by Farah Ghuznavi

IT WAS time to go. Sraboni took a deep breath, struggling to rein in the butterflies in her stomach that were threatening to take flight en masse. The team members were packed like sardines into the microbus, their bags and baggage sandwiched haphazardly into every available space – about to begin their long journey southwards. Sraboni turned back from her position in the front seat, and essayed a confident smile at her charges. Five women travelling together, and she was in charge! A scary thought if ever there was one...
   She was barely a month into her new job at the Grameen Bank, and heading out for a fourteen-day field trip accompanied by three Africans from the Ivory Coast – Sylvie, Verite and Felice – and Naila, an American-Bangladeshi who didn’t speak Bangla. Naila’s job was to translate from English to French the information that Sraboni would provide about the bank and its members. Since only one of the Ivorians, Sylvie, spoke any English, effective communication promised to be a challenge!
   Not that this was the only challenge Sraboni had found herself facing in recent weeks. As a graduate of a British university, returning home to work in Bangladesh, she had already experienced a degree of scepticism from her colleagues at the bank. Her youth didn’t help to counter that nor did outdated prejudices about working women make it any easier for her to be taken seriously in a testosterone-laden work environment. It was only the fact that Sraboni had completed her schooling at Holy Cross, a well-known Bangla-medium convent school, which went some way to redeeming her in the eyes of her more critical workmates; that, and her willingness to take on almost any task without complaint.
   Indeed, Sraboni was aware that a fortuitous combination of language skills and determination to work for this particular institution had got her this far. Reading about the Grameen Bank in one of her development courses at university had captured her imagination, but it had not been easy to get a job there. Luckily for her, the fact that there were only a few bilingual staff members working at the bank – that too, mostly at the senior management level – meant that she was able to create a niche of sorts for herself.
   The introductory meeting with the charismatic founder of the bank had further increased her enthusiasm for the job, but given her youth and inexperience, Sraboni remained keenly aware that she would have to earn the respect of her peers – the hard way. As a result, she had spent the last week alternating between a rising sense of panic at the prospect of making some unforgivable error during the course of the field trip, and a passionate hope that it would give her a chance to prove her sincerity and commitment. As a young female urbanite, she knew that particularly where field-based colleagues were concerned, the odds were stacked against her in terms of credibility…
   The purpose of the Ivorian team’s visit was to learn more about the Grameen Bank’s microfinance operations, with the aim of setting up a similar scheme to provide small loans for the benefit of poor women in their own country. The three women were enthusiastic about their trip, Sylvie mostly speaking on behalf of the others, who had as many questions to ask as they had ideas to share. Sraboni responded to their queries as best she could, noting that Naila was the one person in the group who held herself a little aloof.
   The trip down to Mirsarai was long, if uneventful, and by the time the team finally reached their destination, it was close to midnight. They had suffered a prolonged delay at one of the ferries, where the Ivorians observed the bustling chaos in wide-eyed amazement. As an awestruck Sylvie told Sraboni, the dense crowds of people were a telling reminder for them that they were far away from the wide expanses of the African savannah.
   As they approached the Grameen Bank office that night, the travellers were tired, hungry and a little grouchy. Not that Sraboni could afford to express any irritability in her role as local expert and cheerleader for the team. But it was one time she was grateful for the lack of a common language between all of them, since it prevented any justified grumbling from being expressed or understood!
   As they drew into what constituted the main thoroughfare of the village, a row of small wooden shops offered the comforting signs of human habitation. The twinkling lights of small lanterns hanging from the shop-fronts framed the faces of the shopkeepers squatting amongst piles of glucose biscuits in their ubiquitous pink plastic wrappers, round black wire cages holding fresh eggs, and the myriad odds and ends that made up the necessities of everyday rural life.
   The group was relieved to have finally arrived, but things were to get worse before they got better. The rambling, two-storied red brick office building was deserted and almost eerily silent. It turned out that all the staff had gone off to attend a three-day workshop somewhere. And while the manager was there, he was very unwell, his wife being fully occupied in looking after him.
   At that late hour, the office peon headed out into the inky darkness to forage for whatever food could be found. He returned proudly bearing two bunches of small, tight skinned, ripe bananas, a dozen eggs, a loaf of bread and that staple of all travellers in out-of-the-way places…a litre bottle of Coca-Cola!
   Realising that this was not the time to share with her team members her utter failure to pass a single exam during three years of domestic science at Holy Cross School, Sraboni struggled valiantly with the single ring electric stove and a frying pan that had seen better days to produce something that vaguely resembled an omelette.
   She couldn’t have done it without Naila’s help. The other woman held the electric cord for the stove, jiggling the plug with some dexterity to keep the irregular flow of power going. They were later able to admit to each other how their hearts sank each time the red glow of the electric ring dimmed, necessitating another frantic round of movement by Naila, before it gradually lit up again... Sraboni couldn’t help questioning whether so much hard work had ever gone into making an omelette, but when she saw the way her starving companions fell on the food, it made all the effort worthwhile.
   Afterwards, they repaired to their sleeping areas – in Naila and Sraboni’s case a makeshift bed on the floor of an upstairs office room, where a number of desks had been hastily pushed against the wall to make space for the mattress. A skewed mosquito net hung drunkenly over the mattress, its four corners tied to whatever could be found – a window grill, a nail protruding from the wall, a light fixture. A few faint smears of dust remained on the floor, bearing mute testimony to the cleaner’s neglect.
   Sylvie, Verite and Felice had been placed in another room downstairs, adjoining the rooms where the staff normally slept. Their room was larger and equipped with beds and clothes-racks, as well as a large cupboard – positively luxurious! But that first night, none of them noticed these details; they were all too tired to do more than fall gratefully onto their bedding.
