I'll tell ya this much kiddos, wearing dentures suck. I know I'll get used to it over time, but I guess this is one of those things, that I don't really want to get used to.

I also can't believe they are now going to form a committee to figure out what to do about all those accidents along Upper Thomson Road. A new overhead bridge? Or traffic lights? Or underpass? Choices, choices.

I also can't believe the amount of vehemence some of my friends show towards workers from China. I'd understand the anger if they had lost jobs or money because of these workers, but it seemed like they just dislike having them around. Dislike them serving them in hawker centers, dislike them showing up in their clinics, dislike them living next door to them in the HDB estate.

I read a bit of Alex Tan's blog to try and understand the angst about foreigners being in Singapore. However, his criticisms were directed towards the government's policies and how Singaporeans were directly affected by the influx of migrant workers. My friends are, for lack of a better word, xenophobic bastards.

To be fair, I know half of what they said don't mean anything - guys sometimes have a tendency say stupid things when they gather together and too much testosterone is in the air. Apparently they are rude and 'uncivilised' - but I would argue that there are plenty of Singaporeans who match that description as well.

No hope for the human race indeed. From Shadakalo blog (http://shadakalo.blogspot.com/2010/01/rapists-fatwas-and-lack-of-justice.html):

Daily Star is reporting that:

Eight months after being raped, a 16-year-old at Khargor of Kasba upazila in Brahmanbaria had to receive 101 lashes as "punishment".

A village arbitration found her guilty and issued the 101 lashes fatwa (religious edict) but amazingly left alleged rapist Enamul Mia, 20, untouched.

The arbitration also fined the victim's father Tk 1,000 and issued another fatwa that her family would be forced into isolation if he failed to pay up.

Village matbar (local leader) Delwar Hossain alias Ullashi executed the durra (lashes) on January 17.

I don't know what hell the rapist will burn in, but I am sure he will be joined there by Mr. Delwar Hossain, who was the judge, jury and executioner against this girl.

Madam Prime Minister and Madam Home Minister: you are women. You have also taken an oath to uphold the constitution of this country. Please, in the name of all that you hold holy and dear, wake up and defend this girl.

She has been raped and became pregnant. The news report mentions pregnancy upto 7 months and a subsequent abortion. Such late-term abortions are considered high-risk even in the USA.

But after all that, the rapist is walking around a free man because, according to the local matbors, "he belongs to another village" while this girl was beaten until she fainted. Her father was also fined Taka 1000, which presumably the matbors will spend on partying.

Full marks to Daily Star for refraining from posting the name and a picture of the victim. Have they finally realised that girls and women don't deserve to have their faces splashed across national newspapers when they have been raped/attacked with acid? Hooray for some decency!

I had a dream last night Cedar Rapids

This is very random, but I think a highlight of my life would be attending a live concert of NIN, Marilyn Manson and Lady Gaga. I have goosebumps just thinking about it.

The theme of my week so far - being true to yourself.

Helping along with the theme is having Lady Gaga on repeat mode. God help me, I love that woman.

I find it hard to describe how it feels when you realise all the money you've saved over the last couple of years will go up in smoke because of the events of a single night. The business of fixing the teeth is proving to be a lot more complicated than expected. Decisions, choices -- none of which are straightforward, none of which are cheap.

Given my rather dismal number of friends, I'm lucky to have a dentist and a doctor amongst them to turn to for help -- my only regret is that I have little professional expertise to offer in return, and my lifelong gratitude will have to suffice.

I removed the metal wire today, and thought to myself how strange it was that I had already gotten used to its presence after only two weeks. Every day, I discover new kinds of food that require the use of your incisors (noodles, chicken wings, anything on a stick) and I think I must look quite a sight, slurping noodles from the side of my mouth. Well, at least no one can say I lack determination.

I made my first visit to Orchard Rd today, and found the number of new malls to be, quite frankly, ridiculous. Gerry and I were trying to find each other and I felt it hilarious to be saying "Are you near Prada?" while I was feeling lost in front of Dior. Have a very strong urge to reread Debord's essay now, which I have stored in my laptop as a Word Document. Call me traditional, but I think essays like his should never be allowed to exist as Word Documents, but forever be read off brown parchment paper.

