We have spoken of the difficult economic conditions in Kurigram. A reflection of the depth of poverty and the problems of local government is seen in a number of local roads there having been built by an NGO, the Rongpur Dinajpur Rural Service, rather than the government. There are not less than 34 NGOs, both Bangladeshi and international, working in Kurigram. And the best-run hospital and health extension programme is conducted by the Swiss agency. Terres des Hommes, People prefer not to go to the local civil hospital which is run-down and constantly short of medicines and equipment.

The core of the tragedy and hopelessness that blights Kurigram and parts of Bangladesh, which has moulded the lives of Keramat Bhai and many others like him, is summed up in the name of the Swiss agency Terre des Hommes: People without Land.

The rivers are the sorrow of Kurigram—the Brahmaputra, the Dudhkumar, the Dharla. Yet, every year, even as they strike with impunity and ‘pursue’ people, as Nitya Kumar Ghosh of Chilmari Ghat said, they also bring to Bangladesh the priceless gift of land and life.

Chapter Thirteen

Bangladesh: Standing Room Only

It was a clear, hot, humid summer morning: a bandh-less day in Dhaka. I was quite familiar with bandhs in the Bangladeshi capital. On such days, Dhaka would turn into a city where driving was a pleasure and even walking on the streets was comfortable! That is, if your vehicle was not being targeted by a stone-hurling mob, or you were not personally attacked. On a normal day, if you went around the New Market area or in Farm Gate, busy business centres, you would probably be swept off your feet by a rush of humanity, talking, rickshawing, cycling, driving, walking, and working. Especially, if it was evening. This vast, incoherent, swirling mass could be quite unnerving; on that day, I remember standing near the down-market Sundarbans Hotel, and staring with a mixture of horror and awe at the bedlam on the streets.

It was bedlam without violence. There was confusion, typical of Calcutta, multiplied by several times; Bombay’s surging crowds at least three times over; and Delhi’s aggressive drivers and rickshaws cutting in, swerving and violating every rule in book just to get ahead of the next guy. Small groups of policemen stood at the chaotic traffic roundabouts and lights, waiting to prey upon an unwary victim, while sharing a bribe and a joke.

The heat, pollution and dust compounded the confusion. Dhaka is one of the most overcrowded and polluted cities on earth. At times, especially near the main bus station, I have felt close ro suffocation, being an irregular sufferer of asthma. There are, of course, parts of New Delhi, Calcutta, Karachi and other cities on the subcontinent which are no better or worse.