India Trip

Yeah, I am going to India on a business trip. I will be joining the "Customer Meet 2005" of Bharti Telesoft, the famous telecom service provider of the region. They are also the owners of "Airtel". I will be staying at Oberoi hotel in New Delhi.

My flight is at 16:30 (7th December). I'll be back on the 11th December.

Will write details when I'm back. Wish me luck, people.

Outrageous Bombings

Suddenly, my country, as I have known it for the last 25 years, is appearing alien to me. Suicide bombing, religious fanaticism, killing judges, processions by judges, judges calling strikes--are these things happening to our lives? Is this my beloved country, for which my grandfather sacrificed his life for, on 14th december, 1971? Almost 34 years after our triumph over Pakistan army, can we really say that we are an independent nation?

Yesterday, another bomb blast killed 9 and injured 70 people. This incident occurs only a few days before the month of victory. This is indeed a threat to our national security, sovereignty, and above all, the feeling of security that many of us have for being able to live in a free country. In fact, there was not much of that feeling any way. It got shattered long time ago.

I got mugged in 31^st December, 2003. It was a terrifying experience, but I took it easy. That incident eliminated the feeling of safety from my mind, and since then I try being alert while traveling. Before that, I would be in a light mood during journeys, but now I am extra cautious, and I try avoiding dark nook and corners after the sunset.

But what measure to take against bomb blasts? Maybe I will be shopping in Agora, buying a loaf of bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, and the middle aged, bearded, otherwise well respected and good mannered guy might turn out to be “one of them” suicide bombers. The bloody images of my dissected feet, burnt flesh and pummeled body will appear on the morning papers. For Prothom-alo’sinternet edition, the pictures might appear long before the morning. My mother would regret for the rest of her live for asking me to pick up a loaf of bread on my way back home from office. My sister will look at the broken mp3 player, probably recovered from my right trouser pocket, and cry. She keeps on asking me for it, and I keep on declining her request, stating "imminent HSC exam" reasons. I hope my dad will hear the news from my uncles, instead of seeing the gory depiction of what was my face even a day before, in the papers. He had two heart attacks, God, he won’t be able tolerate this shock.

I wonder how my friends will react. With a little laughter, I am also worried about my precious music and games collection. It took me a lot of time and effort to collect the music I have.

Who to blame for my imagination going wild? Can you really call me a paranoid if I start suspecting every bearded man that I will be coming across from today onwards? Would you blame me if I leave this country and settle abroad in a couple of years?

I never wanted to leave this country. I always wanted to do something for this country. Maybe it is because of the blood I inherited from my ancestors. I had to confront the idea of going abroad and settling there; multiple times. But I never felt an urge to do so; I never really got the green signal from the heart for this action. My brain always told me to try for an abroad MBA or masters, but my heart never instructed me to do so.

But today, my heart is in trouble. Today’s newspaper gave my heart a massive attack. Things will never be the same.

I never believed in the Hartal concept, and to me, Hartal is really an annoying and irritating event. The Hartal day passes quite normally, but it creates an extreme pressure on the weekly routine of everyone, and we see excessive traffic throughout the rest of the week, including weekends.

But this time I am going to support the Hartal that was called by the lawyers of the nations. There are rotten apples in every barrel, but that doesn’t mean you need to kill all the lawyers.

I mean, what is their point? I heard a few conspiracy theories, but none of them seems logical to me. Why would a Islamic fanatic group want to kill judges? What could be motive behind this massacre?

I need to read and think more for an answer to this. But I wonder whether my heart and brain will let me do so…..

It’s high time something gets done.

Is changing the government a solution? I don't think so. They are all the same. These politicians lack the creativity and dynamic nature that is required in order to solve critical problems. They can only solve some mundane problems, or allocate budget for solving it. They never do the follow up and check how the allocated resources and approved plans are being executed.

And we call them law makers, policy makers, and the Government.

I wonder why these stupid, incompetent and half-educated people should make laws for us.

Irony…

I Just Finished Writing a Story!

My regular readers already know that I have been writing a full story for the last month or so. I had a clear concept of how I would end and start the story, but as I kept on going, ideas invaded my mind, and at times I found my own writing alien to me. It was like some magical force, someone or something drove my writing forward. In all good faith, I can only say that I got help from Allah for actually finishing this story. I just ran word count in MS Word, and here's what I got:

Pages: 14
Words: 5,736
Characters (No Space): 25,515
Characters (Spaces): 31,141
Paragraphs: 180
Lines: 433

Maybe it's a silly story, and maybe it will bore the hell out of most. But it's still a creation, a story, which I loved creating, and I will love reading when I get older.

Here's a link to the story:

http://dmrwrites.blogspot.com/2005/11/lunch-is-beautiful.html

I hope you'll enjoy it.

By the way, two of my best friends graduated today. I am so, so happy for them. It really means a lot to me. I wish they know it as much as I do :)

What a Mess!

Okay, this blog of mine has become a multipurpose, multidimensional, multiirritating and what not blog. Although I like writing stories and stuff, I should not use this blog for writing stories.

I already have:

A gaming blog(Gamespot)
A blog for talking about the past (blogger)
A forum specific blog (amadergaan.com)
A MSN Space(MSN)

I need:

A blog for current thoughts (I am using msn spaces for this, but I don't like it)
A blog for travel logs/stories
A music blog
A blog for articles of interest

I will stop writing in MSN and AG (which I have already done, to some extent), and continue writing here...my current thoughts.

So no more huge entries, no more stories, no more rehashing the past here....just current thoughts and updates on current happening. I will add links to my other blogs in the right side of this blogs, very soon. I already have a link for the Yesterdays blog here.

Now I will convince myself for having so many blogs. I could have done all this using categorized blogs in msn. But msn space is not the thing for me. Blogger has many customizing options, and I think I will start using them, soon.

Here's where I will be adding my links (check back for inactive links):

The Song of My Life
Yesterdays
Life of a Beatlefan
Linking Brain and Word Processor..

Will update later..

A Break from the Usual: Prelude to Another Trip and Thoughts

It's been a while since I wrote something other than a story or a travel description here. I have some other blogs where I usually put in my current thoughts. But this is my most favorite blog, and I feel like interrupting the story and writing a few words here. As Eid holidays are approaching, the excitement is increasing within.

We are going to Saint Martin's island on the 5th! We will reach there on 6th, and we are expected to return on the 8th. I will hopefully reach office on the 9th. This will be the third journey with my school and college friends. We went to Netrokona and Coxsbazar on last two occasions. I did not finish writing the story of Netrokona, but I wrote a huge, 12 entry account of the Coxsbazar trip. This will be a short trip, but I expect it to be an illustrious one, like the previous two. This time we don't have Murshid with us, and Sujit can't make it due to official commitments. Yes, he'll be working during the holidays. And of course, Afzal is in Germany, so he can't come as well. This left us with a small, 4 member group. Fortunately enough, Sajal agreed to join at the last moment.

We bought Bus tickets for Teknaf. The price for a direct bus journey from Dhaka to Teknaf cost us Tk 420 (What a dubious price!). We will hopefully reach Teknaf at around 9 AM, on 6th November. The journey starts at 10:30 PM, from S.Alam's bus stand at Komolapur. S. Alam is the name of the bus service we will be using. This bus stand is just opposite Komolapur rail station, the very same place from where we started our Coxsbazar trip. The place brought memories, lots of them.

We spent almost 2 hours in search of bus tickets, a few days back. We were extremely lucky to get the tickets.

