$380 MILLION PLEDGED TO SAVE TIGER

The St Petersburg Summit on the Tiger, hosted by Premier Vladimir Putin, and attended, amongst others, by Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao, Bangladesh Premier, Sheikh Hasina, Hollywood heartthrob Leonardo DiCaprio and top model, Naomi Campbell, has ended with a pledge from a number of funding sources of $380 million.

The funds will be used to support the strengthening of tiger reserves, such as Sundarban Mangrove Forest in Bangladesh, to crack down on poachers, and provide financial incentives for ‘good neighbour practices’, such as those already becoming established in the Sundarban to support alternative income flows for human populations of reserve areas.

Meanwhile, the Bangladesh Forest Department has continued its work in the area, supported by Sundarban Tiger Project, which is financed, amongst others, by US Field and Wildlife Services, and Disney Wildlife Conservation, with a programme of training in Tiger capture and immobilisation in order to remove over close wild beasts from the human communities as an alternative to beating the beasts to death.

LUNCH IN THE COUNTRY. MYMENSINGH

Bangladesh has a great tradition of hospitality. And ,in a nation whose economy is still agrarian based, that hospitality it is still most lavish in the villages that cover the farmlands of the country.
Driving, recently, to visit some prospective sites of historic interest, when I explained where I wanted to go to my driver, he shyly told me that we would pass near his home, and would I visit his family?
Would I?! Such visits, usually accompanied by much, near royal treatment that one just has to get over, are always fascinating. We planned to small diversion into the travel.

Beside a narrow country road, stood a range of thick, traditional, mud walled single storey buildings around a family compound. Jakfruit trees, coconut palms and some others shaded pumpkin gardens where grew the vegetables from with bathroom loofahs are made, and the flesh of which is a superb vegetable.

Hens and chicks flustered around the packed earth of the compound, and a on a fire pit stood a large cauldron being used, not as I thought, to prepare our lunch, but to boil rice husks as a means of collecting rice.
The tranquillity was a simply remarkable contrast to Dhaka, and if the view didn’t quite measure up to that from my own front garden, of river, sea, islands and mountains, at home in UK, it was one of fields and trees as far as the eye could see. Rice, jade green, grew everywhere in view, though the drying tresses of water soaked Jute revealed a wider agricultural base of existence.
The lunch, predictably, whilst moderating the chilli content for my benefit, was the traditional Bangladeshi rice and curry; two types of rice, with vegetable side dishes of Morning Glory and a kind of spinach, finely chopped. Vegetarian food is the heritage of this largely agrarian nation, but both grilled river fish, and beef, the more recent additions to the tradition, were on the table too.
I know of no restaurant, either here, or in the so called Indian restaurant tradition at home ( where most are actually run by Bangladeshis, and most of those from Sylhet!), who can serve food of such delicacy and flavour.
That my driver’s mother was a superb cook was unquestionable, but then , so are so many of the housewives of rural Bangladesh.

Mother’s readiness to meet me and be present at the meal told me of greater ‘modernity’, or less tradition, in the household, and the continuing presence of aunts , sisters and children added to the warmth of the hospitality.
The experience gave me an idea for the catering on the River Cruiser we are launching next summer to cruise the riverine splendours of Bangladesh in the comfort of clean, modern accommodation, a/c, and with attached h/c bathrooms, a complete innovation in this, the waterland of the world.

We shall see if we can assemble a network of such local culinary excellence to board the boat and serve evening meal at our overnight halts!

 Then, there are the rice snacks of which Mother is such a mistress! I winder if she could be persuaded...
Hospitality is, truly, one of the greatest attractions of this country, which if you simply took notice of international media, you would assume to be constantly disaster hit and teeming with the poor, the disadvantaged victims of extreme natural disasters.
A lunch, in the country, to remember with relish!

DHAMRAI GOVINDA BHAVAN. BANGLADESH

Built in 1853, following the acquisition of tax collection rights by Govinda Roy Chowdhury, a grocer, Govinda Bhavan is one of the earliest of the remaining Zaminderbari of Bangladesh.

Presumeably acquiring the office, that would have been sold at auction by the Honourable East India Company, who , at the time, still controlled the administration of what was then Bengal... though 5 years later, following the ‘Indian Mutiny’, now more often referred to as the First Indian War of Independence, or the Sepoys rebellion... with either the profits from his business, or with loans that also financed the building of such a suitably impressive residence before the tax revenues began to flow, since he had six sons the palace was constructed with six pavilions.

Stylistically, Govinda Bhavan seems to have most in common with Teota Palace on the banks of the Padma River in Manikganj, which was roughly contemporary, and another survivor of the 1897 Great India Earthquake that necessitated the reconstruction of so many of the great buildings of the region.

This residence, still occupied by the family of Zaminders, offers something of a picture of life in such great houses, with different branches of the family occupying different parts.

Here, you can begin to understand the lives lived by these factors of the Company, and later the Raj, who, unlike most of India, were men of business rather than hereditary royalty.

In the 1930s, a great wedding took place..well, two weddings in fact, on the same day, on the same river. Two sons of the last Zaminder married. The elder, the daughter of the Zaminder of Balliatti Palace, a mere 9km away by river. A younger, the daughter of the last Zaminder of Kutcheri Bhavan, in Tangail. Each Zaminder too proud to concede to another the hosting of the marriages, they were held on a boat on the river!

The glimpse of a world that once was in Bangladesh is sometimes hard to reconcile with the life of this country today. The conspicuous wealth of those times was more lavish, even, than that of today’s businessmen of the country, apparently with more in common with country house life in the UK, with which they were undoubtedly familiar from the visits and university stays made in Britain by the scions of these, then, great families.

A fascinating place so close to Dhaka, for such a glimpse of the past.

60 DOME MOSQUE. BAGERHAT

The, so called, 60 dome mosque in Bagerhat, has, in fact, rather more than 60 domes, but since few of them are visible from the exterior, the name scarcely does justice to the real splendour of the brick built, mid 15th century construction.

It is the many pillared interior that constitutes the real charm. Reminiscent of the great Mughal palaces of the period, and even of some of the great religious buildings of Europe, the magnificent pillars and the light they admit and the shadows they cast create the atmosphere of sanctity and durability.

On my first visit, many years ago, I was refused admittance on the grounds I am a Christian.. a surprise since I had never encountered such refusal at any other of the 40 or 50 I have visited around the world. Worse still, when I approached the mosque a few weeks ago, I was in the company of a lady, and a Bangladeshi academic had told me that she, too, had previously been refused admittance on the grounds of her gender. However, this time, we were both admitted so perhaps things are slowly changing in Bangladesh in attitudes to tourism!

A pilgrimage well worth making to this, one of the great, ancient, intact buildings of Bangladesh.
(Perhaps the custodians have been put through a training course in hospitality that the staff at Bangladeshi Embassies and High Commissions around the world would greatly benefit from when processing visa applications for tourists!)

BANDARBAN DISCOVERY OF NEW INSECT SPECIES

Sanaa Imperialis is a colourful member of the cricket species, recently discovered for the first time in the world, in Bandarban, the hill tracts of eastern Bangladesh.
Brilliantly coloured to deter predators, with a false, leaf like appearance, news of the discovery has been circulated on the web, in wildlife extra.com
Bangladesh seems to be uncovering  a number of new and rare species, and , no doubt, despite the threat that hangs over so many of its very diverse species of wildlife, there are many more yet to be found.

Source: Daily Star, 15th Oct, pg 16