Goodbye crazy land, and thanks for everything.

Will probably (and hopefully) be offline for the next month as I try to keep my mother out of trouble in India, and then there's this beach you see, which is waiting for me before I embark on my professionally unprofessional life.

Kainee Shesh.

It was late, and as I hung around outside the Building waiting for a CNG to show, I knew I had been spotted. I had seen them as I came out, and it didn't take long for them to be behind me.

"Apu, taka please. We're so hungry."

It also didn't take long for Ruby and Mithu to understand I wasn't dealing out cash, and so their questions started.

"Where are you going?"
"My house."
"Where is your house?"
"Dhanmondi."
"Can we come with you?"
"Why?"
"To see your house!"
"Ha, I don't think that's possible."
"You want to come to our house?"
"Where is it?"
"Agargaon. It's nearby. Come?"

There were other questions, but I didn't understand them.

"You need rickshaw?"
"No, a CNG. Dhanmondi is too far away."

Solemn nods of agreement. Ruby asked if she could have my shawl. I said no, I only had one with me.

They waited with me, yelling and shouting at every CNG that passed. I felt sick to see them so close to the heavy speeding traffic, even though I knew from the feather dusters they carried that they could probably maneuver the traffic a lot better than I ever could. Still, it made me nervous and I ordered them to stand away.

A younger boy showed up, carrying a hot flask of tea. I asked the girls if they'd like a cup. Yes!! We went to sit by the curb, further away from the road. They continued to ask me questions I didn't understand, so I decided to take over the conversation to tell them about myself. One hand each on my lap, listening to me babble in my limited Bangla.

When I lit up a cigarette, both girls looked horrified.

"No! Very bad! Not good!"
"Why?"

The boy, who had been silent all this while, countered with a "It's good!" The girls shushed him.

"Cancer! Make you sick!"
I looked at the boy. "They're right, you know."

We finished the tea, and the boy didn't have change. I was going to let him earn an extra taka, but the girls would have none of it. They took out their own money, made change, and sent him on his way. We went back to look for a CNG.

Before they left me to my own devices, Ruby suddenly asked, "Would you take a photo of us?" She hugged Mithu close to her face, stroking the other girl's cheek. I wasn't carrying a camera, nor had I mentioned photography at all, so I guess this is something they ask everyone - but it was still rather poignant to me. We set a date for tomorrow.

"See you tomorrow!" yelled Ruby as she left.
"Inshallah."
"Inshallah!"

I thought about it on the way back, how the happiness I feel from these small, inconsequential conversations trumps all the good feelings I've ever felt from having someone praise my photos or having my work published. It's nice to think that sometimes it could really just be as simple as that.

I walked for half an hour from my house to Neelket - last minute panic-induced attempt to sort out shit in my life - and realised I did a good thing cancelling that trek in Nepal because at some point my mother would've had to drag my exhausted body back down the mountain. I mean, she could do it. That woman runs marathons for fuck's sake.

I've been caught up in a wave of anticipatory nostalgia as the days tick off, trying to soak in the things I think I'll forget. Which, given my goldfish memory, is a pretty fucking long list. So I try to keep things in my head - like how, no matter how hard I try, I always end up stepping on someone's spit. It's everywhere. It's bound to happen.

And like how every road junction has the potential to become a clusterfuck of illogical driving - you stare at the mess of vehicles and the one helpless traffic policeman standing in the midst of it all looking slightly overwhelmed, and you just can't imagine how anything will move ever again. And sometimes, the rickshaw wallahs will start bitching - why can't that car just move oh my god they are idiots. Yesterday, my rickshaw wallah got off and went up to the car in front of us to inform the driver that this jam is all your fault, get the hell out of the way. I would've slapped him a high five but that is probably too much.

The guys at the book market tried selling me Lonely Planet's Bangladesh guide. I looked at them and threw up my hands in the air. Ami keno lagbe? I'm ekhane na? (Why would I need this? Am I not right here?) They laughed. New edition. Bangladesh! Come Bangladesh. Thanks dudes, I'm glad we understand each other.