From Teknaf, a 2 hour naval journey will take us to St. Martin. The vehicle is unsure till now. We can either avail a luxurious ship called Keary Sindbad, or we can avail a Government operated Sea Truck. As a last resort, we have trawlers operated by local fishermen. According to Pintu and Murshid, the Trawler journey is severely painful, and frightening. But I am not afraid, nor is Tushar.

We had to face a lot of resistance. Apparently, only me and Tushar seemed excited about the journey. Others were trying to discourage us from the very beginning. Murshid and Pintu toppled the ranks among the most activate discouraging agents! Murshid is going to China for a training on the 4th, and hence he stopped discouraging. But Pintu still looks hesitant and a bit disturbed at the proceedings so far. However, I am sure he will be happy when we do end up in the island paradise.

After we reach St. Martins, we plan to stay overnight and enjoy the scenic beauties. I just received two banglalink T-Shirts today, which will come handy during our trip. A friend of Ashique and Pintu helped us in booking a hotel room. We booked a single room, where two beds will be joined together for accomodating four. We are five, but there is thin chance that any one of us will sleep. We plan to spend the night in the beach.

Sajal is a very old friend, and I am delighted to have him with us in this tour. It took a lot of pursuading, though, to make him agree. But that is an inseparable part of any tour. Only the Netrokona tour was made possible without much coaxing. But that's a different story..

I turned 25 last month. Yes, I am only 25 years old. And also, with the aging process, I am just on the brink of completing 2 years of full time working. I have been working continuosly, from November 6th, 2003 till today, with few holidays. In GP, I took maximum 5 days leave, and in banglalink, I only took leave for a day last month.

I quit GP on 27th July, and joined BL on the 28th. So it makes 2 straight years of working. What have I achieved so far?

A lot.......

Friends, please wish me luck for the trip and the days ahead.

Lunch Is Beautiful: Chapter 5

Chapter 5: The Confusion

What's that funny smell? Thought James as he left the porch behind. He managed to sway pass the curtains within seconds. This guy is fond of locks of free falling hair, he must be! Everyone in here ties their curtains, but he doesn't. How eccentric!

"Mr. William, Sir. I have a mail for you"

William didn't seem to pay attention to the postman's call. He was too busy with his writing—his passion. I hear a voice, but it will not interrupt my flow of thoughts.

"Mr William, I got a letter from Ms ".

Before he could finish the sentence, William's excited voice stopped him.

"What! You got a letter from her, and you have the nerve to not tell me before?"

Almost jumping up in happiness, William dashed towards James. Skillfully avoiding the ink puddle, Will took the pink envelope from the mailman's hand. Now comes the best part, thought James. But the moment did not come as soon as it used to come. Will tore off the envelope and brought out the letter. A sweet fragrance filled the room. He started reading.

There was something in the letter that did something to Will. The smile was disappearing rapidly; getting replaced by a vibrant posture of anxiety, which eventually turned in to excitement. Holding the letter tightly, William reached out for the window. He was giving a confused gaze towards the sky.

Waiting a while, James silently left the room.

-----------------------

Outside, the weather was going through an abrupt change. Suddenly, the sun was gone, and the clouds started glorifying their darkened presence. James was wondering where to go next. He only had a few mails to deliver. One for the pharmacist, one for the sergeant, and that's it. But from the looks of the sky, he was not quite sure whether he'd take the risk of going to the other end of the city to reach the military camp.

Earlier that year, Napoleon declared himself as the empreror, surprising everyone; including the church. Till the last year, Churches were the supreme authority of the country. According to the christian padrey's, they were God's appointed rulers of the land. However, the brave and talented general changed the concept, and to be honest, he wasn't doing bad at all.

The proudly hoisted flag post of the army brought a sense of security and pride to all. The common people never liked the concept of bishops and fathers being kings. What's the point of having a king if he cannot carry a broad sword?

Ignoring the dark clouds, James started walking towards the army encampment.

---------

Meanwhile, William was still thinking about the letter he just received. He had a mixed emotion, an emotion split between happiness and confusion. She wants to meet me. But again, he thought Do I really deserve this attention?

The rendezvous location was one of the finest of Paris. Those were the places that have been threatening the existence of small time bars.

I like the small time bars, they are cozier.

William closed the windows; the rain was too heavy.

William felt the strong urge of having a peg of cognac. I should have Cognac at Cognac someday! The train ride to Cognac wouldn't take more than 3 hours. He once read in a book that The Ugni Blanc, called St. Emilion here, and well known in Italy as Trebbiano is distilled to make the local brandy, Cognac. Ugni Blanc is nothing other than white grapes; which are not really white, but has a crystal clear clarity.

As he heard his stomach growling, he thought Nothing can be a better meal than a slice of Camembert, a lettuce, a loaf of bread and a glass of good French wine! Thinking this, William suddenly realized that already 30 minutes have passed since his regular lunch time.

Damn, these patches of ink will stay forever, if I don't get rid of them right here right now.

As William resumed cleaning the floor, the rain kept pouring down. The outside world seemed like an abstract painting of some long deceased great artist. The sky has got a lot of crying to do today. Something really bad must have happened up above.

Is there a heaven, or a hell up there? Probably it's heaven, as most of the time we see sunshine, not rain.

As the clock approaced 2 PM, William increased his sweeping pace, with thoughts of a pleasant meeting in the not so distant future filling his mind.

---------

Lunch Is Beautiful: Chapter 3 and 4

Chapter 3: Comète

They say his ancestors served for the chariot warriors of the great Roman emperor, Julius Caesar. Now, here in year 1899, it sounds quite unbelievable to find a descendant to someone who lived in between 100-44 BC, be it a horse or mare. But few people doubted the royalty that surrounded Comète, the dark colored moody horse. When Comète first came to this part of the city, he was a stray, wild horse. Many tried to domesticate him, but he'd just kick them away. But Pedro was different.

While others tried a carrot and stick policy, he broke the stick and offered him something better than mere carrots. The common people watched in amazement as together Pedro and Comète become best buddies.

That was a long time ago, thought Pedro. We had a lot of fun together, didn't we? Said Pedro as he rubbed Comet's back. He never had to use the lashes on Comet, but the other member of the 2 horse stagecoach often needed lashing. For some reason, Comet never had a steady partner. On most occasions, the other horse would never be able to keep up pace with Comet, and hence Pedro to fire the poor animal. Firing a horse is not as simple as firing an employee from your office.

It hurts a lot to let go of a horse, it hurts a lot. I wonder how it will feel like, if I ever need to get rid of Comet.

Soon Pedro's thoughts shifted towards the road and the destination. Today he has a very special passenger. A beautiful young lady; perhaps the most beautiful young lady of all is on board today. He already caused some disturbance when Comet and Stormy was about to stampede the local postman. That guy never looks where he's going—that absentminded fool!

Julio's Bar was still 3 or 4 blocks away. As he was passing by an old fashioned, shabby looking house, he noticed a youth yawning; stretching his hands sideways. This crazy guy never leaves home! All day, he's sitting and scribbling on his big note book. God knows what fortune his father left him that force a youth to account for; throughout the day.

Chapter 4: Unspoken Words

Why the horses are so fast? This is why I never like riding Pedro's coach. His horses are always too fast and the journey is over too soon! I hate being locked inside the confines of the castle.

Lorna was the daughter of a nobleman, and lived in one of the few castles that were still standing intact, even after the great French Revolution and all the blood shedding.