   Sraboni and Naila awoke early the next morning. Earlier than they had planned to – because at 6:30, a man and two women knocked on their door to announce that they had come to ‘see the foreigners!’ Her city sensibilities outraged at the prospect that the Ivorians were regarded as exotic creatures on display, Sraboni wasn’t too impressed by the hour at which the viewing started either. ‘Apnader ki ar kichu korar nai, manush ke ebhabey birokto kora chhara (Don’t you have anything to do apart from annoying other people like this)?’ she snarled.
   Their uninvited visitors (who were apparently the first local inhabitants to receive the exciting news of the team’s arrival) reciprocated Sraboni’s lack of warmth with the equally hostile query, ‘Apner shomoshsha ta ki? Amra to ta-gorey dekhtey ashchi. Apnarey to ar dekhtey ashi nai (What’s your problem? We’ve come to see them. It’s not like we’ve come to see you)!’ ‘Kintu ghum thekey to uthiyechen amaderkey (But we’re the ones you’ve dragged awake)…’ she grumbled, to no avail. Their uninvited visitors clearly couldn’t understand what she was so annoyed about. Culture shock had already begun to set in.
   After a mild confusion at breakfast (where the instructions to provide boiled eggs had clearly fallen victim to a communication glitch, and an attempt to remove the shell revealed that the eggs were still raw), they settled for bread and bananas, which were to become basic staples for them over the next fortnight. At least there were many varieties of bananas to be had in rural Bangladesh!
   But a couple of days later, their luck improved; a knock on the door was followed by the smiling young household helper making his tentative way into their room, bearing a small tray. No explanation was required as the delicious aroma of fresh rotis and bhaji sent by the manager’s wife wafted through the room, invading their senses. This ambrosial fare provided some much-needed energy for the hours of walking that lay ahead, as the five of them travelled to a series of villages to meet Grameen Bank members at their weekly meetings.
   The very first morning in Mirsarai Sraboni knew that they would have to organise the logistics of travel to the designated villages, since the microbus that had brought them there would return immediately to Dhaka. She had been told that they could hire vans locally, and was both surprised and impressed that such a vehicle hire service had already reached rural Bangladesh. Inwardly, she chided herself for being such a typical urbanite. But as with the desire for privacy and the instructions for boiled eggs, this too did not turn out quite as planned.
   The ‘van-gari’ that the women ultimately set out on was a rickshaw with a flat platform attached, where passengers perched on the slightly raised wooden railings, resting their feet on the platform and their hands in a death grip on the railing where their bottoms rested. This was not particularly conducive to relaxing, or for that matter, stable travel. Added to this, the fact that their first driver was a homicidal maniac who attempted to run over every chicken he encountered (despite their concerted pleas for him to refrain from this pleasurable pastime) meant that they were all drenched by the end of the ride, the perspiration level not solely attributable to the seasonal humidity.
   Once Sraboni and her companions had mastered the skill of balancing on the railing ‘seats’ though (and had become rather more expert at ascertaining the suicidal tendencies of potential drivers), the van-rides developed into one of the most pleasurable aspects of their stay in Mirsarai. They began to enjoy the scenery, and the breezes that cooled their overheated bodies as they made their way through the vivid green mosaic of monsoon Bangladesh.
   They learned to appreciate the freedom of the van-gari and the opportunity it provided to view their surroundings (without being viewed in return) even more, after a particularly crowded and chaotic bus ride, when Naila and Verite realised that the rather narrow seats that they had been allocated meant that they were sitting directly on the fuel tank! Naila’s American sensibilities and preoccupations with safety were well and truly outraged by that realisation…
   The group started their workdays early. The traffic was in any case relatively light, and although some of the rides were long, and the subsequent walks even longer, they quickly became used to the new routine. The exercise was invigorating, and they were able to enjoy the serenity of blue skies and the emerald expanses of the surrounding countryside in a degree of quietude long lost to most city dwellers.
   To her surprise and pleasure, the branch manager one day said to Sraboni, ‘You are nothing like what I thought you would be. Usually when we have visitors from Dhaka, the women are always complaining about the heat and the distance. But every day, you have managed to keep up with us. Sometimes, I have seen that you even walk ahead!’ Though she murmured self-deprecatingly, Sraboni exulted inwardly at his praise.
   She was a little puzzled by what he said next though. ‘I have been thinking, you are all sides square,’ the manager commented. Not quite sure what he meant, she looked at him enquiringly. ‘I mean, you speak Bangla well, you mix with people well and you are also strong enough to handle the requirements of the travel. So you are good at everything – all sides square!’ It was all Sraboni could do not to beg him to come back to Dhaka with her and share this assessment of the capabilities with her colleagues there…
   After their daily expeditions, the women usually returned to their rooms in a state of exhausted satisfaction, ready to relax, wash up and unwind. When they first took up residence in Mirsarai, Naila and Sraboni had been horrified to find out that the bathroom was basically a damp concrete hut out in the backyard, where the light didn’t work, and nameless things grew on the walls. They tried not to think about the unmentionable creatures that might be lurking in the darkness... Worried about coping with bucket baths in that dank and distant outhouse, the two even resigned themselves to bathing less often than usual for the duration of the trip.
   It took just one day of walking around in the clammy heat of early May to change their minds! So much so, that they began negotiating with each other for the chance to be the first to have that once-despised bucket bath in the dark. Luckily, there was an indoor toilet, which required the relatively minor adjustment of deshi-style squatting. For the Ivorians, better-versed in the intricacies of rural living, no adjustment was necessary.
