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About the author and blogger ...

Anne Goodwin’s drive to understand what makes people tick led to a career in clinical psychology. That same curiosity now powers her fiction.
A prize-winning short-story writer, she has published three novels and a short story collection with small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize.
Away from her desk, Anne guides book-loving walkers through the Derbyshire landscape that inspired Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre.
Subscribers to her newsletter can download a free e-book of award-winning short stories.

TELL ME MORE

The Book of Dhaka by Pushpita Alam and Arunava Sinha (eds)

21/2/2017

6 Comments

 

I visited Dhaka by accident. Twice. Back in the days when there were no affordable direct flights from London to Kathmandu I travelled with Bangladesh Biman via Dhaka. On the way out the first time, I don’t even remember changing planes at the airport. On the way back, after a month in Nepal and three and a bit in India, it occurred to me I could visit some Bangladeshi friends I’d made on a work camp in Gujarat and fly home via Dhaka.


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I travelled from Calcutta (now Kolkata) by train, bus and ox cart to the remote village where they lived. For the few days I was there, I was adopted by the entire community, feted for my white skin and fed rice and dhal for breakfast. I helped broker a marriage in the next village, but otherwise tried not to do too much damage. Absorbed into a training course for community workers that was going on at the time, I spent a lot of time clueless, although I did think up a few words of Bangla that weren’t too radically different from my extremely basic Punjabi.

I moved on to Dhaka by bus and ferry with the manager of the NGO supporting the village and his family. Although generous hosts, I felt uncomfortable in a middle-class household with young boys as servants, in an affluent area with more 4x4’s from foreign NGOs on the roads than rickshaws, although I awarded myself some street cred for staying with a local family. (Yeah, my 20s were rife with that smugness or snobbery, and I can’t be sure it’s been completely eradicated from my character.) Despite the threat of damage to his reputation by our being let loose unchaperoned, my host recruited his younger brother to show me around the capital.

I’d just reached my teens when East Pakistan became Bangladesh, so at least I’d heard of the independence war. But I hadn’t known about the campaign against the imposition of Urdu as the national language (in a part of the world where everyone spoke Bangla) that preceded independence by twenty years. The assassination of six students in a 1952 demonstration is commemorated on 21 February every year on what is now known as International Mother Language Day. Being in the capital on the actual anniversary, and visiting the Ekushey Book Fair, I saw how fundamental this is to the national identity (although there’s a note of cynicism in an entry in my diary about how ramping up the outrage at external repression served as a distraction from the atrocities of the contemporary dictatorship).

I can’t listen to the commemorative song without getting teary. (Do persevere beyond the traffic noise at the beginning – it’s an excellent modern recording, far superior to the cassette tape I bought in the country all those years ago.)


A couple of years later I was back again, although this time only overnight. I was en route to Nepal once again the same airline, this time in the company of my brother, and hadn’t expected a stopover. But when our plane made an unscheduled stop in Paris to pick up the president, we arrived too late in Dhaka for our connecting flight. With an afternoon to fill and too jetlagged to organise our own itinerary, we hired a guide with the help of the hotel for a tour by tuk-tuk. Although my diary records my excitement at revisiting places I recognised – parliament building, central mosque, new market, university and monument to the language martyrs – and I liked our guide, I know I missed my friend, Mafouz.

What’s that? Did you say you don’t visit my blog for my memoirs? Not even if, with references to wheeled transport, I can blame Irene Waters’ nobbling about times past? Then let’s move on quickly; I wanted to give you a taste of the nostalgia from which I approached this short story collection, but I seem to have got lost in nostalgia for my travelling youth.

Of the ten stories, two feature the liberation war, one is set against the backdrop of the book fair and a few address the challenges of subsistence living, but the predominant theme is the universal one of relationship tension. My favourite, “The Weapon” by Syed Manzoorul Islam and translated by Arunava Sinha, was about the battle between good and evil in a character named after a foodstuff he’d never tasted (although I quibbled with the translation of Ponir as cottage cheese, when it’s more like feta). I loved the voice, with a playfully meddling anonymous narrator, a post-modern touch which, in less skilled hands, I might have found irritating. It also had a surprising, but perfectly foreshadowed, ambiguous ending. I also enjoyed “Helal Was on His Way to Meet Reshma” by Anwara Syed Haq and translated by Marzia Rahman about a man crossing the city for a rendezvous with a woman he considers his lover, although there are hints he’s really her stalker.
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It’s great to find these stories published in the UK. Thanks to Comma Press for my review copy.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
6 Comments
Charli Mills
22/2/2017 12:41:00 am

Reviews, fiction and even memoir -- I come here for the writing that is engaging and thought-provoking. I've not experienced such cultural trips as this, but even the small inroads to Navajo and Flathead reservations remind me of the wonder such trips evoke. The song is beautiful, especially when all the voices join in. Interesting book!

Reply
Annecdotist
22/2/2017 10:07:52 am

Thanks, Charli, and I think there are similarities in your journeys into Native American territory, especially with white skin identifying us with the colonisers. It’s funny from me how I treasure my experience of cross-cultural travel but have absolutely zero inclination to do it again.

Reply
Irene Waters link
23/2/2017 08:43:34 pm

What wonderful experiences. I can understand you having no desire to do it again. We feel the same about the Pacific. I am glad that I am to blame for you passing on such a rich story from your past told in your captivating style. Those wheels are certainly different to any others that have been mentioned so far. I don't expect any other ox carts or tuk tuks. The song is moving from the time the guitar player hit his first note and each progressive instrument added to the poignancy. It is good that the UK is publishing books from other countries and the book of short stories sounds intriguing.

Reply
Annecdotist
24/2/2017 06:42:00 pm

Thank you Irene. I think your adventures in the Pacific were much more exciting than mine, but both seem to belong to a different life stage. I think you did have a Indian contributor to Times Past once, so maybe someone will roll up on a tuk tuk up before the deadline! And thanks for listening to the song and glad you found that poignancy too – how to tell me how much is through the tune itself or through the having been there.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
4/7/2017 11:29:02 am

Lovely post, Anne. I come willing to accept whatever you offer or, as Charli says, "writing that is engaging and thought provoking". I have never had travels like yours. What an education they would have been. Sadly, I lacked those opportunities for learning. I thoroughly enjoyed the music video and wasn't aware of the history behind it , so felt quite moved by the emotions of the participants (rather than audience). The book of short stories does sound interesting, and there is often more time to fit in reading a short story or two. :)

Reply
Annecdotist
4/7/2017 06:47:28 pm

A disadvantage of living in Australia is how hard it is to travel, being so far from anywhere else. The Australians I met while travelling were usually on the road for several months or years, which is quite a commitment (and expense). I’m glad you found the music moving, and your comment gives me the chance to listen to it again.
If you’re interested, Comma does a whole series of short story collections from cities around the world, but this is the only one I’ve read so far.

Reply



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