The other Bengal

The other Bengal

Dilawar suddenly turned round and came more or less running back towards me and hugged me tightly with tears in his eyes, I was also crying silently that night in Dhaka. This picture of that night is permanently etched in my mind. Today even after 19 years to me it appears as though it happened only yesterday.

How I landed in Bangladesh and who is this Dilawar?

 I did not go there on a personal visit but went there with two more senior officers of BHEL to explore business opportunity. Those days I was heading Eastern Region of BHEL, out of two senior officers of BHEL one was my close friend Late Kandaswamy, he was expert in Boilers.

Our flight by Indian Airlines took less than one hour to reach Dhaka from Kolkata, by the time we were finishing our snacks the announcement was there about the plane approaching Dhaka. Those days Dhaka airport was small but we did see many domestic private airlines operating in Bangladesh, remember it was 2000 and in India private airlines were yet to take off.

After checking out through immigration and customs which happened pretty smoothly we were surrounded by touts selling Bangladesh currency. Initially we were reluctant to exchange our dollars but I did not mind taking chance with my Indian rupees which they readily exchanged at the prevailing rate then, it was one Indian rupee to 1.40  in Bangladesh Taka those days. Now of course Bangladesh money has appreciated, it is about 1.15 taka or so against Indian rupee.

We took a cab from the airport and headed for our hotel Rooposhi Bangla which is located very near to Dhaka club. After checking in we headed for the Bangladesh electricity Board office. The reception guided us to the office of the Chairman. The building walls were pasted with posters of worker’s union with their demands, it was just like our offices in Bengal those days. Seeing those posters I felt as though I was walking towards the office of Dr.Sankar Sen in New Secretariat building, a dejavu, two Bengals but the same culture of posters on the wall.

The Chairman of Bangladesh wanted BHEL’s help in running their 2x200 MW Chitagong plant, which then was run by Chinese as they only supplied that plant. We were to train Bangladesh engineers to run the plant as otherwise they were paying heavily to China to keep the plant running. There he introduced Mr.Dilawar Khan, Manager to us who was to be our guide throughout our stay.

After the meeting Dilawar took us to a restaurant near the office for lunch, I was pleasantly surprised to hear Rabindrasangeet in the restaurant. After finishing our lunch, we went out for a whirlwind tour of the city. The first thing what comes to my mind about that city then in 2000 is cycle rickshaws, the main road jammed with rickshaws. In snail pace by evening time we could reach the campus of Dhaka University. The pavements around the university was full of students sitting by the side of road, we did not go in, from outside it gave me a feeling as though I was passing by the side of Jadavpur University with those handholding students sauntering around.

Next morning Dilawar met us at Dhaka airport, we were on the way to Chitagong by Biman Bangla. After reaching Chitagong we headed for our hotel. We deposited our luggage, freshened up, piled up  in a car for the power station. The oil and gas fired power station is on the banks of Karnafuli river, it is a big river which originates from Mizoram and drains in Bay of Bengal,Chitagong  the port looked like Diamond Harbour. Dilawar informed us that the Chinese brought the power plant equipment by ships through Karnafuli river to Chitagong. During erection of the plant they were using their ship as base. Later on they built porta cabins out of the containers in which they brought power plant equipment, finally they moved in those cabins. Dilawar kept me informed about all these tit bits, me being the only Bengali in the group  he was feeling comfortable conversing with me.Slowly me and him started establishing a bond of brotherhood. He took us to the office of Chief Engineer of the plant. We were shown the plant by Chief Engineers himself with his team. We were told that the Chinese operating staff stays in those porta cabins which are not air-conditioned, during any emergency all the Chinese staff in any time of the day or night rush to the plant. We were taken to the control room which looked like army barrack. There were Chinese operators with their Bangladeshi counterpart, Bangladesh paramilitary force with rifles keeping vigil. I asked Chief engineer why there was strict security, he informed that in the past there had been attempt to sabotage, Bangladesh then was a power starved country so the vigil. We had a look at the boiler, turbine and the auxiliaries, we were familiar with those equipment as Chinese too had taken technology from Russia who were our initial technical collaborators.

After the round we had lunch in their field gust house. It was typical rice,daal, aloo bhaja, a charchari and chicken curry. I was bowled out by that chicken curry, at a later date I had requested their instrument engineer one Roy through email to send me the recipe. I got that recipe from him and circulated to my friends.

We were back at Chief engineer’s office and tried to know their depth of knowledge. They showed us the history cards and logs. Our visit was for 2 days so we took leave of them and promised to come the next day. Next day I sat with maintenance chief and Kandaswamy sat with operation chief to guide them in running the plant, we found out that though there were provision for auto controls but the Chinese had not commissioned those and in the process the Chinese were operating the systems manually which was very tedious and that was one of the reasons why Bangladeshi engineers could not pick up, of course language was another major issue. I told Dilawar aside unofficially that Bangladesh can’t afford us because by that time I had found out the per diem rate per person of Chinese engineers, which was one third of our rate. The economy would not work. He informed the chief engineer same thing, the Chief engineer started pleading with me if somehow we could get involve for the transition. Dilawar too requested me to consider sending some expert for a short stint.

On the way back to our hotel I enquired from Dilawar about micro financing company of Grameen Bank. He informed that the bank preferred to give loan to ladies, the village ladies had formed cooperative for garment stitching in villages. There were more than 8 lakhs ladies involved in the garment industry those days in 2000 and now of course it has become a phenomenon. Those days the mobile was yet to penetrate, the ladies communicated through a novel system of mobile using signaling wires of the railways. Then at the station there would be a transmitter covering a radius of 50 kms or so, thus all the villages along the railway line was covered bt that hybrid mobile network, one American company has helped Bangladesh to develop that system. All these were enabled by the Grameen Bank of Md.Yunus. He was revered by everyone with whomsoever I talked in Bangladesh. Those days’ Malaysian companies were building the roads, the long distance modern buses with hydraulic landing and boarding system were supplied by them. I was pretty impressed by the greeneries around, it appeared as though whole earth is wrapped in green blanket, it was just green everywhere with occasional ponds.

Next day we boarded Biman Bangla International coming from middle east heading for Dhaka. It was full of Bangladsehi labours returning home. I was sitting by the side of one such labour and next to me was Dilawar. I asked the labour what he did in middle east. He informed me that he was a date picker and got 11,000 taka per month, food and lodging born by his Mudir (the sheikh). I noticed often those labours would get up and look through the window to see their home country. There was a sustained excitement of returning home after a stay of might be 2 years or so, found them pretty demanding too. The airhostesses were at their wits end handling the half literate crowd. Those labours loudly shouted,”’ Bangladesh runs with the money what we send home so you better take care of us!’’

I was amused and asked Dilawar about his opinion on this foreign exchange repatriation, he admitted that those fellows were right as Bangladesh’s major foreign exchange earning was through the repatriation of wages of their labour working in foreign land. The fellow sitting next to me requested me to help him to fill up us disembarkation form, I readily agreed, by the time I was finishing his a few more forms were held in front of me. I did not mind filling those forms, I was rather enjoying that, I was coming to know so many personal details and was trying to imagine their huts in villages of Bangladesh. Dilawar too was busy in filling the forms and sometimes he would nudge me with his elbow when he would come across some funny sounding name. Our camaraderie matured during that flight from Chitagong to Dhaka.

We came out of Dhaka airport, me Dilawar and Kandaswamy. Before going to the hotel I requested Dilawar to take us to a market so that I could purchase a Bangladeshi saree for my wife. He took us to New Market of Dhaka, yes there is New Market there too! He warned me not to purchase any T shirt as mostly those are from India then in 2000, now of course foreign brand rejects are readily available there. I purchased a Dhakai saree.

After finishing marketing we proceeded to drop Dilawar, it was the last night in Dhaka. In those 4 days Dilawar had become a very close friends, we exchanged many personal information. He asked the car to stop by the side of the road after a few minutes. He got down from the front seat, I got out from the rear seat to shake hand and bid good bye. Next day morning we were leaving for Kolkata, so it was final good bye.

After shaking hand, he started walking with his suitcase, then suddenly he turned back and came rushing to me. We hugged emotionally with tears in our eyes.

I know a Bangladeshi engineer Khaiz Ahmed who would often come to my office. His company was working with Bangladesh Board, I have enquired about Dilawar from him. He informed me that Dilawar rose to become GM and now he was retired.

We did not send any expert to Bangladesh but our interaction resulted in getting a job at Baghabari.

After that visit of Bangladesh I visited Bangladesh again for work in 2013, well that is another story.

Frozen in time

“In Russia do you have arranged marriage?” Bhatnagar had been asking this type of questions to the Dy.Chief Engineer Ms Lana which was promptly translated in Russian by our guide and translator Alexendrov to Lana.

I was amused by the way Alexendrov was translating such question to Lana which he himself could have replied as it was no technical question.