   As they gradually grew more at ease in their surroundings, Sraboni and Naila became slightly more adventurous. To their surprise, despite all the activity during the day (or perhaps because of it), once they had rested after returning from the field, they often had excess energy afterwards.
   For Sraboni, one of the most tiring aspects of the workday was the amount of time she spent talking – translating and interacting not only with her team members and the bank staff, but also the women bank members, and their families and neighbours in the villages that they visited. The last thing she wanted in the evenings was more shoptalk. Instead she and Naila discovered that the early evening was a pleasant time to go for short walks.
   The two of them would head out in any direction that they wished, enjoying the lush beauty of the countryside and pointing out the sights that they considered amusing or interesting to each other – like the clusters of lilies and water hyacinth that bloomed everywhere, or the fishermen who came to check their stationary nets, made of bamboo and mesh, that had been lowered into the water earlier in the day and left to capture whatever fish wandered into them. Both women marvelled at the fact that they had never seen so many pregnant animals! Whether it was the monsoon, living closer to nature or human intervention to boost livestock resources, signs of fertility were everywhere in rural Bangladesh...
   Strangely enough, given the Bengali tendency towards gregariousness, they were rarely disturbed or approached by local inhabitants during these excursions. People smiled at them, and called out the occasional greeting; sometimes the children waved, but mostly they kept their distance. Sraboni cherished the unexpected privacy afforded by these outings. Naila was a comfortable person to be with, and although they spoke only sporadically a sense of camaraderie quickly developed between them.
   On one occasion, they were invited into the home of an elderly gentleman, fed crisp chanachur and ripe bananas, and told to be careful during their walks. It was clear that he didn’t quite approve of two young women wandering around like this by themselves, but he unbent sufficiently to inform them that people in the area viewed them as guests, making it unlikely that they would face any kind of harassment, or serious problems.
   This reminded Sraboni of the comment made to her father by one of her cousins, Bashir, who felt that he was ‘very brave’ to ‘let her go off by herself’ on these field trips. Her father had laughed and pointed out that not only was his daughter an adult, able to decide these things for herself, but also that he worried considerably less about her safety in a village, than he would about her movements in some parts of Dhaka city! Her cousin, who had a more conservative outlook on life, was clearly a little concerned about her father’s cavalier outlook on issues related to his daughter’s safety... Sraboni, on the other hand, was just grateful that she had such a sensible parent.
   One evening, she and Naila came back from a long walk and decided to shampoo their hair. Inspired by the luminous moonlight, and the absence of the people who usually thronged the office area in daytime, Sraboni suggested that they wash their hair outside, by the water pump, rather than in the pitch darkness of the bath hut. To her surprise, Naila agreed immediately. They took turns to pump the water, enjoying the novelty of shampooing in the outdoors. Just as they were finishing up, Naila cried out in surprise, drawing Sraboni’s attention to the cloud of fireflies that had appeared, seemingly from nowhere; they stood in silence for some time, mesmerised by the beauty of the dancing lights amidst the velvet darkness of the quiet country night.
   While the fireflies had been beautiful, it turned out – more problematically – that close encounters with creepy crawlies were to be a fundamental part of their trip. As Sraboni and Naila found out to their horror when they switched on the single, naked light bulb in their room the first evening after returning from a long day of village visits. The room had an old-fashioned ventilation system, with designs carved into the corners of the walls, near the ceiling. Within a couple of minutes of switching on the light that hot, humid evening, clouds of insects began swirling around the light-bulb. And despite going after them with their sandals – and an unseemly degree of enthusiasm – it quickly became apparent that the two-legged inhabitants of the room didn’t stand a chance.
   It was like a scene out of a horror movie, and as Sraboni pointed out, they could not even afford to squeal as they went about the gruesome business of extermination, because there was a real risk that something would fly into their mouths! They learned soon enough to use that light bulb for only a few minutes each evening, for the essential task of putting up the mosquito net. Even so, the woman who cleaned their room invariably carried away a pile of dead insects each morning.
   This shared experience of insect-slaying, along with other events, helped to create a bond between the two roommates. The truth was, Sraboni had not really expected to like Naila. She had met her fair share of expatriate Bangladeshis and their offspring, and had little tolerance for those who ran down Bangladesh, while knowing all too little about their language and culture of origin. Naila, with her apparent detachment and intimidating air of cool confidence, seemed to fit the bill of obnoxious expatriate quite well – although she wasn’t as stereotypically ‘foreign Bengali’ as some of the people Sraboni had met – the ones who complained that even the Coca-cola in Bangladesh ‘just didn’t taste right!’
   The fact that Naila didn’t speak a word of Bangla, however, militated strongly against her as far as Sraboni was concerned.
   It wasn’t until what she would later come to think of as ‘the mosquito net conversations’ that Sraboni recognised that there was rather more to Naila than met the casual gaze; indeed, that she might actually be someone Sraboni could grow to like. After they had run out of superficial topics to discuss, they somehow moved quite naturally toward more personal matters – and inevitably, greater intimacy.
   Perhaps it was the darkness. The fact that they couldn’t see each other’s faces made it easier to believe that the other person might not judge you – or misjudge you – for what you were saying. The darkness felt cosy somehow, and most importantly, it felt safe. Sraboni only became aware of this instinctive sense of security much later, when she realised that she and Naila never spoke of anything very personal during the daytime. It wasn’t that either of them was trying to deny the intimacy of the exchanges that took place at night; rather, it was the sense of having a well-defined time and place where such matters could be discussed more privately.