It seemed to me that this was the whole point of travelling - to arrive alone, like a spectre, in a strange country at nightfall, not in the brightly lit capital but by the back door, in the wooded countryside, hundreds of miles from the metropolis, where, typically, people didn't see many strangers and were hospitable and did not instantly think of me as money on two legs. Life was harder but simpler here - I could see it in the rough houses and the crummy roads and the hayricks and the boys herding goats. Arriving in the hinterland with only the vaguest plans was a liberating event.

-- Paul Theroux, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star

Ho-hum. In case anyone thinks I'm getting reflective on my birthday, I'm also listening to Flight of the Conchords sing about Robots taking over the world. Shut their motherboard existence down!

Huddled under the shadows in Jaal cafe, I tried my best to position my opened book under the very inadequate lamp they had hanging up on the wall. Literally a hole in the wall, Jaal (meaning spicy in Bangla) is claustrophobic and dark - the latter being deliberately so, as it probably makes the place all the more popular with dating couples seeking respite from the public eye. Even in the daytime, couples can find a little privacy for some under-the-table action, resulting in many sheepish-looking teenagers leaving the cafe with slightly tousled hair and rumpled clothes.

Even though I would have preferred a cheerier, brighter place, Jaal is also less than a hundred meters away from my apartment, making it an ideal stop for dinner when I felt too tired or lazy to cook. I also enjoyed the privacy inherent in the place, but only if I managed to get that seat under that single, solitary lamp.

The waiters there know me very well after a year of semi-regular visits from me, and try their best to give me good service. Still, Dhaka will always be Dhaka, and I was told my favourite dish of grilled chicken wasn't available, only to be told 15 minutes later that, oh, so sorry, we missed it out in the fridge, we have it after all. When the meal was finally served, I had to send it back as the chicken was not entirely cooked. I felt sorry for the waiter - clearly, he wanted to treat me well and was exasperated by the comedy of errors. I believe it is extremely useful to have a sorrowful-looking face if working as a waiter here in Dhaka.

Familiar with the amount of waiting required in Jaal, I had come armed with Paul Theroux's Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, yet another parting gift from the wondrous Linda. The chicken finally arrive (again), and after some careful maneuvering, I had my book stuck open in front of me, pages held open by my plate in a style that I had practiced and honed over many, many years of reading at the dinner table (something that irked my father to no end).

The tables were mostly empty tonight. A boisterous gathering had just left, and for a while it was just me, my book and some English pop music that I didn't recognise. A couple made their way past me to the last booth at the back. I tried to sneak a peek a while later - two coffee mugs and a packet of cigarettes were placed in front of them as they chatted and smoked, the girl holding her cigarette as you would a pencil.

After my meal, I finished up the chapter I reading and asked for the bill which came up to 275 tks (S$5.60) for grilled chicken and rice with a glass of orange juice. A pricier place by local standards, but I suppose I am really paying for the chance to enjoy a slow, leisurely, book-filled dinner. In Dhaka, I always feel like I have a time limit when I eat in small, local restaurants. There isn't the usual hanging-around that I am used to. Food is served very quickly, and your plate is cleared the moment your hands clean up that last bit of rice on your plate. As you beckon for the bill, the waiter is already cleaning down the table and beckoning the next batch of customers to come over to the table.

I left a 20 tks tip - generous by my standards, since I don't usually tip. But alas, for selfish reasons: I think its about time some good karma flowed my way.

From list of terms and conditions when you book a flight on AirAsia:

• Guests can no longer carry guns and/or ammunition on flights to or from Indonesia.

Always useful info to have.

According to the ambulance driver - who heard it from the folks who were around the scene of the accident - a bus had suddenly cut into our path and forced us off the road.

Since I remember absolutely nothing from the accident, and I'm not a big fan of third-hand accounts, I'm not sure what to believe. I was actually quite happy not to know, since knowing makes me want to place blame, and I think its difficult to remain POSITIVE and OPTIMISTIC when channeling evil thoughts to a random bus driver.

Truthfully, I really don't quite care to know the details of the accident. Its over and done, and knowing doesn't really accomplish anything.

I've been on a diet of soft-everything: mashed potatoes, congee, minced chicken, boiled vegetables, half-boiled eggs etc. This morning I decided THIS IS NO WAY TO LIVE and chopped up little bits of sausage and had it with scrambled eggs. So there.

