In my tailor’s backyard there are two cages with moyna. These birds are amazing. They can reproduce almost whatever you tell them and in general the range of the sounds they can make it very impressive. And they are very pretty as well!
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BANG-BANG! ladesh
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Category Archives: Dhaka
Happens sometimes
Beautiful Dhaka
Wedding. Last day
Like I said, I don’t really understand the logic of the wedding celebration in Bangladesh yet (it seems also that it varies a lot), but I have visited the final celebration.
First, as usual, getting properly dressed with the help of the local
And that was the first time I saw the bride! Woo-hoo!
The most interesting part of the wedding (imho) — looking at the local women
Bride getting ready (read: family is putting tons of jewellery on the bride so that she could hardly move)
And… picture taking time! (that will last for hours!!)
Beautiful henna
Since the bride has henna and kilograms of jewellery, she cannot eat by herself, therefore her family is helping her out.
This celebration, unlike the first one, was in a special venue. The food for men and women was served on different floors — ground for men and first for women. The setting from the pictures above was on the first floor.
Beautiful women
And guess what? Picture taking continues! On the screen people can see the shots from the previous days (in total, the celebration has been on every day for a week)
This is us with the bride and the groom. A bit of the context. The absolute majority of the weddings in Bangladesh are arranged and so was this one. The groom has a brother who is married to a girl and the bride is this girl’s cousin. The groom is currently living in Australia and the bride has been living in Bangladesh. A few days before the wedding it the first time when they actually saw each other (if we don’t count skype). The guy is returning to Australia now and the bride will follow him in a few months.
Happy marriage!
Wedding. Day 1
Remember the wedding invitation I showed before? Well, it was real. We got invited to the wedding in a very traditional family that is living in the Old Dhaka.
Bangladeshi wedding consists of at least 3 celebrations, but there can be more. The logic is still not very clear to me, but I’ll just tell/show you what I saw.
Bride and groom have separate celebrations and then also common ceremony. We were from the groom’s side and got invited to 3 events (only 2 of which I could attend).
This first celebration was a kind of chilled one, where women could wear shalwar kazeer (not necessarely sarees) and there was a concert! Everything started very late though and by late I mean that the concert only started around 10 pm.
We didn’t get to see the bride that day, it was only the groom and his family.
First we were getting ready — asked my local colleague and housekeeper to help us with sarees (I also borrowed the whole outfit from the colleague)
It was pretty easy to spot the wedding location
Since we got there pretty ‘early’ (around 8 pm), we were just hanging out meeting the family and taking pictures with everybody
And wondering around the house where we saw some of the presents being prepared for the bride (sarees, bangles, shoes etc.)
And got a chance to see how these locals live
Many people were there after 9 pm, but the decoration guys weren’t in a hurry at all
People waiting…
Notice that some of the outfits are made of the same fabric. That’s what they do — some friends/family members decide on the fabric for every party and they get their dresses/shalwar kameezes/sarees made of it but in different designs, of course!
At some point the show finally started!!
Around 11.30 pm we had to leave, but the concert was still going on and people didn’t start eating yet! We checked out the food though. Notice: everything was sent my the bride’s family
To be continued…
Never thought this would ever happen
My local friend is getting her degree in fashion design and asked me to be a model for her final project’s photo shoot. Me! A model! Oh my!
International Club in Dhaka
Have not seen a single gymnast.
Cricket game
Cricket is Bangladesh’s national sport. The team has been doing really well and has won 3-0 against Pakistan (which means a lot here because of the historical connections) and recently also won 2-0 against India.
I went to the first game against India and it was lots of fun. Of course I didn’t understand a thing, but everybody was so happy every time Bangladeshi team scored, so it was impossible to sit still!
We were also asked for an interview and went live!
After the game we were invited to hang out with the Indian team and some of them appeared to be quite good dancers! (and apparently they are like rock starts in India o_O)
Life here
On a rickshaw with Indonesian/Australian friend eating young coconut flesh on the way to the traditional Bangladeshi concert!