We were standing by the side of frozen Baltic Ocean, to avoid people walking on the frozen sea they had put up a barbed wire fencing. We had gone to Russia for a technical collaboration, the meeting was over so I requested Alexendrov to show us around. When he mentioned about frozen sea I got interested. We could see the white sheet of ice like a skating rink in place of sea water. At a distance we could see some ships marooned. Lana avoided replying to such type of silly questions. Lana looked to be in her fifties, the usual typical squarish Russian face cut and solidly built. The Chief Engineer Chekov was a thin gentleman always smiling. Alexendrov though was acting as our guide and translator but he was a professional with 6 patents under his belt. I was pretty surprised when he told me that he had patents not only in electrical but also in chemical components, dealing with electrical insulation. I still remember his visiting card which had a caricature face of him in beard, just outline and his credentials.

While I was enjoying the frozen sea Bhatnagar threw another of his nagging questions to Lana which she refused to answer and Alexendrov explained why.

‘When did you pass your engineering?’

Alexendrov spoke in Russian to Lana and she smiled and gave some reply.

With a serious face Alexndrv told Bhatnagar, “She will not give reply to this question as you will then calculate her age!” then he guffawed and I laughed out loud.

Well gentleman that was Alexendrov and I had this incidence in St Petersberg in April,2003.

Back to present ,when this time I was in Goa then on the beach I found some Russians standing around a few cows by the side of Arabian sea,  They were clicking pictures while passing them I looked at an elderly gentleman and said, “ For tonight dinner you don’t have to hunt much for beef, it’s there for you!’

He laughed out and looked at his wife said smilingly while rubbing his belly, “Yes I love beef.”

I teasingly rubbed his belly and said, “Sure you have that fat there.’’

We stuck up friendship and walked to the shack known Pedros on the beach. A cool breeze of February was blowing, we could watch the restless waves of the sea breaking on the beach and the sea foam sidling down the beach leaving behind myriad patterns on the sand.

I   ordered beer for both of us and introduced myself. He was a retired Engineer from Petersburg, February month meant freezing cold back home so they had come to Goa. Russian tourist makes up the majority of foreign tourists visiting Goa. Due to the fall of Russian ruble numbers had decreased but they recovered soon. Tourists in northern belt of Goa are mostly Russians. Many shacks and restaurants run by locals have become accustomed to it and have sign boards and menus in Russian. Due to their large presence, the town of Morjim is often called ‘little Russia.’ It appears there are some Russian tour operators who operate chartered flights from even unknown cities of Siberia. Russians prefer Goa over middle east in winter because of our friendly culture. There certainly is a very strong presence of them in Goa, and like most mass-migrations, there is no particular date in history that can be assigned to this. However, common consensus seems to be around the time the Russian economy started opening up under Putin. Russians began travelling to friendly countries like India.

While talking to him my mind went back to that day by the side of Baltic ocean, I was remembering about Alexendrov , the twinkle in the eyes and wry smile were like that of Alexendrov. We exchanged visiting card, his card was a caricature of him and his credentials. I was taken aback by the similarity of the visiting card of his with that of Alexndrov.

“I have seen such card, my friend Alexendrov’s visiting card was like this!”

“Oh, you knew Alexendrov, the engineer,inventor?” He said excitedly.

“Yes, the same! Wish I could meet him again!”

“He was a close friend of mine. I had borrowed his visiting card and got mine made as per his design. I am sorry to inform that Alexendrov is no more, he left us 6 years back.” The Russian said with a gloomy face.

I was shocked,Alexendrov was such good engineer, he helped us in designing Shunt Reactor, often he would come from Russia to BHEL,Bhopal. I remembered that he could turn any ordinary topic to an erudite discussion with his creative mind.

That Russian gentleman could sense my melancholy mood, he quickly finished his beer and shuffled off bidding good bye to me. I did not try to remember his name, no use loading the mind with another name which eventually I forget at this age of mine. Yes, I had his visiting card, his visiting card was like a prism refracting two situations, one by the side of frozen Baltic Ocean and another by the side of roaring Arabian sea. I slowly tore off his visiting card and without bothering to look at the name and scattered the pieces on the beach. Those pieces flew away with the strong gust of wind blowing on the beach, as though taking away the memory of my friend Alexendrov with it.

Well friends meeting the Russian on the beach is my imagination. I have seen lot of Russians on the beach around the cows , the Russians were in every beach of Goa. Seeing the Russians my memory of that day by the side of frozen Baltic sea got triggered. Alexendrov was real and he was our guide and adviser in Russia and he is no more, left us a few years back.While walking on the beach of Goa i started thinking about Alexendrov and if one of these Russians turned to be his friend but that was too much coincidence to expect, so i did the next best thing of spinning this yarn.