Enough ranting - back to work.

It finally happened.

After years of living my life as if I was invincible - indulging in the worst practices, ignoring health, forsaking safety, scoffing at precautions, I used to tell people that it was bound to happen eventually.

Not once in my twenty-seven months in Bangladesh did I ever come close to a close-call. Sure I had that sprained ankle two months into my stay, but it healed up pretty quick within a month (no heels for a year, but that isn't exactly a loss), and the occasional flu and fever, but nothing that could compare with the various maladies and accidents I had seen in my stay here.

Two nights ago (in the wee morning hours on the 11th, to be exact) I was in a road accident which left me unconscious, only to wake up in an ambulance wondering to myself if I was dreaming.

That I had made it out alive is pretty much a miracle. That no car/bus/truck had come along and ran over my body while I lay on the road, that none of my belongings were stolen/lost, that my head is still in one piece, that I have not been blinded or maimed, that I still have all my limbs -- I'm pretty fucking lucky.

I have absolutely no recollection of what happened. Not even the faintest memory of a crash, or an impending crash, or being lifted and carried into the ambulance.

The police and RAB happened to be at that corner in Bijoy Sarani, but it was a passing ambulance that stopped to help bring us Sorawadi Hospital nearby in Shaymoli. We were then sent off to the Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, where they did an X-ray of my chest and gave me a jab of painkillers, and was sent home in a CNG. I was likely still in shock throughout the entire process, and felt calm and peaceful.

The damage today is as such: severe abrasions to the face, hands, left hip and left knee. Three broken teeth, one missing tooth (it was such a clean extraction that it seemed that someone had pulled it out for me with a plier).

The skin will heal, as the abrasions are 'clean' and not messy. Whatever scarring is left will likely subside over time if I can reel in the urge to pick at the scabs.

Once the facial swelling goes down, I will have to tackle the biggest problem of fixing my teeth. Crowns? Dentures? What? I have no idea. I will do the preliminary checks and X-rays here, and head back to Singapore to get the permanent work done.

I am trying not to think about work -- but needless to say, everything is going to shit on that end because of this. I will manage it the best I can, but I'm not so sure people want to buy photos from a person with a face like this.

Tragic Excuse of an Update

I've been listening to Nutsie's automatic lists, such as "Top 100 Songs of XXXX", and -- if you can get over your incredulity at my ability to stream music on my 0.02 Mb/s connection -- I've realised that XXXX always ends up in the range of 198X to 199X. I am a musical dinosaur.

That very precise figure of 0.02 is thanks to Speedtest.net - a website that tells me what my actual connection speed is. The site took 10 minutes to load, and the irony is not lost on me.

Linda -- Finnish capoeira teacher and all-round extraordinaire -- leaves tomorrow for Christmas in Mexico with her boyfriend and then heads for a two-year contract in Tanzania. Sometimes, a little corner of my brain indulges in fantasies about fucking up so badly that I get fired and thus get to leave with no obligations. There I've said it.

Linda also gladly unloaded free junk on me -- a book titled Wayward Girls and Wicked Women, an unused light tube, assorted spices, an espresso thingamajig and a yoga mat. This was after I told her Chinese people loved receiving free shit. I'm not sure if that stereotype even exists (recalling long Hello Kitty queues make me think I may be on the right track), but I needed to blame my shamelessness on something.

I've also managed to succeed in obtaining a wireless router after a year of saying "I'll get it". I didn't actually head down to the store itself since the stores here close before I finish work. Bangladeshi corporate types would typically 'send a peon'. I typically 'freeloaded off a friend in the area'.

The word 'peon' didn't exist for me until I came here. I may have read it in some book before, but I certainly never came across it in everyday language. It really isn't the most glamorous word.

I need to get some things straight in my head, so do pardon the verbal dump:

How do I explain to a client that my predecessor was a fucked-up excuse of a salesman, and while it may seem that I'm raising the rates - I am actually updating prices which haven't been updated in 10 fucking years? How do I explain that my predecessor had no authority to release photos for exclusive usages? How do I explain why a photograph costs more if you want exclusive rights to it? Isn't it obvious? Do I really need to explain this?

I am so tired of paying for someone else's mistakes.

