Fame

I couldn’t go past a bit of Bowie when picking the song title for this blog post. Ah, fame, who doesn’t want a piece of it? And while I’m tempted to launch right into the very middle of my story which features me as Angelina Jolie (without the lips and the hair and with a bit more meat on my bones and the kids. Oh, and Brad), I’ll resist the temptation and start at the beginning.

Sonargaon, otherwise known as ‘Panam City’, is one of the oldest capitals of Bengal, dating back to the 13^th Century according to a few unreliable sources. It’s about 30kms out of Dhaka and the Lonely Planet says it is where ‘families go for fresh air on Fridays’.

Being the type of people who perk up at the prospect of ‘fresh air’, a group of us packed a picnic and battled with the local bus (won’t go on about it but was an experience all on it’s own where the irony of me attempting to read a chapter of Cultural Amnesia by Clive James was not lost) in hopes of catching this ancient capital, some fresh air, and a ‘folk art museum’ (or two) while we were at it.

As we payed our 10 taka and picked our patch of grass to set up our picnic on, it became quite apparent that between us we’d patched together a masterpiece of a feast! We had bread and tomatoes and cucumbers and mandarins and an apple and some digestive biscuits, a few carrots and even some fake dairy milk chocolate. I know, I know, I can see you all salivating, but really, this represents a comprehensive effort on all parts in Bangladesh – see how yummy it looks:

Question: were you focusing on our fabulous food then, or looking at all the people who were looking at us while we were looking at them looking at us?

I thought so.

So, yes, fame, here it is, right here. Being a bideshi or foreigner in Bangladesh automatically elevates you to the status of ‘main attraction’ no matter where you are or what you are doing. With the wonderful advent of cameras in mobile phones, it has also meant that everyone with a phone has the power to take happy snaps of you doing anything from buying vegetables (she eats!) and sitting in a rickshaw (and goes out!) to strolling down the street (and walks!) and waiting for a bus (and queues!) and…

To every celebrity out there, I apologise for the tabloid press which harass and harangue and humiliate you when all you're trying to do is have a quiet cafe breakfast after a big night out*. I shudder to think at the truly horrific photos of me doing the picture messaging rounds among teenage boys here (oh, not to mention the text that would go with it given the reputation we western women have…).

But really, it’s a truly crazy feeling being asked to stand and smile among a group of people you’ve never met before, and pose with props like getting you to wear their sunglasses, or hold their flower, or even weirder - parents seem to have this bizarre habit of forcing their very concerned looking children onto our laps or into our arms and then demanding smiles from the pair of us who are left bewildered by the whole thing. 

Maybe it’s all worth it just so I can draw parallels between myself and BrAngelina (see – I managed to sneak some kids in to make it even more authentic) … But I don’t think so. I just think it’s a bit weird and a bit creepy and on the days when I’m going through a Get Me Off This Island phase, downright annoying. I mean, at the very least people, ASK!!!

On the upside, I’ve had so many photos taken of me in the past three months I’ve completely given up on even half-heartedly attempting to look good in my own photos. In fact, as time goes on I’ve noticed I’m appearing less and less and less in photos of my own life. Perhaps soon I’ll disappear completely, and will only be found in the photo albums of South Asians I’ll never meet again?

And that’s enough on that. Now on to the actual old capital city itself. Dude, it was cool! One of the great things about being here is that no other foreigners are (Yossarian cries “Catch 22” in the distance) which also means that you see ruins and really old important stuff looking like, well, ruins and really old important stuff that people haven’t bothered to put fences around or restore or in the case of Panam City even care much that it’s even there.

A comparatively quiet streetscape

As I wandered down the main street I felt like I was either on a set for an old Western, or … in the middle of one of the most densely populated countries in the world watching a cow tied to a stake in the ground eat grass in front of a really old building decorated with pretty mosaics with very few other people around to notice my smiling face.

Ahhh, the serenity.

Mosaic tiles and a cow in the old capital

*Except to the celebrities who actually like this, of course, to them I suggest you heed F. Scott Fitzgerald’s advice; when it all boils down to it, no one wants to be Gatsby.