Why doesn't he look out? Why can't he just look outside of the window, just for once? If he'd ever look out, he would see through me. Maybe through my heart, as well. Sighed Lorna. She knew it was never meant to be. The crazy youth will always be engrossed in writing, and will never look outside.

And I will never send the letters that I always write, seal inside an envelope, only to burn them in the fireplace and see them turn in to ashes.

--------------------

The wind is too strong today!

"Wham"

The feather pen, along with the ink pot dropped, and instantly the floor below became a black pond. William realized that an absence of a quick response will create a river of ink. The curtain is still white, fortunately. William grabbed the inkpot and saved the remaining ink from getting wasted.

Not much work. The best thing about this mess is that it didn't destroy my writing, and now the floor gets a long deserving mop session.

Cleaning is not an enjoyable process, but the outcome is always nice, thought Will. It's amazing how all the black spots are getting away. Where are they going? Err...actually they are making the mop black.

Disgusted and tired, Will sat down on the bed. What am I going to do with this mess? Let the mess be where it is, I'll resume writing instead.

He adjusted the curtains and resumed writing. I have a fan now! A real fan! A fan that sends me letters encouraging my writings. I will keep on writing, no matter what. An ink accident will not stop me.

William looked up once again as the curtain hit his nose. In a split second, he watched the rear end of a stage coach. That must be Pedro. Who else has a coach as fast as that? The passenger must be in some hurry. Otherwise, few would like to ache their backs riding Pedro's fast moving coach.

------------

Lorna never liked visiting these people. They behaved in the same manner, said the same words, and she'd read them like open books throughout the session. Some chit chat, mostly small talk regarding the weather and favorite flowers and their fragrance, a dance invitation (which she turned down most of the time), a bottle of champagne, and finally, We should do this again.

She smiled as she was thinking. Most of the suitors understood the meaning of this phrase. This means "You bored me a lot, and I wish we never cross paths again".

Am I that old? Do I annoy dad a lot? Why did he suddenly get crazy about marrying me off? These are some questions that she always thought about.

-------

James was watching sympathetically as Metz kept on searching for an imaginary mail from his fiancé. He couldn't wait to go to Mr. William, but he didn't want to rush Metz. It's been a while since the last mail came in. He must be missing her a lot, thought James.

Soon James was on his way towards Mr. William's home. I hope he is at home. He knew that William seldom left his home, but he also knew that when he is out, he is out for quite some time.

James was fortunate. Mr. William was still pondering over the ink mess, and he had no intention of going anywhere out.

Lunch Is Beautiful: Chapter 1 and 2

Chapter 1: The Diligent Postman

It was a bright and sunny morning, and the bag I was carrying was not that heavy. In the morning, when I was going through the day's load, I was quite amazed to find a letter that was actually sent to me. It was uncle Francis, using his trademark blue envelope with a two shilling cat stamp. I always wondered why he preferred blue for sending mails. I could take the mail inside my pocket, and forget the duty, but I decided to drop by my home! I loved the dazzled look in my wife Catherine's face, when I handed over the letter to her. Without explaining anything, I left home. The explanations can wait, but the duties cannot.

Some free-happy-jolly guy was playing an enchanting tune using a mouth organ. While listening to the tune, I didn't notice that I was actually walking on the road. I came back to senses when I heard the shrieking of a couple of angry horses, and also some gentle curses from the coachman. I peeked inside to see the lovely face of an embarrassed young lady. She had an apologetic look in her face. Perhaps she wasn't that busy as to let the coachman intimidate unmindful pedestrians.

She probably has a date, I thought. She was all dressed up, and the posh restaurants were not too far away. Soon I reached Mr. William's home. I liked this person. He's young and he gave me a 10 franc note when I delivered that special mail. I don't know what was written in that mail, but as soon as he tore down the envelope and read through a couple of lines, his face got lightened up like a dozen of 100 Watt bulbs. He reached out for his moneybag, and handed me the note without even looking at it. Well, receiving tips is not something which I can do everyday. Most people don't even bother considering a tip. To them, no news is good news. I was quite surprised, and since then, I've been praying everyday so that he gets another letter from that special person. Alas! That day never came.

Chapter 2: The Bar

Bartender: "Trust me, cleaning liquor glasses can be as much fun as pouring wine and drinking them."

James (whispering): "Yeah, yeah! The phrase grapes are sour was invented just for describing yourself!"

Customer 1: "James! (Loud) Come over here...I ordered my bottle of champagne at least 15 minutes ago"

Bartender: "Sorry Sir, it won't happen again"

Customer 1: "It better not happen! You're not the only one with the best champagne, are you?"

James lost his father when he was eight years old. His elderly mother already gave birth to 3 boys and 2 girls. The girls died very young, one son went to the army, and the other just got lost one day. She was left with James, apparently the sole non-bright member of the family. She didn't have enough money to send James to a school, and she wasn't that interested either. So James ended up in Julio's Bar as an errand boy. 10 years have passed, and James got promoted as the head waiter. Julio, the bartender and owner was more than pleased on this cheerful lad, and he also trusted him a lot. Julio didn't have a family. To him, the bar and its staffs were the family, and he relied a lot on them. He always used to say "Customer is the boss". Agree to whatever he says, but make sure he leaves happily and returns again the next day. Julio was facing a lot of competition from some of the newer, somewhat modernized bars and restaurants. The concept of bars was quickly fading away, with more restaurants serving meals as well as drinks. Julio did have some snack items, but he didn't focus on those items much. Change is needed, he thought.

As Julio finished talking with the aggravated customer, he saw De Metz enter the bar. John De Metz was a general to Joan of Frank, but our De Metz was just a general to the Post De Franc, as in French postal service. As he handed over a one franc note to him, he came to know that the shipment of exclusive grape wine from versaille will be delayed by 2 weeks.

Damn! I'll lose at least ten customers who never drink anything other than grape wine!

Meanwhile, James was talking with De Metz.

"Hey mailer boy, where you'll be off to now?"

"I don't know, I just have a few mails to deliver, and it's only 11 AM. Looks like it'll be a boring day for me".

"Got any mails from my fiance?

"Sorry, no."

"Can you please check again?" Your bag looks quite heavy, there must be one mail from her, hidden somewhere within".

Metz started ransacking the bag. He found a thicker than usual mail. After a closer examination, it was revealed that it was actually two mails stuck together. Seeing this, James got excited. Metz couldn't hide his happiness, but the reason for this happiness had nothing to do with James. He actually discovered a mail for Mr. Williams, which meant 10 francs assured.

To be continued

Children of The Sea 12: The Grand Finale

This pic is really making me nostalgic. This was taken in Inani beach. We have this "Pituni" series of photographs, where all of us gets beaten (fictitious beating, of course), and one of us takes a snap. Previously Afzal and Murshid got beaten, and this time it was Sujit's and Pintu's turn.

Kicking Away

My friends tried beating me up as well, but their attempts were half hearted, and the photo is not good at all. It seems like they are beating me and yet I'm having a blast.

We returned to the cottage and started dressing up for our departure. These pictures were taken during the final hours of our stay in Coxsbazar. Our bus was due at 11:00 AM, and we didn't have much time.

Just Before Leaving

These two pics were taken just before we were checking out of the cotage. The long and sad faces tells it all. The picture below was taken in Himchori, one of the more "photographful" parts of our tour. We took a lot of photos in himchori, partly because we were too exhausted to keep on walking, and partly due to the marvelous scenic beauty surrounding us.