Sometimes, photographers need to seek out content to 'fit' a story. It could be a simple portrait to illustrate a story about a child, or an aerial shot to go with something about urban sprawl. Black water for pollution, beggars for poverty. The process sometimes works this way - almost as if in reverse. We fix the content, and search for the visual that goes with it.

Clearly - this doesn't help in terms of visual stereotyping. By actively searching out the most obvious frame, we continue to feed the system of quick judgments and loose associations.

The (very exhausted) team had just completed an assignment which required us to work in this content-first-visuals-second manner. The content? Mismanagement of taxpayers' money. The visuals? Oh boy, did we have a list. From schools to roads, traffic to post offices - it seemed like the wish list of images would never end.

I sent the team out to shoot, and worried about the whole idea of visual stereotyping. What if they were to "force" out a visual when there was none? To "imply" an association when it was a weak link? To over-dramatise and exaggerate a situation just to make it seem bleaker, more negative, more depressing?

As I browsed through the raw takes from their three-day shoot, I realised I had forgotten that Dhaka was a city that required no exaggeration.

Not when patients in the main government-run hospital have to resort to sleeping on the dirty, damp floor of corridors and under staircases. Lying next to their IV drips next to them, with tubes coming out of their noses and covered with a flimsy blanket brought from their own home - I couldn't exaggerate the situation even if I tried.

Even more painful to see was the expressions on the faces of family members camping out next to their loved ones. Worry, fatigue, hopelessness - and even a little anger, I think. I don't mean to be insulting to anyone, but I highly doubt that this is a hospital that people with choices would choose to come to.

Is depressing.

Random Observations

A t-shirt with the words MIT SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM do not look good when stretched across a pair of man boobs and paired with a khaki safari hat.


Old men with big egos don't like to be ignored.

Young men hate it when their compliments are met by an angry stare.


News photogs that shoot in raw ought to be shot.

"Working fine now" is code for "Will break down in approximately two weeks"

Four young dudes can finish a bottle of vodka in 2 hours.

There are only 24 hours in a day.

Last Words

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice posts the last statements of death row convicts. (via Slate)

November 10, 2009
Offender: Valle, Yosvanis
"I am sorry, I never wanted to kill your family. I never wanted to kill your family or these people. I am sorry for the way I talk in English. I did it to myself... Thank you brother, don't hate nobody, I feel good. I love my family, I love you Jesus. Be strong mama, I love you sister. I love Jesus. Warden I am ready.

October 27, 2009
Offender: Blanton, Reginald
Last Statement:
Yes I do. I know ya'lls pain, believe me I shed plenty of tears behind Carlos. Carlos was my friend. I didn't murder him. This what is happening right now is an injustice. This doesn't solve anything. This will not bring back Carlos. Ya'll fought real hard here to prove my innocence. This is only the beginning. I love each and everyone dearly. Dre My queen. I love you. Yaws, Junie I love yall. Stay strong, continue to fight. They are fixing to pump my veins with a lethal drug the American Veterinary Association won't even allow to be used on dogs. I say I am worse off than a dog. They want to kill me for this; I am not the man that did this. Fight on. I will see ya'll again. That's all I can say.

There is also a link so that you can see the background information on each and every single person executed. This has to be one of the most harrowing, disturbing and yet meticulously-kept public record.

STOP PRESS JUST GOT MY HANDS ON REVOLUTIONARY ROAD GOD BLESS YOU COLIN FOR BRINGING IT ALL THE WAY FROM LONDON SINCE NO BOOKSTORE HERE HAS IT AND NOW I LOOK FORWARD TO A NIGHT OF NOT SLEEPING OH HAPPINESS

i write this with the expectation of receiving ridicule, since I was only a photographer in the newsroom for less than a year. My friends are still working there, and those who have left did so with years of experience under their belt.

Even with my dismally short tenure, I have never forgotten the sense of camaraderie in that place. Of course, I realise now that I had been insulated from the myriad of flaws that come with working with a large corporation. As a freelancer, I didn't have to think about staff evaluations, about the promise of promotions, about pay increases, about claiming days off. I was young, desperate to be wanted - I would have worked every day if they asked me to.

I write this now because I just finished an unpleasant argument with someone who accused me of working too hard. It is something that people say a lot about me here, but I suppose that only I am privy to the truth.

I have learnt when to shut off, when to close down that computer, when to say enough is enough. I don't feel like i have to prove anything anymore, and I do not feel guilty when I choose not to reply that email that has been sitting in my inbox for too long.

This is something very difficult to do, as I am surrounded by people whom the title of 'workaholic' does not justice. These folks work from 8 in the morning till past midnight, and still feel like they haven't done enough.

My point is - I am not like that. I did that for the first couple of months, but such a workload left me utterly broken and useless. And so, I stopped it.

I now have to break that little pact I made with myself.

The news agency was meant to be separate - an independent entity that was silently supported by the main organisation. Due to mismanagement and a whole host of other reasons, the news agency was struggling to stay afloat. Radical changes were needed if it were to survive.

My boss - the one who had started everything - had somehow come to believe that my incredibly short work experience as a news photographer meant that I had the expertise to lead a news agency.

And I, echoing Joo's everlasting words of wisdom "Better me than anyone else", readily agreed.

My department was already struggling with the workload we had - with all my time spent on fixing day-to-day matters, I could barely find the time to plan the much needed long-term brand and vision for the department. And still, I couldn't say no.

The small news team moved in five days ago. Three young men that had miraculously continued to stay with the sinking agency even though they were paid miserable salaries to work seven days a week. They had a certain air of desperation that was all too familiar. One of them had howled in protest when I said I was planning to start putting them in shifts. The thought of not being called on for a job, and thus missing out on a shoot, was completely unacceptable to him.

And so, I now lead a team of eight and an agency that distributes stock, editorial and news imagery. Shutting off is fast becoming an impossible option.

But there is now a new vigor in the room. These boys do not leave when the clock strikes 5 in the afternoon. Inappropriate jokes, sarcastic remarks about politicians, callous comments about bomb explosions, the question "Did anyone die?", the familiar rush rush rush to get things done, spell names right, dig up the background facts -- forgive my sentimentality, but I felt I had come home.

I suppose this nostalgia will wear off in a couple of months, after the bullshit had piled up and the realisation that WE ARE NOT MAKING A DIFFERENCE has set in -- but till then, I'll be damned if I don't enjoy every last second of this.

In about two and a half hours I will find out if I need to go to Nepal on a visa run.

Showdown

So I think I ended up spamning everyone on Facebook today - many apologies for this, but I didn't really have any other platform (Twitter doesn't work from mobile phones here).

Long story short: We planned to have a simple exhibition to raise awareness about Tibet's fight for independence. Folks at Chinese embassy were none too pleased. We refused to cancel the exhibition. Police from the Bangladesh Police Special Branch (akin to the intelligence unit) made repeated visits and threats.

© Shehab Uddin / DrikNEWS

All of this culminated in a showdown of sorts today. The police ended up locking the gates so that no one could enter or leave. Shahidul Alam, the founder and director of Drik, ended up having to climb over the gates again and again just to get in and out.

© Adnan / DrikNEWS

The chief guest arrived - Professor Muzaffar Ahmed, president of Transparency International Bangladesh. He wasn't allowed in either. But he kept smiling, and I couldn't help but giggle whenever I looked at him. I suppose being in charge of fighting corruption in the country makes you quite immune to such things.

© Shehab Uddin / DrikNEWS

So, we ended up launching the exhibitions on the streets since the police refused to budge. We gave out refreshments, just as they would have if it had taken place inside the gallery. The policemen refused their share of cake.

Professor Muzaffar Ahmed (left) launching the exhibition on the streets with Shahidul Alam.
© Adnan / DrikNEWS

© Shehab Uddin / DrikNEWS

An interesting day, if I do say so myself.


Note: The exhibition wasn't our idea, although we did provide the gallery space for it. The organisers were a group of Bangladeshi students who had taken it upon themselves to fight for Tibet's freedom. I'll save that chapter of the story for another time.

So, I've finally realised that the colour setting for Photoshop don't match Mozilla -- something about plugins that I don't quite get -- and I'm too tired to do research online now to fix this. This is just a convoluted way of me explaining why the reds and greens may look washed out.

I may have neglected to mention that both my camera and lens has miraculously been brought back to life after two weeks in the dehumidifier room. This was not a case of Jess freaking out, assuming the worse case scenario, and then demanding sympathy. My camera was, for a brief period of time, a water receptacle -- my doomsday rants were only to be expected.

