Last year I saw crow while driving through remote, wild lush green upper peninsula of Michigan. The site of crows made me a little nostalgic. During my childhood and boyhood days, crows were the only companion during those slow “everybody napping” afternoon hours. ” Ka Ka Ka” by a crow used to part of Bangladesh sound landscape. Most amazing scene were those late evening gatherings of thousands of crows gethered from all over the places. I still don’t know why they had those occassional large gtherings. Similar scenerio developed if a crow died anywhere. Thousands of crows from all sorrounding neighborhood will crowd with continuos ” ka Ka Ka..’
You don’t see as many crows in Dhaka anymore. Espeially those lazy afternoon are no longer filled by noisy crows.
The pictuture of this crow couple was taken last winter from a roof of house in Dhanmondi, Dhaka.
In my boyhood, ( Not too long ago, by the way) I, with a bunch of mates, used to walk to school!!!!! Can you imagine with current day Dhaka lifestyle, walking to school? And on my way , there was a palm tree and hanging from it, dozens of weaver nests, ( Babui Pakhir Basha). During my last several visits, I looked hard, but couldn’t trace a babui pakhir basha anywhere in Dhaka. Probably this generation grew up without having look at a single babui pakhir basha in the lifetime.
Bangladesh is changing. For Good or bad.
March 18, 2006 at 8:21 am
My last trip to Dhaka was in 2004, between April & May, and I did notice that there weren’t many crows as I remember seeing in the late 70s and early 80s. I didn’t see any of those fantastic weaver birds, there’s noticeably few of those as well, even in the countryside of Bangladesh.
Did you take those photos?
March 19, 2006 at 11:47 pm
The crow couple was taken by me. However, the weaver pictures were not mine. I couldn’t event find a weaver nest in Dhaka this time.
March 23, 2006 at 10:53 am
Bangladesh is indeed changing. And as is the case with most changes, the actual ramifications are never understood until a certain time lag. Initially, the multistoried shopping plazas were all glitter and echo … not a soul shopping. Slowly things picked up pace and most of these places are now booming. Positive economic change? Maybe. When I look at the condition of the masses, the state of the impoverished hasn’t really improved (not even statistically — but then again, it is so difficult to get a hold of accurate statistics in Bangladesh). On a separate example, imported cars coming in with close triple digit tax numbers should generate revenue for the government … but how many are really paying those taxes? — only the ones foolish enough not to have ‘contacts’
(I realize these are random disjointed thoughts…with only connection being that these are mostly recent changes in the past 10 years or less).
I grew up in the older part of Dhaka — yup, complete with Hajir biriyani and monkeys! Growing up we had to be very careful to cover up food and often we would run into monkeys in the house. That was then…over the past couple of years, I have hardly seen any on my visits to Bangladesh. Sharing a close kinship with them, I for one wish the ever increasing population in an already over-crowded city would not push out the cheeky fellas!
So, fewer crows/monkeys … less noise … less nature … I suppose time will tell. For my part, I miss the crows and I miss my monkeys.
March 23, 2006 at 11:14 am
You will get a very good glimpse of things in this article in PA http://www.prothom-alo.net/v1/newhtmlnews1/category.php?CategoryID=3&Date=2006-03-22
Interesting bit of stat — In the past 15 years, Bangladesh’s economy has doubled in size, population has grown one fourth, per capita income has gone up 1.5 times, people below poverty line has gone down from 48 to 42 percent. Food production has gone up 1.5 times and export by 5 times. …. but bangladesh has become a land of socio-economic imbalance. in 1991 , the richest 1 percent earned 10 times more than that of the poorest 1 percent. Now that difference has grown into 24 times.
Also recently there was DS series on this wide gap of resources which I will cover in a subsequent blog entry.
March 23, 2006 at 11:44 am
Good stats … is it striking anyone else that our numbers resemble the numbers that were coming out of former USSR — all economic indicators were positive but the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor were startling.
March 24, 2006 at 4:44 am
Yes yes, Monkeys. I heared all the stories of monkeys at old Dhaka. This is another Dhaka character that’s gone into oblivion.
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Rich poor gap is apparently a global phenomenon now, thanks to rampant capitalism.
About 0.13% of the world’s population controlled 25% of the world’s assets in 2004.
20% of the world’s population consume 86% of the world’s goods while 80% of humanity gets just the remainder 14%.
This link http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0908770.html will present top and worst 30 countries with rich poor gap.
And more ironically see the outrageous allocation of resources,
Cosmetics in the US 8 billon $
Ice cream in Europe 11 billon $
Perfumes in Europe and the US 12 billon $
Pet foods in Europe and the US 17 billon $
Business entertainment in Japan 35 billon $
Cigarettes in Europe 50 billon $
Alcoholic drinks in Europe 105 billon $
Narcotics drugs in the world 400 billon $
Military spending in the world 780 billon $
And compare that to what was estimated as additional costs to achieve universal access to basic social services in all developing countries:
Basic education for all 6 billon $
Water and sanitation for all 9 billon $
Reproductive health for all women 12 billon $
Basic health and nutrition 13 billon $