5 posts tagged “bangladesh”
This reads like a telegraphic hotline excerpt from a techno-thriller where the readers are forced to read military jargon...
The implications are simple -- people are dying right at this time when I'm posting this....
TROPICAL STORM “SIDR” ADVISORY NO. TWENTY NINE ISSUED AT 1800 UTC OF 15 NOVEMBER, 2007.
THE VERY SEVERE CYCLONIC STORM “SIDR” OVER NORTH BAY OF BENGAL MOVED SLIGHTLY NORTHEASTWARDS AND LAY CENTRED AT 2030 HOURS IST OF TODAY, THE 15TH NOVEMBER 2007 OVER NORTH BAY OF BENGAL NEAR LAT. 21.50 N AND LONG 89.50 E, CLOSE TO THE COAST OF WEST BENGAL AND BANGLADESH. LATEST RADAR OBSERVATIONS OF DOPPLER WEATHER RADAR STATION, KOLKATA AT 2130 HRS IST INDICATE THAT THE SYSTEM IS NOW CROSSING WEST BANGLADESH COAST NEAR LONG. 89.80 E TO THE WEST OF KHEPUPARA (41984).
ESTIMATED CENTRAL PRESSURE: 944hPa.
THE SATELLITE IMAGERIES SHOW SOLID INTENSE TO VERY INTENSE CIRCULAR CONVECTIVE CLOUDS AROUND THE SYSTEM CENTRE. CURRENT INTENSITY: T6.0 RPT T6.0 MAXIMUM SUSTAINED SURFACE WIND SPEED IS 115-125 KTS AROUND THE STORM CENTRE.
SEA: PHENOMENAL.
FORECAST: THE SYSTEM IS LIKELY TO MOVE IN A NORTH-NORTHEASTERLY DIRECTION.
STORM SURGE OF HEIGHT 6-7 METRES ABOVE ASTRONOMICAL TIDE OVER COASTAL AREAS OF WEST BANGLADESH AND 3-4 METERS ABOVE ASTRONOMICAL TIDES OVER COASTAL AREAS OF WEST BENGAL LIKELY AT THE TIME O
Happy Birthday, Bangladesh!
This is my wallpaper after yesterday's match:
Last few days I've been missing my country in ways that I'd never thought I would.
Obviously, there's the food part. I never thought I'd actually long for the typical Bangladeshi food, the simple daal-bhaat, chhoto maachh, or khichuri and beef bhuna -- last night my wife was asking me why I can't have the plain steamed rice and the daal from the hotel, to satiate my longing for daal-bhaat. I knew better -- it's not about the food, it's about home and having it in Bangladesh and everything -- none of which can be replicated by simply trying to replicate the food.
Yesterday afternoon while coming back from the foreigners' registration office, I found myself humming the national anthem and was so surprised to hear myself doing it. Then I knew how it got me. The other day I watched this movie and at the start of the movie they were playing the Indian national anthem Jana Gana Mana. It had come to my mind that the same person (the Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore) was the author of both the Bangladesh national anthem and the Indian one. Probably from that point our own anthem was floating around somewhere in the subconscious. When I found myself humming the tune, the lyrics came to my mind, word by word and stanza after stanza; and I realized that it's my country I was missing, at that point of time, probably more than my family or any one person.
Why won't I? When I go to work, even the buildings look unfriendly to me. I don't really know the language enough to speak with confidence, and even if I did it sounds so much more harsh than Bengali -- even if you rule out the coarseness of the Bombay-style mishmash Hindi. I look at the roads and they are actually dirtier than my hometown -- and I chide myself why I would complain so much about its uncleanliness while I was there.
There are a couple of Bengalis in my office but unless they speak it first, I try not to speak the language. I've noticed that they don't prefer to use the language that much even among themselves -- but I guess even back in my Bangladesh office we used to speak in English a lot amongst ourself and obviously it's rude to for two people to engage in a conversation in a language that's not understood by most of the surrounding people. Even then, I've noticed there are one or two who actually switch to Bengali whenever they talk to me -- but as I said, one or two.
Is this homesickness? Don't know? Maybe, maybe not. I'm yet to miss my own home big time. But this much I'm sure, it's homeland-sickness.