Measure of Adaptability

The one day I get a CNG driver that actually seems to not have a death wish, I end up feeling extremely impatient in this very safe vehicle and wish that he would just speed the fuck up. I mean, three car lengths between you and the next car? Observing braking distance? How did you get your license?

Bangladesh Trumps Singapore: Reason #453 & #454

• Very high chance that you will pet a goat before the end of the day (every day, any day).
• The fastest way to avoid a traffic jam (and to die) is to switch to the opposite lane. Sure there's oncoming traffic, but at least you're moving.
  

This image has been blogged and re-blogged to death, and I (obviously) love it even though I've seen it everywhere. Thanks to my current infantile addiction to exploring the archives of Nick Holmes' tumblr (the most attractive man I've ever slept with), I've finally discovered the artist is 27-year-old Sarolta Bán. Guess who else turns 27 this year? I am a talentless idiot.

193 pages down, don't know how many more to go. My ass is now permanently glued to this chair, and my fingers just can't stop clicking on websites just so that I don't have to insert punctuation (a full stop is NOT OPTIONAL), correct very strange language and feel like I want to yell LEARN SOME ENGLISH FOR FUCKS' SAKE out of the window. That would be just wrong. Very wrong. Mustn't do that.

aquariums and puppets

So there was a huge French house that I was lucky enough to lived in, even though I was a student and rightly belonged in a dormitory room somewhere. The second floor had a floor-to-ceiling aquarium running around its entire perimeter -- but the water was half-full and it was clear that the great white shark (and smaller tiger sharks?) were not faring too well. There was even a huge sea cucumber stuck on the wall that looked like it was drying out.

So I found the hose, and turned on the pipe and poured the water into the tank which filled up surprisingly quickly. Before I had the chance to see how the fishes were enjoying all the extra water, I noticed a painting/figure/doll of an old woman that was just settling onto the bottom of the tank - no doubt it had been moved around when the waters swirled in.

I stared hard at the wrinkly face and I just knew, that if I stared long enough, it would move. In all my worst nightmares and lengthy-imagination sessions - this always happens. And so her face moved, but I wasn't sure - maybe it was the water that was making her move - and so I tried again and again. And the face got more and more grotesque. I couldn't walk away - what if she followed me? I yelled for Sandrine. I whipped the curtains close around the tank to hide that face from my view.

Sandrine, who had been cooking in the kitchen, came running. What? What? She's alive, I said, trying to sound calm so as to not freak Sandrine out. I let my hands go, and the curtains came down, only now there wasn't an old woman - there was a wooden puppet in the shape of a little girl and she wasn't in the tank anymore. There wasn't any glass between us and her.

Ah. Oh. Sandrine and I stared hard. The little girl came alive, she looked human now, she stepped out and in front of us.

Sandrine tried to speak to her, but it didn't seem like she understood. Try speaking to her in French, I said. It worked (I'm very multilingual in dreams) and the girl said she used to be owned by a duchess, and it was a very long time ago. She didn't seem to realise that time had passed.

I vaguely thought of Harry Potter and how that movie had made talking paintings a lot less scary.

Are you angry I made faces at you just now? I asked. I don't remember her reply. Sandrine was pissed off by now - what the fucked had I dragged her into?

NO MORE AFTERNOON NAPS FOR YOU JESS.

commas

Was out for the count due to a viral fever that went on for too long (at least it wasn't dengoo), now rushing to finish what I couldn't do due to too much lying in bed incapacitated, currently technically unemployed for the first time in I guess a not-so-long time but still busy as fuck, missing roommate Maria who left for some lovely little island in Norway (enjoy the summer, while it lasts), slightly sad the espresso maker broke but will learn to cope, cat-sighting count at an ALL TIME HIGH and I can't help but think its a sign about something but not sure what, feel like I oughta learn the Robot & Robo, successfully stopped Mother from freaking out about monsoon in Nepal & India, still can't stop fantasising about a beach in Sri Lanka.

“Thou shall not kill. Thou shall not commit adultery. Don't eat pork.
I'm sorry, what was that last one? Don't eat pork. God has spoken.
Is that the word of God or is that pigs trying to outsmart everybody?”

My annual Jon Stewart obsession is back.

“I want to look back on my career and be proud of the work, and be proud that I tried everything. Yes, I want to look back and know that I was terrible at a variety of things.”

Sometimes I spend too much time imagining what my life would be like if it had more animals in it. (And I don't mean on my plate, although I do think about that as well.)

Which is precisely what i did

Its time to stop. To think. To question the self and see if you can find a new way to proceed. Otherwise just put aside that camera and do something else.

- The Spinning Head

Asim Rafiqui says exactly what I am only able to express in vague, unhappy grunts. Too much love for his writing.

The handover process is in full swing - with or without a replacement - and I've had to engage in uncomfortable self-reflection. What does it mean to be in charge? What have I learnt? I've always known that I would be an unpleasant person - I have no patience, no tact, and I'm too prone to arrogance. I warned them all at the beginning. I may yell at you, but I'll always apologise later. But only if I'm wrong. Which I won't be. Or something to that effect.

Today, I received one of the best compliments of my life: "Jess, you are so rude, but you feel our pulse."

How on earth did they ever put up with me? Love them to death.

En route to Barisal.

Sights En Route to Sylhet and Back

• Nothing like a rat's disembowelment to kick off your day!
• The "Magic Tree" car freshener in the shape of a pine tree.
• A little van full of packed full of bananas. A windowful of bananas.
• The Sea Fish Centre. (No, it is not a food court.)
• A room named Compassion.
• Two ring floats, a plastic ball, and too much clingy t-shirt action.
• Chains around and around an elephant's belly.
• The bobbing heads of swimming cows. (Cows are beyond awesome, now that I've seen how they can swim.)
• The midnight cry (or moans) of a mating frog.
• The heroic/misguided attempts of a shama to ward eagles away from its nest.

Discombobulated

This is my word of the week. It has been a strange couple of days, fueled by my indiscriminate consumption of coffee.

It has been raining a lot. In the morning, during the night. Someone asked on the way to dinner, does this mean the monsoon is here? I didn't know. I've lived here through three monsoons and I still couldn't remember when the season started. The streets outside were flooded today.

So a building collapsed earlier this week. And then there was that fire where so many, so many had died. And then another building (next to the one that had collapsed) started tilting and they had to evacuate the area. And cracks appeared in the walls of another building, somewhere else, and everyone had to leave too.

I don't get that tingle anymore from these things. I don't feel that urge to hop into a CNG and rush there so that I can be part of the media covering the event. I don't feel stressed about 'missing out' on the action. I can remember how that felt like, though.

I looked through the photos when the photographers came back from those events. Dead bodies, crying people, body bags, charred corpses, more grief, more pain, more loss, all caught on a wide angle lens, and you mark down the ones you want. This image works better than this, don't you see? See how her hands clings on so tightly as her friends try to hold her up? It shows just how much pain she is in. And this one - a hint of a dead body, just a foot, its better than the whole thing. We don't show the whole body. That's tasteless, don't you know?

One of the photographers told me he couldn't sleep all night after covering the aftermath of the fire. It's just too much, you know? I patted him on the back and told him he had to let it go.

During drinks at one of those clubs, I said nothing when the topic came up in the conversation. Isn't it horrible? How so many people died in that fire in Old Dhaka? Yes, its terrible. I looked at my feet and sipped my wine. The woman across me wore a flowy silk blouse in salmon pink with sequins across the collar, matched with a thin belt across her waist. She looked very fashionable. Behind her, two men played a game of tennis. I watched a little cute mouse scamper across the tiled floor.

I feel like I don't live here. Like, this happened in another world, you know? They were still talking about it. I lit up another cigarette.

Nazrul called me two days ago. Where are you? Dhanmondi, I said. And you? Woodlands lah. Next week I come back. Fantastic, I replied. It would be nice to see him in his own country. But how will we meet? You live in Gazidpur! Aiyah. Then I come Dhanmondi see you lah.

I would like that very, very much.

OH GOD NO.

This was so painful to read. So, so very painful.

Beauties dating 'beasts'

By Goh Shi Ting, Multimedia Journalist, RazorTV

IN THE Disney cartoon Beauty and The Beast, Beauty falls in love with the Beast for his beautiful heart despite his hideous looks.

And many 'Average Joes' are finding that fairy tale coming true for them as they live happily ever after with women who are considerably better looking than them.

Founder of dating agency Table for Six, Andrew Chow, who recently match-made such a couple said that it is 'really true love'.

'They look like an odd couple. The man is 1.65 meters and the lady is above 1.7 meters. The lady is very well-groomed and the man is losing his hair. But the personality and character of the gentleman is so much of a giant. He walks like a man who is 1.85 meters,' claimed Andrew.

However, the reverse doesn't seem to be true. Fewer good looking men are taking 'Plain Janes' as girlfriends.

I don't know where to start. I only regret that I read this online, because if it were in print I'd at least have the satisfaction of ripping this page to shreds and watching each strip of paper burn to its death.

E&S

Just a little ongoing project of mine which looks at the ground below, and, as John Lennon said, above us only sky.

Let sleeping dogs

A little altitude makes a whole lotta difference.

My trip north to Sylhet made me feel a little sad for the south of Bangladesh. Sure, the rivers are wider there, but look at all the green they are missing out on! I'm not quite sure why, but up north, the trees seemed greener, thicker, taller and richer. The Sharee river, flowing south from the hills of Meghalaya, was greenish and clear, its water cold and clean. I drank a few mouthfuls whilst on the boat. The last time I drank something that wasn't first boiled or filtered or from a Singaporean tap was when I was 14 years old, at the shores of a lake nestled between the mountains in Yunnan. The taste was the same - cold and free.

We stopped in the middle of the river, as the boatman made a grand sweeping gesture towards the hills in the distance. India! He pronounced, grandly. We got off the boat at some little touristy rest stop, and saw two magnificent Asian elephants.

I am useless in front of elephants. I am in so much awe, that they could be in front of me and not want to crush me to death, that I feel like getting down on my knees to show my respect.

I cannot fathom why animals put up with human beings. It would be so easy to shake off the four silly humans clinging onto its back and lumber away to freedom in the forest. I mean, what could we possibly do? Yell really, really loudly? (No guns present, hence not included in this equation.)

And yet, we've got these elephants doing inane tricks, like a salam with the trunk and a cute curtsey, eliciting loud laughter and even more gawking. What a disgrace. We are not worthy.

This is probably why I like cats, due to their low regard for all things human. They caught on fast to how silly we are.

I am quite good at cutting people out of my life -- it is not always intentional, and it doesn't always hurt, but it does make me feel like a robot with on-off switches.

What is up with these inward-looking thoughts in the middle of the day?? Oh right. I'm procrastinating.

It's like (here comes the bad analogy) surgery with permanent local anesthesia. You don't feel anything as you slice it off, it doesn't hurt even after the surgery, and there sure as hell isn't any sensation as the wound heals up. You don't even think about it, but sometimes you do get a glimpse of that cavity, that hole which you have created and you wonder shouldn't it hurt a lot more than this when you lose a bit of yourself? How is it possible to feel nothing?

This only applies to self-inflicted wounds. If someone else does the slicing against your free will - it will hurt like fuck. I still can't look at photos of my great-grandmother.

Oh shut up, Jess.

It occurred to me today, that I no longer notice the scars on my hands and face, that I am puzzled and surprised if someone asks me about them - which is rarely, since they are not really that noticeable - and I reply with a Oh! But that was ages ago! Which is true - it has been almost six months since the crash. I am used to the dentures, I hardly ever forget to wear them in the morning now, and I can taste food again even with that huge piece of plastic in my mouth. I still can't quite take a good bite from an apple though. I showed the dentures to a person I liked, because I didn't want to feel like I was hiding anything, and he said, "Are you trying to make me leave?". I knew it was a joke, but it was a bit of a mean joke, I think.

Anyway, the point of this mid-morning ramble is to muse on how quickly I forget. If a near-death accident doesn't make an impact on me - what can?

no te metas con el toro

Amongst other random, strange things from my mornings - a Huffingtonpost report on how a celebrity couple no longer sleeps in the same bed, a video on too many of my friends' Facebook Walls on teeny tiny girls doing some sexy dance (so much irony in re-posting a video that you find nauseating), an image of the matador that got gored through the throat (you've been warned), brief musings on how I'm getting increasingly irritated by photographers who are too in love with their own work, shock at news of Sygma being closed down, and trying very hard to recall the last dream I had before I woke up and not being able to and then suddenly remembering it as I brushed my teeth that I had dreamt of two toddlers standing on a parapet and yelling at them to come in IMMEDIATELY and then somehow my mom was there and asking me why I was yelling and I explained to her and she seemed not to quite get it and tried to fall out of the window to see what the fuss was all about and then there was a lot more yelling (from me) as I grabbed her feet and dragged her in.

And then, my Mom metamorphosed into a young Caucasian man with suicidal tendancies ("This is my third try but I keep failing") and I sat with his hands in mine as his wife sat beside us and I tried looking into his eyes to try and understand why why why why why. And his wife, who was blonde with big eyes grabbed my arm and pleaded to help her understand as well.

The daily act of reading newspapers in the morning is always a bit of a despondent affair.
Today's papers, for instance -- An an 18-year-old boy beaten to death in the middle of the night at Kamalapur railway station. A 14-year-old domestic worker who was "found" hanging from the ceiling fan in the house of a policeman where she works. The last line was a particularly nice touch.

The deceased went to sleep around 11:30pm on Saturday and did not respond to repeated calls the next morning, he added.

And the International pages -- out of the six stories on one page, five of them had some variation of the word "kill" in the headlines. Kill. Killed. Killing. Assassination.

I don't really have pleasant dreams, but even my imagination isn't that fucked up. I think now about that line from that speech Meryl Streep gave at a commencement ceremony in NY (another FB-linked video) about how you should pay attention to the cracks because that's where the light gets in.

I like how she whispered this line, leaning in close to the microphone but whispering it so softly that you just had to lean in to listen and thus listened to every word she said.

And this in turn reminded me of a dream I almost had - I can't remember now if I made this up or I dreamt it, but either way it is all very real to me.

And also, there was this:

I subscribe to an RSS feed that feeds (I do beg your pardon) me with lots of interior design images which I usually click through with a Pffffft but this one elicited more of a gutteral purr quickly followed by a brief imagination session about the many ways one can climb into a hammock.

Of course, in my version of this room, there is at least one cat sprawled belly-up on the stone floor, soaking up the sun.

Writing grant proposals, drinking too much espresso, dreams of Cambodia and South Africa threatening to distract me, really needing a tiny little cigarette.

Things

- A sign that advertised 'Live Surgical Demonstration'
- Electric storm over Dhaka with humidity so thick you feel like there is a mask on your face. Thunder-less lightning is always unsettling.
- A dream about an entire cinema hall singing out loud BOWIE'S IN SPACE

Today I met an ayah on the roof of our building. She was walking up and down, across the length of the roof. I watched her for a while and couldn't help but ask her what she was doing. Walking! she said. Because any other form of exercise wasn't possible in Dhaka for her.

The city does strange things to people.

Whoever said that a watched pot never boils clearly didn't watch it for long enough.

Or at least, I think that is the belief on which my stupid brain operates.

the nearest exit may be behind you

Back in 2005, I actually did a daily countdown on this blog just to see how many days I had left in Dhaka. I remember getting rather stressed, because I couldn't finish doing all the things I wanted to do.

I expect that things will be a lot different this time around.

On my iTunes playlist is a 45 minute-long recording of an interview I did during my days at Lexean. I interviewed someone who ran a counselling center for single fathers, and I think it was one of the most enjoyable chats I had with someone while on the job. The conversation flowed effortlessly, and it makes me smile hear the words 'acrimonious' and 'state of equilibrium' uttered with a Singlish accent.

I let it play for a bit today - I find it strangely comforting to hear myself talking with a Singlish accent. I'm not sure if it's because I'm overseas, but I often catch myself lapsing into some weird bastardised British/American/Pretentious mixed accent -- it sounds so awful I don't know why people talk to me.

I find that I have a tendency to mimic accents -- you may want to kill me when you hear me speaking to someone who is French.

Anyway, the person I was interviewing was explaining the consequences of divorce and how they are trying to help keep families together, and something he said hit me as hard as when I first heard it:

"And after a while, the child is forced to choose - and that's what breaks children."