Quirky Drik
Wanna know why I love working at Drik?
The people are just different…
For not apparent reason, people just burst into song… Seriously! They start singing right in the middle of nowhere… They could just be stoning… or taking a pause from a conversation… And then a song comes to their mind and they sing it out…. It’s happened several times! Different people each time… And the best thing? No one else seems to mind at all! I’ve promised myself that I’m going to record down everyone’s singing voice… just for kicks… And I think I’m gonna try it out myself sometime too!
Cricket is like this big thing in Bangladesh… Whenever Bangladesh plays, the majority of the Drik ppl would just disappear from their workstations… Nowhere to be found… But if you’re good enough to find the one room in Drik with the biggest tv… They’d all be there… Staring at the screen… Giving it their undivided attention… cheering on their team whenever there’s a hit… It’s quite funny to watch them watch cricket actually… (Reminds me of whenever there’s a big soccer match on tv back home…) I don’t get the game though… Do you know that it can go on for a week? And each day, it can go on for 7 hours?? Talk about stamina…
Drik people love to make jokes and stuff… I would know…I’d been the brunt of most of them… (Interestingly, such things don’t change no matter where I go…oh well!) Got some examples…The back of my maroon jacket says “since 1948”, so people say “Gwen, you’re born in 1948? That’s so old!”…the comeback is “No, only the jacket is that old… would you like to smell it?” There’s one where everyone says I behave like a little girl… only slightly older than Tutul’s son Raiyan… I’ve learnt the Bangla phrase “Ami boro may”… “I’m a big girl”… Just waiting to use it…
The new guy at Drik, Syeed, multimedia teamleader after Siraj, has been trying to trick me into believing that certain Bangla phrases mean something else in English… It’s been pretty confusing because I know enough of Bangla to know that he’s lying… So I just tell him, I don’t understand anything he’s saying cos I don’t understand bangla… “ami Bangla bolte pari na” … Need to learn to say “liar” in Bangla and maybe “I can’t hear anything…something flew past my ear…”… I have a feeling that if I keep this up, I’m gonna have a pretty good vocab of Bangla words… haha!
Oh and there’s the whole conspiracy of my boss wanting to make me learn bangla faster by never translating anything he says… Think it caught on to a few more people… My retort? I start speaking in Mandarin… and I refuse to translate until they do… Haha!
Yup, working at Drik has been great fun so far… They really take care of me… I wanted to go for a walk during lunch… When Nazrul heard, he came along with me… And brought me to Shonko Bajar… Near Drik… Where he bought bananas and bread to eat cos he didn’t want to eat the food at Drik Café… I got 2 bananas just for walking with him! (Did you know? It cos Tk2 for every banana… I think rickshaw drivers are at a losing end… they work so hard to ride 3 girls with heavy bags to Drik from Road 32… and they get a measly Tk6… The banana seller got Tk8 for 4 bananas! Think the rickshaw drivers should just quit their jobs and sell fruits…)
And you know what? I’m quite proud to say that I am confident enough of my knowledge of the streets around this area and of Bangla to be well equipped to go around on my own… I can hail a rickshaw… Tell the driver where I want to go… Bargain (doesn’t always work though…) & Stop exactly at my destination… At drik café, I can order food, and tea and pay… I even learnt how to compliment Jabar… the clever boy working there… Shopping… No problem there… Most shopkeepers can speak English… At least enough to get the right sizes and even get a new piece… And the shops I go to give fixed prices so I don’t even need to worry about bargaining… So yeah… I can pretty much go around on my own without much worry… “Chalak May!” (Clever Girl!)
Okok… Just a last bit for Rajib, my very patient Bangla teacher… (I know he only reads bits of my blog where I talk about him…) So, it’s a good thing that he’s really nice and helpful with teaching me bangla phrases… Otherwise I would just be stuck with “donnobud” (thank you)… I promised I’ll try to recall my Flash… so that I can teach him.. He’s been bugging me since the first week of Jan I think… but really… “ami Flash jani na” (I don’t know Flash)…Still trying to get out of it…
Yup... Quirky Drik... Even quirkier people in Drik... =)
The people are just different…
For not apparent reason, people just burst into song… Seriously! They start singing right in the middle of nowhere… They could just be stoning… or taking a pause from a conversation… And then a song comes to their mind and they sing it out…. It’s happened several times! Different people each time… And the best thing? No one else seems to mind at all! I’ve promised myself that I’m going to record down everyone’s singing voice… just for kicks… And I think I’m gonna try it out myself sometime too!
Cricket is like this big thing in Bangladesh… Whenever Bangladesh plays, the majority of the Drik ppl would just disappear from their workstations… Nowhere to be found… But if you’re good enough to find the one room in Drik with the biggest tv… They’d all be there… Staring at the screen… Giving it their undivided attention… cheering on their team whenever there’s a hit… It’s quite funny to watch them watch cricket actually… (Reminds me of whenever there’s a big soccer match on tv back home…) I don’t get the game though… Do you know that it can go on for a week? And each day, it can go on for 7 hours?? Talk about stamina…
Drik people love to make jokes and stuff… I would know…I’d been the brunt of most of them… (Interestingly, such things don’t change no matter where I go…oh well!) Got some examples…The back of my maroon jacket says “since 1948”, so people say “Gwen, you’re born in 1948? That’s so old!”…the comeback is “No, only the jacket is that old… would you like to smell it?” There’s one where everyone says I behave like a little girl… only slightly older than Tutul’s son Raiyan… I’ve learnt the Bangla phrase “Ami boro may”… “I’m a big girl”… Just waiting to use it…
The new guy at Drik, Syeed, multimedia teamleader after Siraj, has been trying to trick me into believing that certain Bangla phrases mean something else in English… It’s been pretty confusing because I know enough of Bangla to know that he’s lying… So I just tell him, I don’t understand anything he’s saying cos I don’t understand bangla… “ami Bangla bolte pari na” … Need to learn to say “liar” in Bangla and maybe “I can’t hear anything…something flew past my ear…”… I have a feeling that if I keep this up, I’m gonna have a pretty good vocab of Bangla words… haha!
Oh and there’s the whole conspiracy of my boss wanting to make me learn bangla faster by never translating anything he says… Think it caught on to a few more people… My retort? I start speaking in Mandarin… and I refuse to translate until they do… Haha!
Yup, working at Drik has been great fun so far… They really take care of me… I wanted to go for a walk during lunch… When Nazrul heard, he came along with me… And brought me to Shonko Bajar… