Bangladesh Diary: A Weekend Away (Part Two)

Apologies. Didn't mean to leave you feeling sorry for me. What I should have added is that the sudden descent of sadness (as well as the surge of elation) on the road is always fleeting and evanescent. But then, you knew that all along.

I somehow manage to shake off the early gloom despite a melancholy breakfast of rubbery fried eggs, sweetened bread (not recommended) and rather bitter brown coffee. I've had better, but by the time I am out on the dusty road into town, rolling along in the morning breeze, my spirits are as high as crows again.

Today will be a day full of house visits (one which will see me return home exhausted at 10.30pm). Bangladesh is, after all, about people. The countryside can be stunning but there isn't a whole lot to look at in the towns - the architecture is pretty undistinguished, there is concrete everywhere and the roads are honking and congested. The true wealth of the country lies in its incredible welcomes, its friendliness, and its humanity. So if you don't want to get to know the people, you'd perhaps be better off in Bangkok. Or Basingstoke.

The rickshaw hits the old town of Rajshahi and we ply down narrow winding streets. The rollers on shop fronts clatter as they are raised to greet the morning. The heat is already cranking up now. In a dingy barber's shop a man patiently raises his arm while the barber shaves his armpit. A woman in a small shack at the roadside brews some tea for the men squatting around. There are loud voices and laughter.

My first port of call is J, who was our cook when we lived here. She lives in the Mission, with its tidy little church and its tended lawns. Being Christian, the people call out Namaskar, a greeting they share with Hindus and Buddhists as an alternative to Salaam aleikum. Another one of Bangladesh's minorities, the Santali people were blessed (cursed?) by the early arrival of missionaries, and have ever since been a tiny Christian community, a small island in this religious ocean, their high voices ringing out as they sing their Sunday hymns each week.

J, who is divorced, lives with her family in a small neat compound, four rooms surrounding a little yard. There are bales of hay, earthenware cooking pots, a flyblown fluorescent light. The sun is warm on my face and arms as we sit and talk. She is an outstanding cook, but at the moment is once again out of work as the Swiss natural resources expert she worked for has now moved on. She keeps an eye out for the next foreigners to move in - I promise to look out for her in Dhaka too. Will she mind moving away from this family hearth? "Not at all - first you have to earn, then you can enjoy your family..."

A duty call follows. When we lived here in the 90s, one of our team was H. An elderly, wiry man with penetrating eyes, he at first captivated us with his idiosyncratic way of speaking - cryptic pronouncements phrased in strange dated English. He would begin each new conversation with, "A thought occurs to me. May I express it?" and would signal his assent each time by gravely intoning "Exactly so." Despite auspicious beginnings, though, our relationship rolled gently downhill over the two years: differences of opinion about education, an inability on his part to accept the contributions of his younger colleagues, and an inability on our part to pass over these bright youngsters. No doubt in his eyes we were not deferential enough to his obvious seniority. And so we left on rather unsatisfactory terms. Nothing was ever said, but it was clear there were bruises on both sides.

I am therefore very surprised to learn that this conservative, traditional man has now become the Principal of the most important college in Rajshahi. On an impulse, I decide to pay him a visit and try and leave on better terms than six years ago. Perhaps what I am seeking is closure? I pop my head round the door, and there he is, at his big desk with requisite gold box of tissues and plastic pen holder, surrounded by visiting dignitaries, and looking supremely at home. Like all important officials here, he has a newspaper open in front of him and a towel draped over the back of his chair. Khaleda Zia smiles benignly down from her picture high above, as she does from every office wall in the country. If H is at all displeased to see me, he hides it remarkably well. There is a momentary questioning flicker in his eyes, but then he leaps up to greet me.

In the animated conversation that follows I have just enough time to offer a quiet explanation for my visit, and then an apology that we left things in that way. I receive another one of his piercing stares, followed by the merest suggestion of an acknowledging smile, before his attention is distracted by a hundred papers in need of signing, and a dozen hovering people wanting a word. A few minutes later we sweep out into the campus, to show the visitors around. He guides my arm gently as we walk, the students parting deferentially in front of us and saluting him. On the way, I am impressed by the relaxed way in which he speaks to people, from staff to students, and the easy way in which they smile in his presence. This is not always the way with those in authority here, and I am once again forced to rethink my perceptions of this enigmatic man.

The campus itself is from the 1860s - the same decade as my house back in Clifton, in the heyday of Empire. Still elegant and spacious, it is grand from the outside, with wide lawns and delicately wrought wooden lattice work on the balconies. Inside, though, in the dimly-lit pale blue corridors there is more of a musty atmosphere, and rotting buff files teeter in dust-filled rooms. Clerks beaver away in the gloom. Some of them look like they too arrived in the 1860s and simply forgot to leave. Or perhaps I am merely seeing ghosts.

Soon it is time to go. I feel relieved that H has been quite gracious, and it seems we are back on good terms. He asks me to sign his visitors' book, so I wait my turn after the moustachioed and rather Pompous Man next to me. PM takes up his pen and begins to write a florid and lengthy message. Over his shoulder I glimpse the words 'utmost effort and sincerity', 'left an indelible stamp on me', 'an inestimable privilege', 'sagacious service to the nation'. Dickens clearly lives on in this small corner of Rajshahi. Then, for the benefit of everyone sitting around, he proceeds to read his message out, in a booming voice. He is obviously well pleased with his penmanship.

For my part I write a more personal message, about how pleased I am to rekindle this friendship, and how relieved I am to be able to leave with a peaceful mind. H reads it intently and then nods in grave silence, his eyes once more meeting and searching mine for a moment. There is a brief unspoken acknowledgement. Not to be outdone though, Pompous Man takes the book off H. and then boomingly proceeds to read out my message too. I am mortified, but not to worry, PM soon gets tired of my inferior scribbling, and skips the personal part at the end. Instead he decides to read out his own again. No one is listening any more, but his voice sails through the room, making the curtains billow and the terrified geckoes scurry.

More visits follow all day - for each one I buy sweets, and then am force-fed copiously as we sit and talk about old friends and old times, until it is at last nightfall, and I heave my body, like a ball and chain, back to my hotel. I can face no more food for a week at least.

The fun over, I am up once again with the sunrise, and off to the bus station for the hurtling journey back to what is now my home, across the diaphanous green countryside towards the beckoning capital.

A Weekend Away: Part One