In the dark....virtually possible part 6

“Do you have any information about Soumaya?”

“No, we don’t have. We saw him last when he installed the software, your man was present then.”

“Yes, our man followed him next day to Howrah Station, he boarded Shantiniketan Express for Bolepur. That young man who was here the other day with us watching Soumaya was the one following. We think Soumaya might have noticed him and he vanished in the mid-way. Samaranand and Babulal also looked worried. They had no clue. We require Soumaya urgently.”

‘’Have you tried contacting Samaranand?”” Sunil Maity asked.

Babulal was playing this recorded conversation in the device which was still kept with the beggar woman Pagli who had been camping outside the Maity house in Lansdown. Babula had instructed her to camp there indefinitely till he instructed otherwise. This device was recording the conversations in the drawing room of Maity house through the bugs planted by him and Soumaya in their first meeting.

‘We have hacked Samaranand’s email to know whereabouts of Soumaya, we have also made arrangement to tap his mobile. We followed him to Trincas but Soumaya did not appear. Now for the last few days we find that Samaranand is not coming for his morning walk at the lake.’”

Babulal too was worried that he was not able to contact Samaranand, Both Soumaya and Samaranand have mysteriously vanished.

One thing was clear to Babulal that Soumaya had vanished to avoid those persons who were asking Maity brothers about him. Babulal continued listening to the recorded conversation and heard the unknown voice telling Maity brothers.

“We are an IT company and we have been approached by political parties to make videos by mixing old and new clippings. We know that Soumayas has developed an algorithm which you have purchased. We want him to work with us for similar project but in much bigger scale. But somehow he is avoiding us.”

From the above conversation at least it was clear to Babulal that those people mean business and somehow Soumaya did not want to get involved with them because of involvement of politicians.

Presently Babulal had no financial problem as they made a neat sum out of the deal with Maity brothers. Now he was left alone and had to figure out a way to find them. He was relieved that Soumaya was not in danger yet, but he never imagined that Samaranand would become a target.

Babulal was in pensive mood, he was an orphan who ran away from Bihar to Delhi. He did all those odd jobs like operating the hydraulic jack below a sadhu’s throne who would fool his disciples that he was levitating by divine power. Later he was an assistant to a street magician but then his fate brought him to Kolkata where he met Samaranand who gave him mental and financial support. Now he was like a gliding eagle who suddenly loses the thermal current which keeps him afloat and starts frantically flapping his wing , metaphorically his mind was restless like the flapping of wings of eagle.

He has to be focused. He remembered the story of the deaf frog which Samaranand told him in initial days.

The race began of tiny frogs climbing the tall tower...

Honestly, No one in crowd really believed that the tiny frogs would reach the top of the tower.

You heard statements such as:

"Oh, WAY too difficult!! They will NEVER make it to the top."

or:

"Not a chance that they will succeed. The tower is too high!"

The tiny frogs began collapsing. One by one...... Except for those who in a fresh tempo were climbing higher and higher...

The crowd continued to yell

"It is too difficult!!! No one will make it!"

More tiny frogs got tired and gave up......But ONE continued higher and higher and higher...

This one wouldn't give up!

At the end everyone else had given up climbing the tower. Except for the one tiny frog who after a big effort was the only one who reached the top!

THEN all of the other tiny frogs naturally wanted to know how this one frog managed to do it?

A contestant asked the tiny frog how the one who succeeded had found the strength to reach the goal?

It turned out...that the winner was DEAF.....he could not hear those discouraging words..

 The wisdom of this story is:

Never listen to other people's tendencies to be negative or pessimistic...

...because they take your most wonderful dreams and wishes away from you. The ones you have in your heart!

Always think of the power words have.

Because everything you hear and read will affect your actions!

 Therefore: ALWAYS be...POSITIVE!

And above all:

Be DEAF when people tell YOU that YOU cannot fulfill YOUR dreams!

Always think: I can do this!

Positive Attitude is the best Attitude.

He repeated the story in his mind for self-confidence, somehow he was sure that he would receive some signal from Samaranand or Soumaya, he must not get cowed down by the negative vibes of the situation. His mind was cluttered with all kinds of thoughts when there was a knock on his door in his present hideout at Sealdah slum.
'Who is it' he hesitantly asked.
"Swiggy" was the reply.
But Babulal was hesitant to open the door as he had not ordered anything and for that matter he had no swiggy account.
He looked out through the window and found a hooded fellow in dark Swiggy dress, he could not see the face, the posture was familiar.
Who is that fellow? Should he open the door or climb out by the rear window and vanish?