim majority countries because unlike most western perfumes the scent is not alcohol-based. While according to Afjal agar-attar is not overly suited to the domestic market due to its being price inhibitive, export-oriented production has brought long-term prosperity to both phaeoacremonium parasitica and the villagers of Sujjannagar.

Md Yusup at the factory distilleries.

Md Yusup, 46, is a prime example. He has been working as supervisor at the Noor Miah Hazi factory for 17 years. He controls the distillation process that produces the oil. With three staff he is able to process up to one hundred trees per month; and it’s the agar-attar that’s brought him the income to send his daughter to college. The oil is most often exported to Dubai and Kuwait.

This agar tree is worth about $1200.

Bangladeshi agar-attar production competes with plantations in Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia and elsewhere in South Asia. Afjal says agarwood can sell for up to 80,000 taka per kilogram domestically, though its rate has recently reached a new market low of 20,000 taka. He is not sure of the reason for the fall but believes unscrupulous traders who inserted ball-bearings into the wood for extra weight before on-selling to Chinese importers may have damaged the reputation of the Bangladeshi product.

Agar-attar production has brought prosperity.

“One big tree can net its owner anywhere from 1.5 lacs taka to five lacs,” says Afjal.

In Sujjannagar, phaeoacremonium parasitica, on the back of the charming scent producing reaction of its host the agar tree, has created for itself an ideal environment in which to be valued and prosper. Having avoided the unceremonious anonymity of many other fungal species, which clearly made the evolutionary error of being either poisonous or otherwise dull, so as to preclude human cultivation, phaeoacremonium parasitica has joined the exclusive ranks of edible mushrooms, the fungi used in cheeses and yoghurts and of course the yeast that’s made its niche in bread.

Agarwood, the world's most valuable living raw material.

This fungus has mixed with royalty, enjoyed the enduring fame that arises from being written about through the centuries and continues to enjoy a privileged existence, not least in Sujjannagar where whole communities shall remain self-motivated and dedicated to its bright and enduring fungal future.

The steaming vats at the Ansarul Hoque factory.

In nature all things are connected – and in the pyramid of life, from phaeoacremonium parasitica’s perspective, the humans, the workers, take their rightful place at the lowest rung in the ladder.

Workers at the Ansarul Hoque attar factory, Sujjannagar.

Agar-attar oil.

Rows of new agar trees.

This article is published in The Star Magazine, here: In the Service of the Fungus

This bottle of agar-attar oil is worth about $800 locally and much more overseas.