It was still 11 in the morning. But I felt the urge to know what was happening to our lunch. "Let's start the cooking," I suggested to Morshed with the hideous feeling that the peeled onions, green chillies, limes and garlic were all that was there for meal. There were no real ingredients like chicken and other things that Morshed promised the night before.
But I was desperate, I always suffer from the idea that the world is going to run short of food very soon and I will starve. I kept repeating the same statement 'Let's start cooking' every five minutes. Finally Morshed budged and opened a polythene bag to produce two turkey-sized chickens and about 5kg beef. We bellowed to greet the sight. "Javer," Morshed yelled. "Start food preparation." To our glee Javer set down to cleaning the chickens. But the hope for a decent food did not last long as suddenly somebody screamed: "We are sinking." In our gust of fun and frolicking, we did not notice that the boat was slowly sinking as water gushed inside through a whole. The brown muddy water was sloshing under the wooden floor and soon it brimmed over to wet the mat. Suddenly, the Ashar Tori (Boat of Hope) turned into a doomed Titanic. As hope vanished fast, we were thinking of jumping into water and so slipped into life jackets. But Morshed kept his cool, or least he tried to show some courage. "Javer," he screamed. "Irrigate the boat. Pump out the water. Quick." Soon, we all were trying to scoop up water with saucepans and jugs and whatever we had and throw it back into the river. But the task became even more difficult as the wooden floor started snapping because of the great flurry of movement. Someone's leg went right through the floor to hit the hull. Still we did not let up and half an hour later, the boat was again floating comfortably. And as soon as the imminent danger was over I went back to my original nagging "Let's start cooking". But Javer was too busy irrigating the boat. And Morshed was looking yonder in a philosophical mood. Others, it seemed, had stones for breakfast. After a few more minutes of non-stop nagging, I remembered the maxim 'self help is the best help' and so started cleaning the chickens and mixing spices. Finally, Morshed seemed to have embedded with some pity for me and ordered: "Javer, fire the stove." A great amount of activities followed the command. Javer started pumping up the stove cylinder for a while and then put a match to the hissing gas. A wobbly fire started and everybody jumped up in excitement. The meat curry pan was placed n the stove. "It will take years to cook at this rate," I complained to the deaf years of Morshed who was by then singing and dancing with others to the beat of the Dhol. The boat rocked violently from side to side but nobody seemed to care any more.
It worked and the stove started hissing out an invisible fire. And the meat started boiling. We were now on a more quieter part of the river and the scenery became pleasant. The cattle herders washing cows in the water, fishermen uncoiling fishing nets, villagers carting vegetables to market, farmers working in the fields. Another hour passed and we were again marooned with the boat filled with water. We knew our wish to travel up to Mawa is now all but a dream. We need to anchor somewhere fast. One small island came into view and passed us before we could make up our mind. The second one we did not miss. It's a nice, small island with a brick kiln standing at the far end. It had a big grass-covered field, perfect for a game of football. After all this excitement the solid ground felt good. Toufik and Nuru were somersaulting with joy. We decided to explore the kiln. It is huge thing, the chimney shooting at least 100 meter into the sky. The furnace is off now because of the monsoon. The bricks piled high and the deep, long gully give the look of an ancient Roman city. We climb on the brick hill and look across the river -- a terrific panorama! But more alluring was the river with its pollution free water. So we splashed into it and swum. And then we used the life jackets as floating mattress to lie on them and float carefree. Life seemed beautiful as we bobbed on water. But then we remembered that we need to have lunch and the chicken meant for barbecue was still lying unattended. "Don't worry. It won't take ten minutes," Morshed said as he refused to fire the grill. Rather he happily started fishing with his Gamchcha, using it as a dragnet. But the only catches he had were the Puti and small prawns. So he gave up in the end and instead concentrated on his barbecue. But before that Morshed had persuaded a woman in a slum by the kiln to cook rice for us, using the river water. The coal crackled as it caught fire and the chicken cubes sizzled. We were doing it right in the middle of the island. We virtually drooled as the rich aroma of the barbecue assailed our nose. We were too hungry to wait for ten minutes and wolfed on the chicken. The rice and beef curry were already ready and we swooped on them too. The hot curry tasted superb but we could hardly see what we were eating as tears flowed in torrents. It was already afternoon and we thought we better sailed now because no one was sure how far the leaky boat would travel. As the boat took a turn for Dhaka we climbed on the canopy and happily went to sleep, content and happy for a good daytrip. TourInfo Guide Tour Ltd's marvelous Eid offer covers two main holiday periods -- Eid-ul-filr and Eid-ul-azha. Guide offers 34 package tours to explore the natural, cultural and heritage treasures of Bangladesh as well as of India, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China. Rain in the Sundarbans. The Bengal Tour Ltd has offered several packages for the rain loving tourists. Enjoying drizzle in the primitive forest and watching tigers and deer are always a great experience. Bengal has reduced its tour price because of the off-season. New company in business. A new tour agency named Silver Wave Tours was launched in June this year to serve both inbound and outbound tourists. JABA Tours' boat trips. Japan-Bangladesh Tours has built a wooden boat following the traditional boat design of Bengal. The boat has sleeping arrangement for 10 persons and sails to the Padma, Sitalakhya and Dhaleswari rivers. Classic Tour is going to launch a campaign to target European and Southeast and East Asian tourists. Galaxi Holiday is going to launch a brochure in French, a maiden approach to enter the French market. ................................................................. © thedailystar.net 2006 |
"Don't worry. Cooking won't take more than half an hour," Morshed wanted to ignore my suggestion. 
"The stove fire is too weak," I screamed. This time Morshed, probably to avoid being disturbed by my nagging, said: "Javer. Pump hard. Pump hard."