   On one such occasion, she found herself telling Naila how she dreaded attending weddings in Bangladesh. ‘It’s such a circus, with everyone trying to outdo everyone else, showing off their expensive saris and gold jewellery. The young girls are expected to dress up like dolls, so that their marriage prospects can be enhanced. It’s like viewing cattle at the Eid markets! Nothing is left out of the assessment, from the thickness of their hair to the slimness of their figures to the fairness of their complexions. And believe me, if they fall short on any of these important criteria, someone will be kind enough to make sure that they know about it! I hate it. Most of all because this is where I’m supposed to belong, these are supposed to be my people; and when I’m in the midst of them, I feel horribly alien, completely isolated.’
   There was a moment of silence, before Naila responded. ‘But the rest of the time you feel that Bangladesh is your home, right?’ ‘Yes, of course!’ said Sraboni. ‘Well then, think about me. I’ve lived in Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Egypt and the US. A few years in each country, except for 10 years in America. I know I’m not really Bangladeshi, but I didn’t belong in any of the other countries where we lived either! You never look like the people who are from there, except maybe in the States where there are so many different kinds of people. But even there, you end up being “exotic” and “interesting,” when you just want to be normal.
   ‘You’re lucky to know who you are, even if you don’t like everything about Bangladeshi society. It’s not that I want to be from Bangladesh – there are plenty of things about this place that drive me crazy! But I need to have somewhere that’s really mine. I think everyone does.
   ‘You know, my parents never spoke to us in Bangla while we were growing up, and we were never taught anything much about our cultural heritage, or even about Bangla music or literature. Yet if my sisters and I as adults now express opinions that they disagree with, then we are told that that’s not how Bangladeshis think or behave! And now that they’ve moved back here, I realise even more clearly that I just don’t fit in. I don’t even look like a Bengali! So where does that leave me?’
   Sraboni, who had bristled instinctively at Naila’s assertion that she had no desire to be Bangladeshi, stopped to ponder the rest of what she was saying. It was true that the only thing about Naila that was Bengali was her name. She didn’t even look South Asian! She was certainly striking, not least because of her large, slightly slanted green eyes, high cheekbones and masses of curly brown hair. But this, combined with the milk white skin yearned-after by so many Bangladeshis, meant that she was almost always mistaken for a foreigner.
   Because she made no effort to assert otherwise, Sraboni had instinctively assumed that Naila was proud of her foreignness, that she had no desire to be seen as Bengali. Indeed, she had thought her arrogant to take pride in such a thing. Now she had to rethink that assumption. Clearly, Naila’s failure to be forthcoming about her origins had less to do with any rejection of Bangladesh, rather than her own sense of un-belonging. And that was clearly not something she was happy about…
   The two young women quickly became philosophical about their limited entertainment options in the evenings – reading was out, for fear of attracting the bugs, so they would sit on the first-floor veranda and look out onto the rice fields, or retire early to the privacy of the mosquito net instead. In general, they got along well, and by the end of the first week they had almost exhausted the available topics of conversation including preferences in books and music, complex family dynamics, diasporic lives and Bengali identities. Hence, much of the time thereafter was spent in companionable silence, sitting in the darkness under their mosquito net absorbing the new experiences they were having.
   Often their thoughts revolved around the lives of the women they were meeting each day, and the dignity with which some of them handled the difficult circumstances of their lives. Most impressive was the humour and resilience that they displayed in coping with everything from poultry that died of mysterious illnesses, to husbands – mostly day labourers – who took out their frustrations on the only people lower down the food chain than themselves, i.e. their wives and children.
   On one occasion, after a series of meetings where many of the standard questions had been asked (how many loans, what activities, how much profit?) and answered, (three loans; paddy husking and livestock rearing; the former reliable but low-return, the latter very profitable), Sraboni found herself unexpectedly challenging the status quo. It almost felt impolite, as if they were dinner guests who were deviating from an agreed script, but the question popped out before she realised what she was saying.
   ‘”I know you all say that it’s important to educate your daughters as well as your sons, but do you really mean it? Or are you just saying it because you know that’s what we want to hear?’ she asked the forty women sitting in separate rows in neat groups of five. There was a moment’s silence, before some of the women began laughing. Their laughter was tinged with embarrassment, as one of the more outspoken among them, sitting in the fourth row, said, ‘It’s true, if we have enough money we will educate both our sons and our daughters. But you must understand that if there isn’t enough to go around, the priority will be given to educating the son. He’s the one who will look after you in your old age. No matter how much your daughter may love you, in the end she belongs to her husband’s family.’ A number of others nodded in agreement.
   Then someone else spoke up. Sraboni had already taken note of the bright-eyed woman sitting in the back row. Although her sari was faded from too many washings and had been patched and repaired more than once, she exuded a kind of irrepressible energy that belied her too-thin figure and her tired features. Now Debi said, ‘I think that it is more important to educate your daughter than your son.’
   A murmur of disagreement rippled its way across the room before she continued, ‘In our country, girls are always at a disadvantage. If a girl is to do as well as a boy, you must make her stronger. She must be better qualified in order to be able to stand her ground. So I think that if you educate a boy up to Class Eight, then you should try and get a girl to complete her matric (School leaving exams, usually taken at the age of 16-17); or if a boy has a BA, a girl should have an MA.’
   Suddenly, one of the more prosperous looking women in the front row interrupted her. Baring her paan-stained teeth in a mocking smile, she said, ‘But you know, Debi Rani, when a wife is more educated than her husband it can lead to trouble in the home!’ Something flashed in Debi’s expressive eyes, ‘Yes, I know that very well! But if a woman is to be able to look after herself – and her children – then she needs an education that will teach her to think properly and find ways of coping with whatever life hands out to her.’ This time, nobody disagreed.
