Bangladesh history - I wasn't there at the time, but from today's perspective it seems ludicrous that the British could make Pakistan one nation out of two completely separate geographic areas. I grossly over simplify.

First came the violent struggle to be able to retain Bangla/Bengali language as the primary language in the area, 1952,  (Bangla-desh = land of the Bangla people) over which there was violent struggle and many died (Muslim and Hindi) and then came the Independence struggle from Pakistan (1971) over which many more died (Muslim and Hindi).
These two events are very important to the Bangladeshi and Bert's colleagues at SEAF and the young man appointed to be Felix's and my guide on Monday were clear that the FIRST things we had to see were the two big monuments to the martyrs. 

I believe the the Monument to the Independence Martyrs  lies approx 20 miles outside the city center.  It took us two hours at 8 a.m. to get there.  The drive was fascinating.  The spectacular monument is next to spacious university grounds and the whole park is a restful and well-kempt spot. Each of the pillars was built to honour one of the leaders who died in the struggle.  The park will be full later this month for annual celebrations.

From this monument we headed back into the city to see the Martyrs of the Language Struggle movement which involved another two hours of colourful travel.  This monument looks less visited today, but for a while was almost a pilgrimage destination for Bangladeshis. 

Our guide subsequently took us to look at the LalBagh Fort, a 17th century red sandstone fort in lovely gardens in the old town, but clearly the new Bangladesh history was what was important.

Bert and I have a habit of looking for novels from the area we are visiting.  I walked into two of the Khan Market book stores and asked for recommendations of English translations of contemporary Bangladeshi novels:  much head scratching. (It turns out that there is a much contemporary Bangla literature, but it isn't translated.)  The only thing they could come up with was a novel called Shame.  I took it and later found out that the writer, Taslimi Narin, is banned (person and writing) in Bangladesh.  She is a strong feminist humanist and writes bluntly about the horror of religious extremism.   Shame is a hard read as it deals with the Muslim persecution of Hindi Bangladeshis after the destruction of a mosque in India in 1992 .  I didn't take this book with me to Dhaka.  Instead I very much enjoyed reading Bert's pick of Rabinadrath Tagore's The Wreck.  It is old, but much of the village life today is still as it was when he wrote it.  


The Wreck is the second example I have run into of stories where a 'bad' character doesn't get his deserved desserts.  It reminded me of "It's a Wonderful Life" when the horrible banker isn't brought to justice for his mean theft of the money.  I have a slight sense of outrage and dissatisfaction that everything isn't straightened out neatly by the end.