Gulshan the Posh

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  Dhaka City, Dhaka, Bangladesh
Monday, January 12, 2009

Slept until noon. I truly am exhausted.

Mrs. Rahman (I'm staying with a classmate's family) made a veggie omelet for me. I had some toast and tea along with it.

Dr. Rahman, Mrs. Rahman, Taieef's (my classmate's) 2 younger sisters, Dr. Rahman's mother and a young maid live in a 3-story house in Gulshan. In addition, there are 3 rotating guards and 2 other maids who come in the morning. Gulshan is one of the posher neighborhoods of Dhaka where ex-pat communities also live.

Mrs. Rahman: 45ish; a devout Muslim. She is busy all day long with coordinating the employees, paying the bills, driving the kids and serving food

The Rahmans

. Comes from the Northeastern city of Bogra. She was a geography major at university. Shortly after Taieef was born, they moved to Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, USA for Dr. Rahman's residency. When her husband got his Master of Public Health degree, they moved to Vancouver for a 2nd residency. Faiza was born here. Eventually, they moved backed to Dhaka and haven't left ever since. Mrs. Rahman used to work at her husband's clinic as an administrator. After he got into a much larger venture by setting up an eye hospital in Central Dhaka, she decided to devote all her time to house work. She has 4 siblings all of whom live abroad. Mrs. Rahman hopes that her son will not spend his life in a country that is as far away as the ones her siblings live in.

It was getting late and I was tired. So, I decided to have an easy day. Walked around the relatively posh neighborhood of Gulshan. I passed by numerous heavily gated houses and embassies. Reminiscent of the Mausoleum Area in Hanoi. There were a few tall, glass buildings, the most impressive one being the Westin Hotel. Brown men wearing traditional skirts were everywhere. The public buses were the most worn-out I have ever seen. Just like cans on wheels that had been kicked around for too long... Also, there were some new vehicle concepts, such as the Rickshaw and the auto-Rickshaw, which is a closed tuc tuc. Even though the streets were extremely crowded, you could easily walk on the pavements. The main reason behind this is that Bangladeshis are not as big in street food eating as the Southeast Asians.

Until 1971, Bangladesh was united with current-day Pakistan. She was called East Pakistan back then. Mrs. Rahman commented that West Pakistan's attempt to replace Bengali with Urdu and their concentrating all of their investments in the West were the main reasons behind the partition.

In Gulshan there is a road named Kemal Ataturk. I had no idea that we had such ties with Bangladesh. Dr. Rahman's guess was that the Turkish government fronted the cash for the road construction. How random would that be...

Although the roads around my hosts' house had numbers instead of names, it was quite a challenge to find my way back. Both the vertical and the horizontal roads were labeled with the same numbering system. Enter confusion... As I was circling the same block for the 5th time, 2 beggar girls got attached to me. They kept repeating "We are hungry boss..." until I found the gates of the Rahman residence.

Chopsticks have finally vanished, but so have silverware. Here everything, including rice, is eaten by hand.

For dinner we had rice with a lentil sauce, a fresh water fish curry, chicken curry, home-made bread, salad and a thick paste-like desert made with carrots. It was excellent.

Tea bags are used instead of the semawar and tea is usually taken with milk.

There are a lot of giant mosquitoes. Sprayed Off all over my body and went to bed.

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