   It was some time later, while they were savouring the tender flesh of the green coconuts sliced open for them, that Sraboni found out more about the story that lay behind that exchange. Debi Rani had been born into a relatively prosperous family that subsequently fell on hard times, and she had completed her matriculation before her father was forced to marry her off to an older man belonging to the same caste; one who had agreed to forgo the large dowry that was often required to marry off a dark-complexioned girl – particularly within the minority Hindu community, where paucity of numbers meant that there were even fewer options to choose from.
   Debi’s husband had only studied up to Class Two, and was convinced that educating girls was a waste of time and money. His wife disagreed, and no amount of beatings or abuse could convince her otherwise. After failing to persuade her husband that it would be better for their poverty-stricken household to limit the number of children they had, Debi spent a number of years using one form of contraception or another – always followed by beatings when he discovered what she had been doing. But she remained determined that there would be no further additions to her three sons and one daughter.
   Although her marriage had meant that Debi was forced to relocate to the village from the peri-urban town where she had grown up, she tried to make the best of the situation. Enterprising and intelligent, she was one of the first women to form a group in order to access loans from the Grameen Bank. Her income, drawn from trading in vegetables and rearing milch cows, was critical to the survival of her family; and some months she earned more than her fisherman husband – much to his frustration, since she was ‘just a useless woman.’
   Even more impressively, she had managed to tutor her three sons herself; so effectively, that every one of them had won the government scholarships on offer in Classes Five and Eight. For her daughter, who was the youngest, she had the biggest dreams – and would no doubt face the biggest obstacles. But at least all three of her sons were supportive of their mother, the eldest willingly taking on the responsibility to tutor his little sister. Sraboni could only hope that her association with the bank would enable Debi to realise at least some of her aspirations.
   While the working days were long and sometimes tiring, each group of women they talked to threw up new ideas and impressions for the visitors. Not to mention challenges: such as how to cope with the overwhelming hospitality that they met with during their travels, without offending people by rejecting food or drink offered to them – or conversely, taking something from people who were far worse off than themselves.
   This didn’t seem to be an issue for the bank staff, since they observed the rule about not accepting any gifts from bank members – even food or drink – fairly strictly. Sraboni couldn’t help thinking that this must be one fallout of the inevitable clash of cultures, when the rules of microfinance-based development programmes met long-held rural traditions of hospitality!
   In the end, their group operated on a case-by-case basis, accepting the occasional tender green coconut or the offer of a handful of muri. But they steadfastly opposed the slaughter of the elderly rooster proudly volunteered for their lunch on one occasion, though the rooster must have thought its time had come during the initial discussions, when the children of the house chased after it as their elders argued with the bank staff over the rooster’s fate. Nor was anyone averse to a little emotional blackmail, Sraboni noted with amusement, as the villagers protested that their offering was being rejected because they were ‘just poor people, after all.’ In the end, an amicable truce was reached, and balls of puffed rice and molasses passed around between all present.
   After the seriousness of the issues raised by their village visits, the evenings spent at the area office with her team members provided some welcome humour to lighten Sraboni’s days; although some things were only funny in hindsight. The insect encounters reached their zenith one evening, when Naila and Sraboni were introduced to yet another aspect of Bangladeshi social norms. They had been lying underneath their mosquito net after the usual killing spree, and having a desultory conversation in the darkness. After some time, they became aware of a strange clicking sound, which appeared to be getting progressively louder. Sraboni said, ‘Do you think it’s an insect? It’s that kind of sound...’ ‘But how could it be? We killed everything!’ said Naila, ‘Besides, all the windows are closed now, and the light is off. How would it get in – and why?’
   They tried to ignore it for a while longer. But the clicking seemed to reach a deafening volume, and finally, Sraboni emerged from the mosquito net to switch on the light. Because the sound had been coming from somewhere above them, she looked at the ceiling. But there was nothing there. As she continued scanning the room, her eyes suddenly alighted on the top of the mosquito net. To her horror, she saw an enormous beetle – literally the size of her hand – making its laborious way along the net. The clicking sound had clearly been emanating the tapping of its legs against its carapace!
   Just as she was about to warn Naila to move away from the bed, she saw her friend’s eyes lock on to the horror crawling along the top of mosquito net. The sight seemed to paralyse Naila; she froze in mid-movement, and it took a strong yank from Sraboni to drag her away from the bed. Unable to face the possibility of getting back into the mosquito net with the creature still in the room, they undertook a frantic consultation – conducted, strangely, in whispers – before realising that they would have to awaken the only other denizen of the second floor, the peon.
   That was easier said than done. Manzur, the peon, was around 19 years old, and chronically shy. In the five days that they had been at Mirsarai, all attempts to engage him in conversation had failed to yield any results; he refused to look any of them in the eye, and would usually head out of sight with a hurried, ‘Salaam-aleikum, Apa.’ He was particularly tongue-tied around Naila; perhaps the green eyes were just too much for him!
   But Sraboni and Naila had underestimated the degree of resistance that they would meet in persuading Manzur to undertake the role of gallant saviour. For one thing, when an agitated Sraboni knocked on his door at ten past eleven, Manzur asked – with a distinct quaver in his voice – ‘Who is it?’ After she had identified herself, he appeared no more willing to open up. Naila joined Sraboni outside the bolted door to add her entreaties for him to come out and help them. But he clearly suspected nefarious designs on their part, since the door remained firmly bolted and he kept pointing out that it was very late at night.
   It was only after Sraboni put on her best ‘officer’ voice that Manzur’s awareness of the organisational hierarchy kicked in and he reluctantly came out to face the two young women. ‘There is an enormous insect in our room,’ Sraboni told him, ‘I don’t know what it is, and I don’t care! It’s crawling along the top of the mosquito net, and I want you to kill it! And please remember that I DON’T want to hear that it’s harmless.’
   Having given up all hope of protecting his presumably spotless reputation, Manzur followed Sraboni and Naila obediently as they returned to their room. No sooner had he spotted the enormous beetle than he began to say, ‘But that doesn’t sting…’ Sraboni gave him no opportunity to finish his sentence, as she snapped ‘I told you not to tell me that! Just get rid of it.’
   The two women stood on one side of the room – as far away as possible from the bed – as Manzur reached on top of the mosquito net to pick up the beast and hurl it to the ground. In tried and true Bengali fashion, he then attempted to kick the beetle out of the room. But its sheer size meant that instead of the usual single shot success that would have been assured if such a practised kick had been unleashed upon a cockroach, it took no less than three kicks to get this monster beyond the perimeter of the bedroom door. The excitement over for all concerned, Sraboni and Naila returned to their mattress to conduct a suitably detailed post-mortem of the incident and agree that neither of them had ever seen anything like the giant beetle.
   Unsure how they could avoid a repeat performance from another such unwanted visitor, the two of them decided that they would use the brief period when the light-bulb was on each evening, to take a quick inventory of anything that might be crawling around the floor or the environs of the bed. They both agreed that it was their preoccupation with flying insects that had allowed the creature to make its way around the room unnoticed – that is, until its presence could no longer be ignored!
   Just as they were settling into a daily routine at Mirsarai, disaster struck. Sraboni was informed that she would be visiting the Grameen Bank-owned fish farm some distance away for reasons that were not made quite clear. Apparently, someone at head office had decided that it would be a useful experience for her to go there and see how the bank was diversifying its economic interests. Although she had no desire to leave her team and head off into uncharted territory, being both young and female she had a lot to prove, so there was no question of appearing less than enthusiastic.
   She arrived there around lunchtime the following day, hitching a ride with an office vehicle that was passing through on its way to the fish farm. The area consisted of many ponds, and the staff members lived on the premises, colony-style. After the insect epidemic at Mirsarai, where she had at least had Naila as company during the grisly killing sprees every evening, Sraboni was somewhat apprehensive about the possibility of encountering further insect hordes without backup assistance. With a lifelong phobia of cockroaches in particular, she knew she was on shaky ground.
   After meeting the manager of the fish farm, Sraboni was informed that she would be staying alone at the small but comfortable guesthouse situated inside the compound. That was all well and good, but she was rather less sanguine upon being informed that as the only guest at the time, and a female one at that, the cook at the guesthouse would be responsible for locking her in – supposedly for her own safety! – when he left each night.
   To Sraboni’s eternal shame, she almost found herself asking the manager if there wasn’t some young woman working in a staff member’s home, who could stay at the guesthouse with her at night. Luckily, she managed to bite her tongue in time, and was instead sent off to settle into her room, with instructions to present herself at the manager’s home nearby for dinner at around eight.
   If Sraboni had expected any chance to rest that afternoon, those hopes were dashed almost immediately. The staff wives – chronically bored and in search of a distraction – appeared to welcome the prospect of a female visitor, presenting themselves at her room at the less-than-social hour of half past three. But then perhaps they knew that she would be summoned for work at around five o’clock anyway…
   Being antisocial was just not an option, and there was no room in the guesthouse big enough to hold the crowd that had gathered, so Sraboni pasted on her most polite smile and emerged from the building to be greeted by about twenty-five women, and a few small children. At their urging, she sat on the swing, surrounded by her visitors, and began answering questions about Dhaka.
   It became evident all too quickly that she was the wrong kind of visitor, having little to say about shopping or fashion trends in the capital – the two main areas of interest. But it was when Sraboni was told to lift her feet on to the swing that things got really stressful. In a tone of mild conversational interest, utterly devoid of drama, she was informed that it was unwise to leave one’s feet unprotected in the grass, because both leeches and snakes were plentiful in the area, due to the preponderance of water bodies…!
   Struggling to absorb this plethora of unwelcome information, Sraboni suddenly found herself wondering whether cockroaches were equally plentiful, and attempted a casual tone in asking about it. The manager’s wife, Suraiya, burst out laughing. ‘When I first moved here, I spent weeks trying to kill the cockroaches in our flat. What a pointless battle! They breed unbelievably quickly, and in the end, I had to give up. Now, all you have to do is tweak one of the curtains and five or ten cockroaches will fall to the ground at any time… You’ll see when you come for dinner tonight.’
   To say that Sraboni was unexcited at the prospect of verifying Suraiya’s description was a severe understatement. Although she sat through several meetings that day before heading to the manager’s house in the evening, all she could think about was how she would manage to survive the night alone in a place where cockroaches ruled. The manager’s wife did not seem like a pushover, and if she had given up, it didn’t bode well.
   So that night, over dinner, Sraboni risked her nascent image as a tough working woman by asking the manager shaheb if there was anyone who could stay in the guesthouse with her. For company, security, and you know…to take care of any cockroaches or leeches that might find their way into her room. He replied in the negative, saying that the household help employed by staff members of the bank generally came to work in the mornings, and returned to their own homes in the evenings.
   But he offered an alternative: his daughter, Hasina, could stay with Sraboni at night. Embarrassed at the prospect of relying on a ten-year old for company or protection, Sraboni nevertheless swallowed her pride and accepted the offer. It was after ten by the time Hasina and Sraboni headed back to the guesthouse, situated a short distance away from the manager’s house, across a field of tall grass. A full moon cast its silvery light across the meadow as they made their way across the field. Suddenly, Sraboni’s attention was caught by faint, repeated rustling sounds.
   ‘What’s that noise?’ she asked Hasina. ‘I don’t know, Auntie,’ the girl replied. ‘But it might be the python.’ ‘What python?’ Sraboni squeaked, in horror. ‘This afternoon, there was a group of boys chasing a python near a building, but it disappeared. They couldn’t catch it,’ Hasina replied with an unseemly degree of calm. Taking her by the hand, Sraboni headed for the guesthouse at an indecent speed, hoping that the girl would not find her lack of enthusiasm for a reptilian encounter cowardly. Frankly, she was past caring – this place was just too weird!
   With Hasina’s small form resting beside her later that night – the child had been reluctant to sleep alone on the other bed – Sraboni lay sleepless in the silence of her isolated living quarters. A million thoughts jostled for space in her crowded brain, each clamouring for attention. Facing up to her anxieties, she finally acknowledged to herself how much she missed Naila and the others. In their company, she could have laughed off these worries; perhaps avoided them altogether in the midst of her reassuringly busy routines at Mirsarai.
   Aching with loneliness, Sraboni nevertheless realised that she was not ready to go home yet; she had been enjoying the trip too much – until the diversion to Joyshagar, that is! And she still felt that there was a lot left to learn and do on this field trip. No, in the quiet of the night, she realised that it was the branch office that she longed to go back to...
   The next morning, Sraboni had come to a decision: she would return to her team in Mirsarai. After spending the morning meeting group members, she informed the manager of her plans, only to be told that it was out of the question for her to leave since there was no one to escort her back there nor any vehicle available for the purpose. In vain did Sraboni argue that as an adult woman, she required no escort on her journey, which could be undertaken by bus.
   It was only after he realised that Sraboni was actually serious – and determined to go with or without a companion – that the manager grudgingly assigned one of the peons from their office to accompany her on her journey. Despite being deeply embarrassed by the inconvenience she was creating, Sraboni remained convinced of the rightness of her decision – not least because she had real work to do in Mirsarai, where the others would inevitably be experiencing communication problems in her absence.
   They had already found that relaying information from women bank members to the Ivorians was a stressful business. It required Sraboni to translate what the women were saying from Bangla to English, for Naila to then translate that from English to French (often requiring some clarifications in the process), and then for Sylvie, who was the natural leader, to ensure that the other two were following everything that was being said. Sraboni hated to think how the team members were managing now since they did not even have a fully bilingual Bangla/English speaker.
   After a seven-mile rickshaw ride, Sraboni and her companion finally reached the bus stop, where they could take a bus to Bogra town. Hasan the peon was a pleasant enough man, but he clearly thought Sraboni was a bit mad to be taking the bus when she had the option of waiting for an office vehicle in a day or two. She wasn’t bothered by his assessment of her mental health, but they were both taken aback to see that there were already twenty or so people waiting at the bus stop; it raised the worrying possibility that they might not find space in the bus themselves.
   When it finally arrived nearly an hour later, there were already a number of people travelling on the roof of the bus and hanging on at the back. Hasan looked at Sraboni enquiringly, clearly expecting her to have some sense, and said, ‘I don’t think we can get on this bus, Apa. We should wait for the next one.’
   He had not bargained for her stubbornness. ‘I don’t mind if you want to go on the next bus,’ Sraboni said, ‘But I’m getting on this one!’ And with that she positioned herself in front of the surge of people aiming themselves at the doorway of the bus, surprising herself by the ease with which she overcame her usual aversion to urgent, sweaty crowds.
   As the jostling reached fever pitch, a young man standing next to her asked Sraboni where she was going, and upon hearing her reply, suddenly grasped her by the waist and lifted her upwards to the doorway of the bus, telling the conductor, ‘She is going to Chittagong.’ Although she never fathomed what lay behind that moment of altruism, she was intensely grateful to him, because the conductor – caught off-guard – inadvertently unblocked the door for a moment, letting her slip through. She became the first passenger to enter the vehicle at that stop.
   The crush of people inside the bus was so strong that Sraboni’s bag threatened to slip away from her – not through any ill intent on the part of other passengers, but simply as a result of the inexorable movement of that human surge. As she struggled to hold on to it, Sraboni’s attention was drawn by the driver, who gestured to a spot near himself, and said, ‘Sit here, Apa, you can put your bag to one side of the windscreen.’ No doubt, like the young man outside, he had taken one look at Sraboni, recognised her anari (novice) status as a lone rural traveller, and taken pity on her.
   Relieved to actually be on the bus, Sraboni looked around herself, only to realise that she had few options other than what the driver suggested. The row of women’s seats, situated across from him, was jam-packed with men, and four or five women had taken up position on the horse-shoe shaped engine; some facing the usurpers sitting in the women’s seats, others facing the passengers in the back of the bus. In short, the only conceivable space Sraboni could squeeze herself into involved sitting on one end of the horseshoe, with her knees perilously close to the driver’s left thigh. She wasn’t excited at the prospect, but as it turned out, he made no attempt to take advantage of her awkward position.
   The same could not be said of one of her fellow passengers. This (rather large) woman sat facing the men occupying the women’s seats; back to back with Sraboni. For some reason, perhaps in an attempt to capture more of the surface area of the engine, she would every now and then direct a mighty push against Sraboni’s already shrinking form. Finally, fed up, Sraboni pushed back – hard! To her amazement, the woman began shouting at her, ‘Ei meye! Amakey dhakka dao keno (Hey, you girl! Why are you pushing me)?
   Perhaps the events of the previous fortnight had allowed her to realise certain resources that she had not been aware of possessing. Under normal circumstances, such a confrontation would have resulted in Sraboni curling up and dying of embarrassment. On this occasion however, she had just about had enough – insects, leeches, (possibly) pythons and now this lunatic woman on a bus!