I know I'm not the most regular photographer these days, but during those two weeks when I believed myself to be camera-less, I felt an unexpected sense of loss. Not in the financial or material sense, but something akin to losing an opportunity or a chance.

On to the photos.

A rest stop en route to Chittagong, just before Comilla. They told me around a hundred buses full of hungry passengers stop here a night -- that's a lot of rice and parathas.



Early morning in Bandarban. The dogs there are a lot healthier than the ones in Dhaka.



A makeshift workshop where a group of young boys made paper lanterns for the upcoming Purnima festival.



I can't remember her name, but we called her Didi -- the local term for "sister". She runs a small shop at the top of the hill in Nilachol, selling snacks and cigarettes to the constant stream of tourists who come to ooh and aah at the scenery. I spent many, many joyfully drunk hours here, with my legs curled under me on the bamboo platform.



Moonlight.






I had to scramble down an impossibly steep, muddy slope to get to where she was. By the time I reached the bottom, she was done with her chores and waiting for me to get out of the way so that she could go up.

Anyone who thinks I may have inherited my mother's fitness gene should see me on my hands and knees, struggling to keep up with this girl floated up the slope while carrying two bottles of water. Gravity and friction. I had too much of the first, and none of the latter.

Something died in here

You know your work week is off to a bad start when you step into office and realise that you're going to have to spend most of your day finding out WHAT died and WHERE it died.

On a happier note, winter is on its way. I know this because I woke up four times last night to scratch at mosquito bites. I'm not too sure why bugs come out during winter, but my house is now home to an assortment of grasshoppers, moths and little green (fuckers) bugs that bite.

I found out last night what smells worse than a dead body. As a person who has been to a 3-day old mass grave to see bodies getting dug out, I don't make this assertion lightly.

Came back from work at 11.30 pm last night, exhausted but very, very hungry. I decided to not skip dinner, as I usually would when I'm tired, and gathered up all the energy I had left to whip up something nice. Cabbage? Chopped! Garlic? Smashed! Noodles? Ready to go! Prawns? Sauteed!

Everything was going great. I don't suck at making fried noodles.

I always leave the eggs to the last, right after adding all sauces and letting it simmer for a bit. I fished around the fridge -- great, two eggs left. I'll have to buy more tomorrow.

Ladies and gents, you should've been there to see my face when I broke open the second egg over my almost-ready noodles. Black goo where yellow should have been, seeping into the noodles and making it impossible to rescue what I had been looking forward to eating.

And oh, that smell.

A stench so overpoweringly nauseating that I had to leave the kitchen immediately. Like a mass graves, topped up with a mountain of feces collected from the diarrhea hospital, distilled into a concentrate.

I'm sure if Guiqing had been there we would have managed to laugh at the tragedy of the situation rather than to wallow in it.

Ah well. Thank god for instant noodles. But I'm not sure I want to have eggs again anytime soon.

Sufia

During dinner with Tanzim tonight, I revisited the topic of Sufia - the only "story" that I had successfully completed here in Bangladesh, way back in 2005.

I explained to him that since my return two years ago, I had been avoiding seeing her again. There was a lot of miscommunication after my return to Singapore, and I feared that she no longer thought kindly of me.

Before I left, I had given her 6,000 takas - the most that I could afford at that time. I had somehow given her the impression that more money was headed her way, and I had been told by my friends in Dhaka that she was upset I had not followed up on my promise - a promise I may have made accidentally by nodding to a sentence I did not understand. Throughout my six months there, she never asked for money.

So I have been back for two years, and I never went to see her. I did see both her and Yasmine, from a rickshaw or a CNG as I passed by the same stretch of road, but never had the guts to visit. But it was important for me to see that she was still there.

While I spoke about her, it was clear to me that this was something that I needed to do. On a whim, I dragged Tanzim along with me as a translator.

When she saw me, her eyes did not widen with surprise, as I had expected. Neither did she did fly in a rage, as I had feared. She got up and came towards me, as if I had been there to see her the day before.

"Yasmine is dead," she said. Tanzim had to translate those words for me, and, momentarily confused, I could not believe what she said.

