20. TRAVEL STORIES. Meeting a Bangladeshi raconteur

 April 28, 2018

The Bangladeshi raconteur

He is in his late 30s, slim built and sharp-eyed. He invites us to visit his motherland to see his big farm. It has animals such as  milking cows, hens laying eggs, ducks eating snails in the padi and 3 types of fruit trees.  Here are some anecdotes from him.  

1.  The mother's police.
In this farm managed by his mother, there are 7 large-bred German Shepherd dogs. In the daytime, these dogs would go outside the farm to scavenge and roam but they would be back in the evening to patrol and protect the farm and mother.

1.1  During one thunderstorm, the dogs barked. One of the dogs that is close to his mother barked and gripped his mother's sleeve to get her to the door. The mother went out to investigate. There were some intruders who apologised and went away.

1.2  When he visited his mother, the dogs would not permit him to enter the house unless the mother came out. 

1.3  "My friends always ask me which of the 2 women in my house was my wife - the slim one or the fat one since my mother looks around my age of late 30s. They would invariably get it wrong. My mother is the slim one as she has to work hard managing the workers in the farm."

"Was it an arranged marriage for your mother?" I asked as I presumed his mother was married in her 20s.
"How do I know?" he replied. "I was not born when she was married!"
His mother married at 12 years of age, a practice now disallowed in Bangladesh.
He has this tendency to make the other person regret asking him questions or doing something awkward as he would not stop laughing.

2. Crying tiger
He related a story about a Blangadeshi man shouting "help me, help me, there is a tiger attaching me!"
Villagers rushed to help him but there was no tiger. This man repeated 3 times. At the 4th time, a tiger came and he was eaten.

"Little Red Riding Hood story," my host said. Actually it was the "Boy who cried wolf". I was polite not to correct her.  

3. Fate
"Accidents can occur anytime" he said. "Life is transient and when we die is fated". So do not be afraid to do the right thing. God will help you. .