   Keeping her voice considerably more confident than she felt, Sraboni replied firmly, ‘Dekhen, you don’t understand what you are doing. If I push you, the worst thing that can happen is that you will fall forward and land on those ‘gentlemen’ sitting in the ladies’ seats. If you push me, I will fall onto the driver, and we will have an accident! You tell me which is worse.’
   As soon as the words left her mouth, Sraboni began to wonder if she had a death wish. But to her amazement, the other passengers burst into uproarious laughter (displaying the well-known Bengali love of amateur theatrics), and although the ‘lady’ concerned gave her a killing look, she subsided into silence without an escalation of hostilities; nor was there any additional pushing from her side for the remainder of the ride.
   Sitting on top of an engine inhaling fumes cannot be a pleasant experience for anyone. But somehow, that bus ride to Chittagong was a positive experience for Sraboni. Perhaps because despite her anari status she felt very much in charge of things. After struggling with so many of the expected (and unexpected!) challenges thrown up by the trip, for once Sraboni was not intimidated by her lack of experience, or – heaven forbid – the potential danger of making a fool of herself in unfamiliar surroundings.
   This trip had brought a number of such moments to her, she realised; small incidents which coalesced into an awareness that she had finally grown up. She was no longer the girl who had covered up her shyness in school by cultivating a veneer of untouchability – one that had earned her an undeserved reputation for arrogance. Although she was a deeply private person, Sraboni realised that in fact she liked getting to know people – at least some people. She savoured the unfamiliar sense of liberation that that realisation brought, using the remainder of the ride to plan how she would share all her adventures at the fish farm with Naila and the others – now that the lighter side of things had become apparent to her!
   Naila had already pointed out to her that she was not the socially inept person she had always considered herself, on one occasion when they were dealing with a shopkeeper in Mirsarai town. The man had arranged for two rickshaws to transport them back to the Grameen Bank office, so that they would not have to get wet in the driving rain that had suddenly appeared out of the monsoon sky. Sraboni had thanked him for his trouble, only to receive the response ‘Thak, thak, apnarey dhonnobad bolon lagbo na – eita to Bangladesh, dhonnobad boila kono labh nai (Never mind, you don’t have to say thank you – this is Bangladesh, there’s no point in thanking anyone)!’ from the cheerfully cynical, potbellied shop-owner. Without missing a beat, she responded, ‘Dhonnobad boltey to ar khoti nai, ki bolen? Labh na hoy na-i holo (Maybe, but there’s no harm in it either – is there)!’ The man laughed out loud at her response, and she looked across to see Naila observing her with a half smile.
   ‘What were you laughing at?’ Sraboni asked her later that evening, when they were sitting alone on the upstairs veranda looking out at the rain. ‘I was just thinking that you can be quite charming sometimes,’ Naila replied. ‘You must be kidding!’ Sraboni retorted, wondering if Naila was having a laugh at her expense. ‘No, really, people like you. You’re attractive, and you make them laugh,’ Naila insisted.
   For Sraboni, this was a revelation. Having grown up as a dark-skinned, somewhat generously-built girl in appearance-conscious Bangladeshi society, she had never thought of herself as attractive, let alone charming! Life was much easier for the fair-complexioned, slim girls like Naila – with or without the green eyes and high cheekbones.
   She didn’t realise she had voiced that thought aloud, until Naila responded. ‘I wouldn’t say that you’re conventionally pretty, but you grow on people. The longer they know you, the more attractive they realise you are. That’s not a bad thing. It’s better than people taking one look at you and deciding that they know all about you, just because you fulfil a certain stereotype!’
   Sraboni had never thought that evident beauty such as Naila’s could have any drawbacks, but this made her think twice. Perhaps Naila was right – there were worse things than being the kind of person that people gradually grew to like and find attractive. Thinking about Naila made her realise that she was looking forward to seeing her friend again. How strange, she thought, she had expected to be missing Dhaka by now, but in fact she was missing the gang at the Mirsarai office instead…
   It was some time later, after reaching Chittagong, that Sraboni finally understood why the bus conductor had refused to let her pay for her ticket, insisting that it had ‘already been paid for.’ The dutiful Hasan, unable to get inside the bus, had somehow found himself a place on the roof, and paid for Sraboni’s ticket along with his own, from funds provided by the office.
   It was in Chittagong itself that she and Hasan finally parted ways. Sraboni’s determination to get on the bus had finally convinced him that she was indeed capable of looking after herself! So once he had accompanied her to the place where tempo-drivers picked up groups of passengers, and they had negotiated a rate whereby she could have a tempo to herself up to Mirsarai, Hasan saw Sraboni off with a smile and a wave.
   As for Sraboni, she finally relaxed, luxuriating in the space normally shared by eight or ten passengers. Because the vehicle was open on three sides, it allowed the air to come rushing into the interior through the gaps in the railings, bringing with it a wonderfully welcome sense of relief from the mid-afternoon heat. Within minutes, the cramped bus full of overheated bodies was a distant memory for Sraboni.
   As her journey progressed, she gave herself up to the pleasurable sense of freedom, and found herself laughing out loud at the puzzled expressions of people standing on the sides of the highway, who were clearly wondering why the tempo was driving non-stop with only one passenger. The tempo driver seemed to have been infected by Sraboni’s exultation, dramatically yelling and waving aside those who signalled for him to stop, as he zoomed ahead at full speed.
   She was almost there, Sraboni realised, and how good it would feel when ‘almost’ became ‘actually.’ It had been a long journey back, and it felt as though she had been away for far longer than it had been in reality. Enjoying the sensation of the wind against her face, and gazing out at the brilliant green of the surrounding paddy fields, Sraboni finally acknowledged to herself the unmistakable sensation of homecoming she felt, unexpected though it was, as the Mirsarai branch office drew ever closer…