Let me take you back to a flashback event of the tour. I was about to leave the GP job during the eve of the journey. I have already submitted my resignation, and I was just serving the notice period. We went shopping on the day of our departure, and boy it was a hectic day's shopping! We went to the market opposite to Dhaka college, popularly known as ODC(opposite dhaka college)! As soon as we ascended from the rickshaws, it started raining, and we got stuck in the wrong market. We had to stay there for a while, and then we moved on to other shops. The shopping was boring for me, as I had nothing specific to buy. I did end up buying a t-shirt and a three quarter pant, which later on proved to be quite handy. Apart from the useful stuff, we also bought a football. It cost me about 150 bucks, which everyone was supposed to pay me back. But this payment I never received! Also we had slight refreshments, which cost me another small fortune. Tushar and Pintu was with me, and we had some fun in a shop. The conversation started like this "Pant erokom crease pora ken? Amar ishtri kore newar shomoy nai". Then I suddenly asked

"When is your flight?"
"At 11 PM"
"Damn...er moddhe dhuye ishtri kora ekdom ee possible na"
"Yeah, and I really need these pants....Germany tey kapor choporer onek daam".

Okay did Tushar actually mention Germany? I don't quite remember. Probably my treachurous mind has made up this thing....and it'll naturally be Germany. When I first started writing this story, Afzal was still with us, in BD....but he left for Germany a few days ago. I really miss him. In the last year, he got really busy with his job. It was a very demanding job....a lot more demanding than mine, and he'd be really tired on Fridays, and hence he'd often skip our regular afternoon addas. I missed him in those addas, but I really missed him in this tour of ours. He was with us till the very last moment, only to not appear on the moment of leaving.

We carried the football all the way up to Coxsbazar, from Dhaka, and everytime we went out with beach in mind, someone of us thought about taking it along. But it never happened. Pintu was the initiator of this concept. Playing football besides the sea--a very exciting idea in writing, but in reality, it didn't seem that much convenient. Otherwise, why wouldn't the ball get his shot within these three days? The max we did with the ball was just kicking it around for a while on the final day. When we were packing up our belongings, it was clear that the ball wasn't going with us.

Poor ball....we couldn't even find a kid to give it away to. We gave the ball to the caretaker, who hesitantly accepted this gift from us.

We gave the keys to the manager, checked inside the two rooms one last time, for detecting any important things that we might be leaving behind, and then we got out and took those final set of photographs.

We bade farewell to the cottage, and walked out with heavy hearts. I couldn't believe the journey was coming to an end. It all seemed like a dream to me. The days flashed in my mind. I constantly replaying some of the fun incidents that occured.

We got on board the Hanif bus, the journey back was hectic and eventful. The bus stopped in Chittagong, where we got down to have lunch. The break was for 15 minutes, but it's quite impossible to have lunch within that short time. So we kept the bus stalled (with a lot of passengers) for about 15 minutes.

The driver was stolen from an NFS game...no the Porsche one, probably from NFS 2...where cars can run 400 kmh...he drove so fast that it was nearly impossible to sleep, even in the later hours of night. He even started competing with another rival company bus. The other driver was smart, and after 3 hours of heavy fighting (it was a fight, trust me), our driver spoke out loudly "Abar dekha hobe...tokhon dekha jabe". I was astonished, but all the other people behaved in a way as if this is the natural, expected behavior from a bus driver of Hanif.

We saved a lot of time due to the crazy driving, but we also lost that time when we entered Dhaka. The entrance to Dhaka, the Kachpur area, was horrendously jam packed, and we didn't get home before 11 PM...another full 12 hours journey.

Naturally, I was exhausted, but the happy feeling of getting back to home sweet home and reuniting with the family drove away all pains.

Is there any place better than home?

The End

Dear readers, thanks for reading! It is you who have inspired me to finally finish this epic.

Children of The Sea 11: Nightwish

When I first went to Coxsbazar, I was a small child. It was back in 1985. Surprisingly enough, I have a lot of memories of that tour, inscribed in my mind. There was this restaurant called “Niribili”, where my mom and dad went to have lunch on two occasions. I particularly remember that place because when my mom was feeding me rice and fish, a large, white cat came and started cat-walking under the table. I always had a soft corner for the feline species, and Tom was my favorite cartoon character. One of my childhood fantasies was Tom and Jerry would visit me someday, and me and Tom will have a great time chasing Jerry together. I even had a Tom and Jerry bed sheet!

I tried finding Niribili restaurant when I came here with my GP colleagues, but didn’t get enough time to do so. This time, I really wanted to visit that place, just to find any resemblance with the vague memory clips that are stored in my mind and the present. My friends were also interested in visiting that place, as the name is still known for good food at a cheaper price.

After the shopping spree, all of us were lacking in funds. Moreover, we spent a lot of extra money, mostly on food and drinks. The meal at Angel Drop proved to be too expensive. So we were looking forward to a cheaper meal this time. This might sound funny, and here, sitting in a comfortable chair and with a filled up stomach, it sounds humorous to me as well at a group of young guys spent so much time selecting a suitable place for dinner, when they were on a tour. But hey, food is important!

We got some rickshaws and they took us to some Niribili hotel. This place had nothing to do with my 1985 memory, and I suddenly realized that it was 20 years ago, and I am being a fool by trying to find some of the things that I saw in 1985, standing here in year 2005. That place didn’t look nice, and food was not available either.

We ended up having dinner in some other restaurant. That too was the dining hall of a hotel, and the food was cheap and delicious. We finally had Rupchada fish, which is one delicacy that no one should miss while staying in Coxsbazar.

All of us were tired, and yet we wanted to go to Angel Drop on our way back. None of us were sure when again we’ll visit Coxsbazar, and let alone visiting together. Angel Drop was undoubtedly the highlight of our tour, and Alas, we had no photographs of that place. Me and Tushar were in particular not interested to go. At that time I didn’t express my feelings, but now I confess, it was really hard going there. I was totally exhausted from the day’s toil. We did so many things on that day….we went shopping, we pushed a car out of mud, we visited two sea beaches, we stood still on a Jeep for several hours, we had a heavy dinner, we didn’t have anything for lunch, etc.

However, I must say, if we didn’t go there that night, our tour wouldn’t have been complete. Angel Drop and Kolatoli beach deserved a second visit, and we loved every moment of that second sitting. All of us were present, and we had two rounds of coffee. The sea was mysterious as always, and I had that feeling again….the restaurant is moving on the water like a ship on the sea.

At around 11 PM, the guys in the restaurant told us very politely that they’d be closing soon. So we had to get going. We bade a final farewell to the marvelous view, and started heading towards the rickshaws that we kept waiting. I knew I’ll get back there some time.

“I Will Be Back”, was the sentence that echoed in my mind.

When we entered the cottage, we had mixed emotions. One part of the mind was sad because this was going to be the last night in Coxsbazar. The other part was happy because I was going to get some rest after the day’s hectic schedule. We planned that now we’ll take some rest, and at around 3 AM, we’ll head off to the beach. We wanted to see the sunrise next morning.

I don’t quite remember what the exact time when I heard people talking about getting ready and going to the beach. But I heard voices, got up, and when everyone else (except Sujit) started going out, I joined them. Suji, as usual, was not very interested in going to the beach, and decided to continue the nap instead.

Anyways, me, Tushar, Pintu, Ashique and Murshid reached the beach and found the place very nice and serene. There were some unwanted spotlights lit here and there, which made the place gleaming. It was a Full Moon day, and it would have been a lot better if all other lights were turned off. But there was nothing we could do about this.

There was some beach chairs laid here and there. We rented three of them, and joined them together for our comfort. A young lad made an agreement with us, which also gave him the exclusive rights for selling Coffee and Tea to us!

