Popagandhi

Quite contrary to Biman’s public record and reputation, a half hour flight on Biman from Kolkata landed us safely and on time (kinda) in Dhaka, Bangladesh. I’m put up at a nice hotel for now, paid for by the NGO I’m working for. Work starts proper tomorrow morning, and for the next foreseeable week it’s going to be hectic with meetings, shoots, interviews and case studies scheduled all week from seven in the morning to midnight, then edits and writing to be done back in the hotel. Ah, the life of an aspiring photojournalist.

Kolkata bid farewell to me in such a predictable manner: pouring, as it had never poured even in this monsoon, in a big yellow taxi whose door was falling off but which stayed attached to its body with a red rag tied around it, windows that couldn’t completely shut, a paan chewing driver addicted to spitting out of his window, and who couldn’t stop getting hit in the back and sides by other cars. In the horrendous Saturday afternoon city crush, as it poured and poured while my taxi hovered around Park Circus, I was starting to feel like a certain Aparna Sen movie.

My Bengali hasn’t improved at all since the last two times I bid her farewell, but I’ll see Calcutta again very soon, I’m sure (I also have a new book: Learn Bengali in a Month). I must say Dhaka is a pleasant change from Kolkata. I’m quite surprised by how much I like it. Travelling around these parts of Asia increasingly makes me think about how much I’m unwittingly delving into the ancestral homes of the people I have loved, and that gives me a nice warm buzz, from Panjim to Dhaka to Java.

Aamar shonar Bangla, aami tomay bhalobashi!