Yasmine was killed two months ago by a hit-and-run at 5am in the morning along the street she called home. She was brought to the Dhaka Medical Hospital, but it was too late. She is now buried in the same Azimpur graveyard as her brother.

Sazzad, the grandson, is now seven years old and attends a free school down the road. He claims to remember me, but I somehow doubt it.

They brought out the photo album I had given to them before I left.

"You print a new photo of Yasmine for me. And frame it."

It would be the least I could do.

I went back and dug out all I had written about Sufia in 2005. Sufia's story was something my instinct told me to continue, but my head needed to justify it first. I am now so judgmental of photographers who do nothing for their subjects, that I simply could not continue with the work until I figured out what the hell it meant.

And then I realised, that there really wasn't more to it. I want to photograph Sufia not because I have some great moral lesson to share with society, not because I want to raise awareness about her plight or to show how the homeless live. I don't know who will see the pictures, or what I will do with them.

I want to photograph Sufia because I don't want her to disappear. In a city where the homeless are not seen, where you could be here one day and gone the next, I want to make sure that she is immortalised.

I re-read the post I wrote about her in 2005, and came across an anonymous comment I do not remember reading:

But, again, just because you're working in a 'third world' country, which by many has been defined as 'poor' or 'lacking access to resources,' does it always mean people there are discontent and unhappy?

I'm sorry to be harsh, but that is a really stupid question.

When the NTU team came last month, one student had asked me a similar series of questions, all of which were egging me to tell him that he had just arrived in a country where the people are "poor but happy".

What is with this obsession to find a silver lining in the lives of the poor? Is it guilt? Do we feel better about ourselves if we could at least believe that they were happy?

I had told Sufia something similar in 2005. Sure you're poor, but I spent so much time with you and there is so much happiness here. Those rich people passing you on the streets? They don't seem to have as much joy as you do.

Sufia cocked her head to one side with a pitying gaze, and asked me a question I will never forget.

"Who wants to be poor?"

Sazzad is even more adorable now.

Wrapped up

in work.

Today we had to search for picture request -- haors in Sumanganj, the highest peak of Bangladesh, caves in Bandarban, pretty landscape photos to do with climate change, the six seasons of Bangladesh... the list goes on. Calendar season is clearly here.

I like the work if only because it gives me a chance to explore the archives -- something I would have preferred to do at a leisurely pace, but for an organisation that can put together a 50-photo exhibition in one week, time is not something we're used to.

The news photo agency which had previously existed outside of the organisation structure is now being (suddenly) incorporated into my department. Which means I now effectively run both a photo agency that does news, stock and editorial. In over my head? You don't say. But Joo once said, "Better me than anyone else." -- this applies in this situation because, well, there really isn't anyone else.

I had really enjoyed Brenda Ann Kenneally's photo essay on the Lens Blog, if only because this was one photographer who gave as much as she took. I have grown extremely uncomfortable with photography that does nothing for the subject, other than to put their faces on the walls of galleries and on the covers of pretty brochures and in heavy coffee table books.

Special Branch came today to check up on me for my visa extension application. I had not anticipated how angry it would make me to have to be nice and cordial to a man that was not only rude and arrogant, but corrupt. The sudden visits are thinly-disguised trips to collect bribe money, without which the application process is made very painful (ie having to submit the same letter over and over) till we wise up to the idea that he isn't going away without a little sumthing sumthing in his pocket.

THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BUCK UP OCTOBER I MEAN IT

Dear October,

I'm afraid I have to be blunt. You have been a spectacular pain-in-the-ass so far, and god help you if you don't change your ways soon. I know shit happens, but the broken air-conditioner today was the last straw. I mean, how much more of this can we take?

I'll play fair. I won't mention the earthquakes and typhoons if you lower the targeted accident-count. So far we've had to put up with crap such as high fever, a bad arm, one twisted ankle, five stitches, a bad tumble down a hill, jaundice, a motorbike crash, and, oh, you just had to play dirty and throw in diarrhea for good measure, didn't you?

But you know what hurts the most? My water-logged, water-filled, water-everything camera. I can only hope you will one day find out how it feels to see water pouring out of your camera - your two-year-old, bought-with-hard-earned-money camera. You fucking bastard.

It seems I aimed a little too low in wishing for a pair of steel pants.