After reserving the chairs, we decided to take a walk. The sea was calm and the place was quiet. Soon afterwards, we all settled down in to the chairs, and we started a philosophical discussion on the family structure, and essential elements of maintaining a happy family(!). According to Ashique, it is very hard to be happy in conjugal life. This is quite true....jhogras and kechal is almost always there, and apparently, these things are more prevalent in couples who went out together before getting married.

After a while, Tushar got bored and started listening to his diskman. Pintu went sleeping. After a while, I also started "jhimanifying", and hence I don't really recall much else about that night. I heard people talking, but I was trying to sleep under the open sky, and in presence of the full moon. I always wanted to spend a moonlit night outdoors, but never got the right opportunity of doing so.

The Sea at 8 AM

Eventually I fell asleep, and had quite a good sleep. I woke up again just before the sunrise. I was waiting for this moment...when the glorious sun would rise, and I can see the scenery. But unfortunately, although I was awake, I was not fully awake. I was in a "stuck in the middle" state....a constant fight between slumber and awareness was going on. At around 6 AM, we all got up.

Pintu and Murshid decided to go back to the cottage, while we three stayed back. We stayed there till 9 AM, and enjoyed proximity of the sea for the last time, at least for this journey.

This time around, the sea was really violent, with waves after waves hitting us like lightning bolts. I lost control of myself multiple times, and I was fortunate to be able to keep my spectacles with me. I always think that I will leave my glasses behind before entering the sea, but I barely see without glasses, and hence that never happens. Maybe I should get contact lenses. Being able to enjoy the sea properly could be a good enough reason to get a laser operation or a pair of contact lenses.

My legs were feeling heavier by the minutes, and it was a long walk back to the cottage. The distance was not that big, but our heavy minds made it tough. When we were walking, we were not that sad, as the memory of the sea was still fresh in our minds. But as soon as I stepped inside the cottage room, I knew that it'll take a long time before I could actually go to the seas again.

Sigh.....writing this whole story was a memorable incident for me. I smiled while writing, I felt emptyness within myself while writing, and now I am feeling sad for saying that this story is...

To be concluded

in the next episode.

Children of The Sea 10: Owl's Island

Ever since I started writing about this journey, I couldn't wait to write about Owl's Island. Well, don't let the name scare you, because we didn't really see any owls. On our way to Inani beach, we came across a place which was called "Pechar Deap", as in Owl's Island. This time around, we left the beach road and took a rather mountainous road. This road reminded me of Shillong.

I came to know about the name of the area from an old sign board at the left side of the road. I’ve seen a “live” owl only once in my life. That was in Netrokona, the first time when I went there. After a while, we came across a very rough, muddy road. We came to know that it had been raining in torrents for the last couple of days, which made the road look like chocolate spread.

Suddenly, our car got stuck in the mud, and after a number of heavy revolutions, the engine stopped. We all got down, and found ourselves stranded in a muddy mess. I’ve never seen mud thicker than this. Some workers were standing nearby, apparently repairing the broken, mud infested road. When the driver and his companion started pushing the car, I thought they’d join in and help us out. But they didn’t bother, and kept on doing whatever they were doing. Later on, I came to know that they passed an offer of pushing the car out of the mud in exchange of Taka 500.

Soon all of us were down in the mud pile, and pushing the car hard. Murshid and Ashique took the lead, and soon I and Tushar followed. Later on Pintu and Sujit joined as well. No matter how hard we pushed, the car wouldn’t move. Then we resorted to other techniques like putting bricks at both ends of the tire and turning on the engine whilst people are pushing. On such an incident, the tire rolled, and we got mud-sprayed. I still had some hopes of keeping my dress clean, but after that incident, I simply had nothing to lose. I got down with rejuvenated vigor, and soon we were able to move the rear end a few inches forward.

Sujit was the first one to desert the car pushing party. After a while, he left and went to a dry bridge ahead of the place where our car was stuck. We urged him to take snaps of our pushing effort, and also that of our mud stained feet, but for some reason he didn’t take any. After all, it was his camera, and there is a limit of requesting. Someone put a footmark on Murshid’s T-Shirt, and we had a good laugh over that one.

Interestingly, none of us were worried about the danger we were in. It was like something will come up, and we’ll get out of the car. I even thought about deserting the car and moving forward. At one point, almost all of us were standing on the bridge (not really a bridge, just a euphemism there) and chatting. That was the time when we all found out that our feet were looking like a statute’s feet.

I asked a local guy…”Bhai ei jaygar naam ki?”

He replied “Hesaar Dif”

After some time, other cars started coming in, and there was a mini traffic jam at both ends of the road. So for the sake of their own interest, people from the other cars got down and joined our driver. Seeing a lot of people, most of us took a back seat from the action, and eagerly waited for the mud stuck whale, I mean the jeep to get out of the entrapment.

After some high level assistance from some of the more experienced drivers, our car finally got out of the mud pile, we started our journey again. We planned on cleaning ourselves in the Inani beach.

We were already late, and hunger was striking us as well. However, the thought of getting near to a clear sea was more enticing than sitting down and eating. From my past experience, I knew that Inani was a rock filled beach, and one needs to be very careful while going from one point to another. There are heavy, sharp edged rocks lying everywhere down the sea bed, which you can’t see from above, but your legs will feel them once you bump into one. In that beach, there is a place where there are fewer rocks, and the rest part of the beach is rocky. This time around, however, we couldn’t find the place with fewer rocks, and the 30 something minutes we spent there wasn’t spectacular at all. Yeah, we were asked to get back on the car after 30-40 minutes in the water. The reason being that if we didn’t start our journey back, we couldn’t reach our hotel before evening. We too didn’t want these novice drivers to drive us back during night time. We did realize that they were novice, but it was too late to do something about it then.

This time we opted for a different route. We would go around the road to Tecnaf instead of the beach road that we used in the beginning. This would take more time, and hence we started off fast. This journey was fun filled, as we were passing through locales. A lot of local inhabitants were giving us strange looks and passing comments in that same unintelligible dialect. We were puzzled, and the helper decided to eliminate our confusion.

“They think he is a lady, and that’s why they are passing comments!”

We couldn’t help bursting out in laughter. Tushar looked totally embarrassed and humiliated, but there was nothing he can do. He didn’t want to cut his precious locks, nor was he ready for this assault. I was irritated as well, because I was standing next to him. His embarrassment soon turned in to irritation, anger, and eventually indifference.

By the time we reached Coxsbazar, he was totally indifferent towards any joke regarding his long hair. At one point he really got pissed off at us for laughing at him.

When we reached the town, it was getting pretty late. We had three things to do...collect tickets for our return journey, go shopping and have dinner. Angel Drop was considered for dinner again, but we had to reject the plan due to heavy expenses involved. We decided to confirm the tickets first.

We changed clothes at the cottage, freshened up, took some rest, and went out for the ticket counter of Green Line. Ashique was continuously saying that the buses of Green Line aren't that good, and the high ticket price is not worthy. My last journey to Coxsbazar was via Green Line bus, so I had a slight preference for them. But as Ashique was heavily insisting on going for a alternative solution, we went to Shohag for checking their buses out. Shohag buses are great, but the heavy price tag of Tk 400 instantly turned off some light bulbs!

So we went for a cheaper solution in the form of some bus service provider called Hanif. According to Ashique, they have these really comfortable buses, that can be stretched and we can relax within them easily. We also found out that Hanif service was really flexible. Infact, they were so flexible that we could book seats for any bus starting from 9 AM, and there was a bus leaving at every hour, e.g. 10 AM, 11 AM, and so on.

To get some rest in the morning, we opted for the bus leaving at 11 AM. Although there were few signs of resistance, but 11 AM was mutually accepted by all of us.

From there, we hurried towards the Burmese Market. I was on the lookout for something that I really wanted to buy, but couldn't gather courage to do so in my previous visit. On our way to the market, Sujit started complaining that he desperately needs to eat something, and some others also followed suit. Well, I was feeling hungry, too, as we inadvertently skipped lunch that day!

Two things were in my buying agenda, Pickles and a knife. Last time I bought some boroi era char, which tasted great. And also I pried my eyes upon some beautifully crafted knives, but dared not to buy one. Well, that was almost a year ago. Now I am more confident, I was having a great time due to the fact that I'll be soon leaving GP, and things were different as a whole.

None of the knives that were displayed in the first shop caught my attention. I half liked one knife, but the shop keeper was acting weird. He refused to announce a price unless I assured that I'd be buying it!

So I walked on to the next shop, where there were more weapons on display.

I particularly liked this knife, and honestly speaking, I didn't bargain much. The moment I saw it, I knew I'll be going home with this cute little thingy.

Murshid asked me what I will be doing with this knife. I said "Eita diye ghore boshe batash katbo, sideways and from up to down". Haha, actually that's true. I don't spend too much time with this. Instead, I save it for the very special(!) occasions.

Anyways, after buying the knife, I impatiently waited for the others to finish buying their stuff. As I was done with my shopping, I was naturally not that much tolerant. I stopped Sujit from buying a Cross. I wonder what got him, but he seemed mesmerized with the beauty of the cross. I am sure his dad would put a permanent embargo on his outside of Dhaka journey, as soon as he'd discover his son wearing a cross. I also wonder why Ashique was supporting Sujit!

In my last visit, I found out this really nice Achar vendor, who sold some really delicious pickels to me and my companions. It was the only "exclusive" achar shop in that area. Fortunately, I managed to find him out this time around, as well. All of us bought a lot of achar.

Suddenly, we realized that it was pretty late. It was 10:15 PM, and we haven't had lunch, and we had no specific plans for dinner.

So did we spend the last night of our journey in hunger? Did we sleep through the night, or did some wild stuff? To know more, you gotta wait a bit :D

To be continued

p.s. I am a violent manush...stay away from me! I fantasize killing people with the knife all the time :D

Children of The Sea 9: The Heavenly Fall

So we finished the drink of tea, and started climbing upwards. After what seemed like forever to me, we finally reached the peak of the place. It was a tiring journey upwards, and at one point of time, I just stopped for taking a rest, while the others were still getting up. This is a quote from Pintu, which he told me a long time after getting through with Himchori:
"It seemed to me that you're going to pass out anytime...there....but I'm glad to see that you're doing great now!".


Inside a hut, from left to right: Murshid, Ishtiaque, Pintu, Ashique, Tushar

Sea View from the Peak

We took a lot of pictures over there. The sea view from the peak was beyond description. This place gave us one of the best sea views of the tour. May be only second to Angel Drop's.

On Our Way to Himchori

There were a number of small hut like places over the peak, with benches laid at both ends. Also there were another series of stairs, taking us up and down, horizontaly. This stair climbing experience was horrible, and I was eagerly waiting for it to end. However, every hut gave me a better reason to continue the journey.

After spending there for quite some time, we finally decided to get down. The downward journey wasn't half bad, with the few exceptional cases of upward stairs...erghhh. I think I'll just name the stairs "The Stairs of Pain". Once again, after what seemed like "almost" forever, we got down, and headed towards the inner portion of the place. We knew that there's a spring there.

When I was a kid, my parents brought me here. I still have some pictures to remember(!) that occasion. But I didn't get to see this place in my last trip. So I was really looking forward to seeing the springs, again. I've seen a big Spring in Shillong, but it disappointed me. It was winter, and the Spring didn't have a decent flow of water pouring out. But this place was awesome. It was rainy season, and the Spring was full of water and life, or should I say life and life, as life is water and water is life?

All of us went inside, while Sujit took the pics. Maybe he knew that if he hadn't taken a lot of pictures there, some of my blog readers would give him a gono pituni. Hehe...it was actually good that he fears water.

Finally, Sujit shows up in a pic
The spring water tasted so good! And I am hundred percent sure that it had healing capabilities. I started feeling better as soon as I got out of the spring. My legs were no more paining, and I was walking faster than some of the others.

In year 2004, before we went to Coxsbazar for the GP Sales and Marketing Assembly, all of us were given a Hawaii shirt. I was too embarrassed to wear that in front of my colleagues, but I didn't think twice to take it with me when it came to going on a trip with my buddies. And hence you can see me in that bright colored shirt in the pics.

It was hard leaving that place. It was damn hard. I wanted to drink more Spring water, and I regretted that I didn't bring a bottle or two to fill in.

If you want to drink some "pani pora" as a medicine or sacred water, you should drink the Spring water.

We boarded the Jeep again, and the vehicle started towards the final destination of our trip, Inani beach.

To be continued

As the story is nearing the end, I cannot but feel sad :| I so miss the three days we spent there

Children of The Sea 8: A Brand New Day

Something really wonderful happened while we were sitting and watching the wonderful evening view of the sea. At some point, I got a genuine feeling that the restaurant was actually moving. This happened to me before. When I was a kid, I was sitting in the car with my mom, in front of a place from where people would collect drinking water in huge container. People who lived in Saudi Arabia would know what these places are. Every month, dad would take us once to this place, and we’d return with a big container (which was called a “gallon” for reasons not known to me) full of water. There’d always be an ice cream car there, and I almost always managed to convince mom about having a cone.

So I was sitting in the car, and there were two other cars parked in both sides of ours. Suddenly, both of those cars started moving, simultaneously. Instantly, I experienced one of the scariest feelings of my life—I thought our car was moving. The feeling was so realistic! My mother also had the same feeling. It totally freaked us out as the car was turned off and father was not inside the car. But it didn’t take more than 30 seconds to realize the truth.

The same thing happened in Angel drop. I thought that the restaurant was actually moving forward, along with the gigantic waves that were splashing. But this time I was not afraid. It gave me a marvelous, fictitious feeling of riding a ship. We considered plans for going to St. Martin Island, but dared not to due to bad weather and off-season warnings from multiple people. But at that moment I really regretted the decision. If we went to St. Martin, we could, actually ride a sea trawler, which is very much like a ship. Maybe next time….Should be next time….Needs to be done next time. Yeah, we already have plans for our next trip.

We were really tired, and gradually all of us fall asleep. The day after would be a big day, as we were supposed to do most of our traveling within Coxsbazar that day.

Not too surprisingly, everyone woke up late in the morning. It was a bright and sunny Friday. My friends were really nice to me, and I wasn’t awakened before everyone else got ready. Maybe I was sleeping like a baby. After getting fresh, all of us dared to go to the restaurant belonging to the cottage owners. We had our breakfast there, which was moderate in taste but heavy on our pockets!

After that, we went to a Jeep depot for hiring a hood-less jeep. The journey from Coxsbazar to Inani beach is one journey which no one would ever want to miss. There were both hooded and hood free Jeeps in the depot. The hood free ones were a bit cheaper. However, from my past experience, I was not going for the hooded cars. After heavy bargaining, we finally rented a jeep that would take us all the way down to Inani beach, and en route we would also get to see Himchori.

