COMILLA. GATEWAY TO THE EAST

Lying close to the Tropic of Cancer, Comilla is about two hours drive from Dhaka along the Chittagong Highway. It is a city with a history that is not always obvious in the thick of the , mostly rickshaw, traffic congestion in the middle of the urban centre.
At various stages in that history it has been under Animist, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and Christian rule , and all have left their mark! None more so that the Buddhist, who built, between the 7th and12th Centuries the remarkable Vihara of Mainamati.
The remains, that include a number of fine, brick built Stupa, and even the lower half of a Buddha, cover an area of a few square kilometres, with part being inside the Army Cantonment.
Close to the border with India, the State of Tripura, Comilla itself, along with such cities as Chittagong, Feni and Noahkali, was once part of the Kingdom of Tripura.

In about 1730, however, a peasant boy called Shamsher Gazi started a ‘peasant’s revolt, that led, eventually, to the overthrow of the King of Tripura, extending his own ‘realm’ to include the lands that now lie in India.
Once a protégé of the local ruler of Comilla, under the King, when he asked for the hand of the ruler’s daughter in marriage, he was exiled, and so began the uprising that brought him to rule such a vast area.
In Comilla, and ageing bungalow, on the banks of the huge tank, is the residence of the last Queen of Tripura.
Shamsher was treacherously murdered abot 1760, and it wasn’t so long after that, following the battle of Plassey in 1757, the East India Company took control of the area.
Comilla, however, never lost it sense of independence, and both towards the end of the period of Raj, when local activists assassinated the British Magistrate, and in 1971, when the area became a focus of freedom fighting, it played asignificant role.

Today, famed for sweets and batik, with the Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development on its fine campus designed by the world famous Greek American architect who also designed the new Pakistan capital of Islamabad, as a significant presence, it is well worth at least a day of exploration.
Replete with fine Hindu Temples, and a magnificent, if somewhat unsympathetically extended mid 17th Century mosque, possibly the most evocative place for quiet reflection is the War Cemetery, where the remains of the fallen youth of the Second World War lie, British, Indian, African, and, yes, Japanese, united at rest.

Inside the Cantonment, a further reminder of the World at War, is the HQ of Sir William Slim, who was the last of the wartime commanders in that theatre of war.
The intercity buses and trains rush by this city, and the main road is now a bypass, but the tangible evidence of its history are well worth exploring.

SAIDPUR. THE GLASS MOSQUE

In an Islamic nation replete with mosques of all ages from the 11th Century to the contemporary, in a wide, and often magnificent diversity of architectural styles, the ‘Glass Mosque’ , or Chini Masjid at Saidpur in the Rangpur Division of Bangladesh is certainly one of the prettiest and distinctive.
According to a plaque on the fascia, the original building was constructed in 1863, around the time Saidpur became to hub of the rapidly developing railway system in Bengal. Actually, the intricacy of the external and internal decoration seems to make it improbable that this masterpiece was built in one year. A subtle change, it might even be fair to say, degeneration, in the craftsmanship betrays to the eye the unquestionable fact that the original date refers only to half of what seems to be an entire building, and a contemporary development to extend the mosque even further, increases the awareness of the eye that the original builders were unequalled in their attention to detail.

The entire fabric of the building, including quite a
collection of minarets and domes, is colourfully  decorated in a style more commonly seen in the architectural detail of such Chinese structures as the famous shop houses of Malaysia and Singapore. The inlay of millions of fragments of porcelain, pottery and glass, very evidently shards of domestic pots, plates and other vessels, lends a jewel like quality to the appearance of the intricate niches, arches, windows, stairways and walls.

The whole town of Saidpur, in fact, could be said to be a dream for architectural historians, especially those interested in institutional architecture.
Saidpur, as a hub of the ‘industrialisation’ of India under the Raj, is full of residences, offices, and workshops, many in brick, that are great examples of the kind of bureaucratic architecture still visible in parts of UK.
It also worth noting, perhaps, that, flying in the face of the conventional wisdom of the ‘conflict of cultures’, behind the Glass Mosque lies the old burial ground of Raj period, in which the only evidence of vandalism is that of time and weather. And although the gates remain locked, there is an easy access from the ablution area of the mosque!

THATCHED COTTAGES, BANGLADESH

Thatching is an ancient craft, with a universal practical, as well as aesthetic appeal. The roofing method is widespread in both tropical and temperate climates, to insulate against external heat, especially from direct sun, and to retain heat in colder climates.
It is, of course, very environmentally friendly, utilising renewable plant growth, and, most often, the by products of cereal cultivation.

It is, perhaps, a little paradoxical that in less developed nations such as Bangladesh the use of thatching reflects a plentiful supply of low cost material, whereas in developed nations such as those in Europe, especially UK, thatching materials are not so easy to come by, and finding the craft skills to do the thatching is both difficult and expensive.

Like most tropical and subtropical nations, especially those with a great agri based economy producing great supplies of straw, Bangladesh has no shortage of thatched cottages, though images of them seldom appear on the packaging of luxury goods in the way that have traditionally on chocolate and biscuit boxes in UK. The durability of some of the thatching is extraordinary, with roofing over 100 years old far from rare. Other roofing is more temporary with both skills, and probably time for doing the delicate work not always available, and the straw more laid on the roof, especially tin roofs, to mitigate the oven like quality of tin roofing in burning sun.

The overall effect, however, is undeniably picturesque, and a regular part of rural scenery across the beautiful countryside of the land.

JESSORE IN SEPTEMBER

A pleasant journey into the rural corners of South West Bangladesh. Few better ways to spend Eid ul Fitr, when most Bangladeshis have headed out of the cities to return to their rural roots for the holiday.

But Allen Ginsberg, the famous American poet of the ‘Beat’ generation, whose literary giants included Kerouac and Burroughs, has an altogether different ‘take’ on this very area, at this time of year, 39 years ago.

One of the starkest, rawest piece of contemporary verse paints a picture far removed from the rural idyll that is now to be found thereabouts. It explains, better than any official history, better than any play or movie, just what transformed the flourishing lands of east Bengal into the struggling, evidently still traumatised land of contemporary Bangladesh.
 
It is hard for anyone today, who grew up in the postwar peace of Europe, to even imagine the real meaning of, even, natural disaster, or all out war. But Ginsberg, in so few verses, conjures up, vividly, the awful reality of man’s potential for inhumanity to man.

‘September on the Jessore Road’ http://www.everyday-beat.org/ginsberg/poems/jessore.txt was certainly written by an anti militaristic figure of some reputation, but leaves no doubt, this is not the fruit of his imagination, rather, just like the beauty of such as Wordsworth’s Daffodils, a picture in words of real experience. 

There is photography, there remain the mass graves, there are lurid canvasses, but none that can force the imagination, with such lethal power, to conjure up such a human hell.
 
And if the visitor is ever tempted to criticise what Bangladesh has become today, they should read this  poem again, and reflect. And perhaps remember, too, that the Liberation War it so startlingly conjures up was, probably, the inevitable consequence of the previous years suppression of the Bengali language, the refusal of a military dictator based far away to accept the result of one of the freest and fairest elections the post partition  Sub Continent had seen, and, finally, ignoring the devastation of the 1970 Cyclone in which 1.5 million  are believed to have died.

In 1971 Jessore Road  led from human rights abuses, authoritarianism and natural disaster; it led to Bangladesh, this free country, still struggling to come to terms with its past, with its environment, and realise its extraordinary potential , sharing its outstanding natural beauty, its visible history and extraordinary endeavours for self development with a world that, perhaps, never noticed its devastating past, and remains so unaware of its human, social, cultural and economic potential.