Both Inani beach and Himchori are famous tourist spots of Coxsbazar. During the tourist season, lots of people go there. The tourist season is usually the dry season, mostly during winter and spring. Lots of people flock over to Coxsbazar in October, November and December.

When we got on board the hoodless Jeep, it was drizzling. We went to the market adjacent to kolatoli beach and bought some food and drinks for the journey. At around 10:30, we set sail towards Inani beach. It was already late, and we were getting impatient. There was one driver and a helper. Both of them appeared to be jolly good fellows. The car quickly paced up, and we were speeding through a village like place. Soon all of us were standing. There was a thing similar to an iron cage, over our heads. It was not a totally hood free Jeep. But there was no clothe above our heads.

The wind was hitting me hard on the face, and I had to duck multiple times to avoid getting hit by tree branches. There were lots of local people around, and they kept on passing comments at us in their very unintelligible dialect.
Driving by the sea shore

The most enjoying portion of this journey started when our jeep discarded the usual roads and we started driving besides the sea shore. That is one hell of an experience. The wind here was even stronger, and at a point of time I removed my spectacles and put them inside the pocket, for fear of losing them.

Suddenly, the car stopped. One tire came out, and the car was immediately stopped. I and the others literally saw the tire falling out of the car. We came out and watched around. It was moderately raining that time. There were a few straw huts there, inhabited by lots of kids and some grown ups. It was a beach very near to Kolatoli, but no tourists were there.

The Straw Hut!

We took a lot of pictures here. Now that I'm here in Dhaka, going through the pics, I can say that we took a little too much pictures over there. However, we were almost one and half hours stuck there, and Sujit didn't much to do other than taking pics.

It was a beach, and we were actually going to another beach for getting ourselves wet. I decided to check out the water. Ashique and Tushar soon followed suit, and we had a great time inside the water. Pintu and Murshid joined us for brief moments, but Sujit didn't even get near. We spent some of our best times of the tour here. The water was quite clear, and the waves were moderate and enjoyable.

After what seemed like forever in the water, the driver told us that the car was ready to go. We got aboard and resumed the journey towards Himchori, again. Soon we reached Himchori. My legs were not moving...spending so much time in the water was taking its toll. Feeling tired, I suggested we have a cup of tea.

There was a small market in the foot of the hill. We had tea in a small restaurant, and start climbing up. There were two viewables in that place. A really long stairway that leads to the top of the hill, and a spring.

We started climbing the stairway to heaven(?)

To be continued

p.s. Special credits to Toxic_Tears for the word "Straw Hut" :D

Children of The Sea 7: Drops from the Angel

Kolatoli beach is not a very well known tourist spot. It’s not a place where every tourist goes. In fact, I never even heard about this place before year 2004. None of my journey mates have heard about this place as well. However, I knew what I was doing, and we were slowing approaching the place.

The evening was calm and quiet. No place in Bangladesh is as crowded as Dhaka. Only a few other Rickshaws could be seen. There was no turmoil, no loud chattering, no cars, no stupid pedestrians—a completely peaceful environment.

So what’s so special about Kolatoli? It’s like any other beach of Coxsbazar, with the only exception being the “Angel Drop” restaurant. This is hanging restaurant, established way above the sea level. The foundation of the two storied building must be really strong, as strong waves continuously hit the columns on which the building stands. According to the owner, only a Tsunami will be able to break the columns! It’s been five years since the restaurant has been established, and it never got affected by waves.

We had to take a hanging mini-bridge to get inside. The kitchen as well as the order taking place is situated in the ground floor. Leaving the kitchen behind, we went forward and sat in some chairs and benches at the rear end of the ground floor.

After sitting in the chairs, we were confronted with a jaw dropping, awesome view of the sea. The moon was up, and the reflection on the waves was beyond description. When I first came here, I knew I could watch forever, and that feeling didn’t change a bit. Every wave had something new in it. Clichéd this may be, but I reassert, the sea never gets old, and one can never get bored of the sea.

Me, Pintu and Sujit sat there, while the others went off to a special mission. Before they left, we ordered dinner, and the guys informed us that it’d take at least an hour to get the meal prepared. We were happy, because we knew that the mission would take some time to accomplish. We ordered a Red Snapper, and two servings of Prawn Masala, with steamed rice and Sprite. We wanted fried rice, but it was not available. Red Snapper is a very tasty sea fish. I tried it before in Saltz at Dhaka, and I loved it. That one was not fresh, but I hoped that the coxsbazar one would be a bit fresher. The best thing about this fish is that it has very less amount of scales. So the tiresome process of dissecting scales from the meat is not there.

I was feeling a bit anxious and disturbed, because I knew that my cell phone could go off any moment. Since I found out about the absence of charger, I kept it turned off. But now, here in Angel Drop, I really needed the cell phone for coordinating the mission. That was when I received a call from April. She started what she almost always does..whining and complaining. This time it was some audacious behavior of her sister, and as a result, her not returning home at night. I tried to inject some sense in to her, but she refused to understand. After a while, seeing that the discussion is going nowhere and I am losing a lot of precious sea dances, I brought out the plea of charge exhaustion and hung up. Hehe…I kind of enjoy listening to people. Trust me; I do listen to people a lot. I am not always the talkative kind that many of my friends know.

At around 10, we were informed that food was ready, and will be served shortly. I called up Tushar and came to know that the mission was successful, and they are returning. But still it’d take at least 10 minutes for them to arrive. Fortunately, the food was served five minutes later, and Ashique, Tushar and Murshid joined us before we three finished the whole fish.

The food was excellent, and as I am writing this, I am getting hungry and I am also experiencing the tingling of saliva. Who knew that rice, cooked fish and tomato sauce could taste so great? The prawn item wasn’t that great, but I absolutely loved the red snapper.

After dinner, we spent some more time sitting and enjoying ourselves. We had a round of coffee before dinner. We again ordered coffee, which further inflated our food expenditure. We spent a lot of money that night, for satisfying our appetite. A lot…

At around 11 PM, we came out of the place. We wanted to stay more, but all of us were really tired from the journey. The guys bought cigarettes and we headed back towards the cottage.

The end of our first day at Coxsbazar was not far away…

To be continued

Sorry folks, no pics for this one! Sujit forgot to take his camera along, and that was the only one we had.

Children of The Sea 6: I Looked At You, You Looked At Me!

We were six grown ups, and more than half of us possesed a bigger than average physique. Yet we were all exhausted from the extremely hectic and tedious journey we had to bear with. Naturally, everyone wanted to get fresh. We were also really hungry. Eventually we went out looking for a place to eat. I really insisted that we should give the sea a visit then, but I, too agreed that water bathing in an empty stomach didn't sound like a great idea.

We went to a medium sized restaurant for food. The guys in there assured that lunch can be arranged within a short time. It was around 4:30, and Tom and Jerry was running and rampaging through the digestive system. I couldn't even remember when I last ate something! The menu was rice, vegetables, chicken chilli fry, fried hilsha fish, etc. We ordered the food, and decided to visit the nearby shops. There were 2/3 Barmese shops there. I brought a pair of sandles with me. Infact, I vested the entire responsibility of my precious feet upon that pair of Bata sandles--I had no shoes with me. But some of the others relied on shoes, and they wanted to get a pair of supposedly cheap Barmese sandles for rough using.

We entered a shop, but me and Ashique couldn't find a pair that could fit our huge feet (yeah, I opted for buying one, too!). The shopkeeper went to another store, and borrowed two pairs for us. We all liked the sandles, and then we started the purchasing process. Sadly, the price was too high, and according to Murshid, Barmese sandles could be bought in Dhaka at a much cheaper rate. So we returned to the food shop, hoping that we'll soon see the face of man's best friend, hot white rice.

Ashique and Ishtiaque Eagerly Waiting for Food!

But God had different plans for us. We spent a good half hour at the sandle's, but yet the food was nowhere to be seen. We waited patiently. 30 mins passed...40 mins passed....and when we were thinking about passing out in hunger, the food arrived. The chicken "jhaal" fry was literally jhaal, and we used a lot of drinking water.

After what seemed like forever, we finished eating. The day was long, and it was still sunny. Pintu was saying that we shouldn't go down to the water with a filled up stomach. I agreed, but only having unexpressed, different plans in mind.

Sujit and Tushar never touched the sea before...it was their first tour to any place near the oceans. I felt so envious of the duo. When I first visited the sea, I was a mere kid, and yet I can remember how excited I was to get myself wet for the first time (wet in sea, of course!).

And these were grown up guys, with all the poetry in mind, and all the romanticism in their eyes. Tushar even brought a copy of Shesher Kobita, which I already mentioned for being a source of pain for my bag. Someone suggested that we take a walk by the beach, and a devillish smile escaped me.

As soon as we reached a suitable location, I walked straight towards the water. Who cares about filled up stomach when you have the gorgeous foams just a foot away from you? I was dying to get in, and I did so.

The first contact with the sea

I always love it when the first wave hits me. When I was younger, my mom and dad took me to Coxsbazar twice. I don't have much memories from those trips, but the journey last yearwas really memorable. I stayed in Sea Gull hotel for two days, with all my GP sales and marketing colleagues, and I had an excellen time with my friends Shafayat and Shahriar, whom were also colleagues. During that journey, I discovered a marvelous place, which we (this group) visited later on.

Everytime you go down to the sea, you get a different feeling. No two wading experience can be compared. The sea is like a versatile firearm--it uses a new kind of ammunition every time it fires at you. Every wave felt differently. I watched and enjoyed the ecstacy of the others. It is indeed an incomparable feeling when the wave hits the body. During that time, the waves were not that strong, and the hits were gentle. It's like pouring water on the body from a mug, but the direction being horizontal, instead of vertical. This reminds me how I got rid of the horizontal versus vertical dilemma. When I was doing BBA coaching in Sunrise, these two words really bugged me. I was almost always confused with this. But I did knew that "Vertex" means the highest point of a pyramid/triangle. So how do you find the vertex? When you approach vertically. Haha...it's that easy. I can be a good teacher, can't I?

Speaking about teaching, I think someday I will become a teacher. But not now, maybe some other time, or in some other life. Let's get back to Coxsbazar instead.

So we spent almost 2 hours in the sea. When we got out of the sea, we weighted a lot more than what we usually do. It was due to the fact that our pant pockets and foldings got stuffed with sand. I tried to drive away the sand, but it refused to end! It was like I am taking out sand from a never ending supply of it.

There was a long nylon cord, attached to two trees outside Borsha 2. As soon as we got back, people started competing for bathroom space. From previous bitter experience, we unanimously decided that the womanly marathon bath of Tushar will be hosted last. One guy got in, came out, and hanged the deserted laundry in that cord. Soon the entire cord, which was supposed to be shared by two other cottages, got filled up with clothes from us.

After settling down, we decided to relax, and I decided to charge my mobile. I was still using the GP mobile and test GPRS handset (Nokia 3220) till then. But to my surprise, I found out that I forgot to bring the charger. I still can't forgive myself for leaving the charger on the table. I was 100% convinced that I inserted the charged inside the bag. Ashique had a Nokia charger with him, but we couldn't find a suitable plugging point for the three pinned charger. I had only one unit charge left.

We were pondering over a suitable place for having dinner, and both the cottage cafeteria and the one where we had our lunch was instantly rejected. The first one for the expense, and the second one for the dinosaur's walk like service. As i was there just a year before, I suggested a place which I am sure everyone would love. It isn't almost bad to have experience, which later proved to be deadly accurate.

We got aboard three rickshaws, with two of us on each, and started a peaceful journey at around 9 PM.

That was some day we spent....and who knew that there were still many more things to come.

To Be Continued....

Children of The Sea 5:Reaching Coxsbazar

After a while, we all got on board the train again. I can't remember the last time when I got so bored that I fell asleep. I heard one train zooming by, and I twisted my head around like a periscope. I thought our train would start now. But no, that didn't happen...so got back to sleep. Didn't bother when the 2nd one passed, got a bit alive, but got back to sleep again. Finally, when the 3rd train passed by, I was too tired to even look out of the window. But soon afterwards, the train started moving, and all hopes of reaching Coxsbazar got restored again.

The rest part of the journey towards Chittagong was exciting only because it was giving me the feeling of freedom--the very same feeling that Edmund Dante got when he escaped from Chateau D`if! Actually that feeling came to me when I finally got out of the train, in Chittagong station.

I liked the railstation. It was neat and clean. Not messy and dusty like Komolapur. There weren't too many people out there as well. We dumped the six of us within the confines of two CNGs. These vehicles took us to the place from where buses started their journey towards Coxsbazar.

The journey from Chittagong to Coxsbazar was turbulent, and somewhat boring. We stopped in a place situated in the heart of Chittagong city, where we went to a bhaater hotel for having our lunch. We had to make it really fast, cause the bus was waiting for us to get back in.

At around 11 AM, we got off the bus, very near to the famous Sea Gull hotel. It was like a De Ja Vu to me. I went there in 2004, with my GP colleagues. It all came back to me, and I got emotional for a while. I did have a lot of fun that time.

We were supposed to live in a small bungalow/cottage type house. There is a lodge (apparently owned by some IBA teacher) called “Palace Paradise”. When I came here last, these cottages were just established, and the cost of renting them was really high. The costs haven't changed that much, but we had the advantage of going there in an off-season time. Tushar’s brother in law had a good relationship with the manager of the place and hence we managed to get two rooms at Tk 900 per night.

The scenario was like this—we could either take two adjacent non air-conditioned rooms in the ground floor, or we could take one from ground floor and an air conditioned one from the top floor. We had a somewhat lengthy discussion regarding this among us. It was indeed a hot day. Our visit took place during the rainy season, which can be termed as a wet version of summer. It’s still hot, but it rains quite often. I thought it’d make things a bit disputing, if we take one AC room for 6 people. We will either end up having no sleep at all or three of us would remain unhappy. So I strongly pressed for taking the non-AC rooms. Also, the manager informed us that there’s chance that two adjacent AC rooms would be available the next day. Some of the tenants might leave, and then we could take the rooms.

So we checked in to the cottage called “Borsha 2”. It was not in the front portion of the whole area. The area was filled with more than 10 cottages, and it was accessible via a big gate boasting the name “Prashaad Paradise”. My personal opinion was that the place got a bit congested with so many cottages. It would have been a lot better if there were fewer cottages. Anyways, as soon as we entered the room, we were introduced to our shared caretaker. He was a jolly fellow, and he assured that he’ll be around so that we can contact him whenever we need anything. He, with a genuine look of sorrow informed us that the phones aren’t working.

I liked the adjacent rooms. In the first room, there was a large bed, a TV, a three seater sofa, and a sofa-table. On the other room, there was another large bed, a dressing table and a chest-o-drawer.

So we started unpacking our stuff, and we were just on the brink of starting our actual tour....

To be continued..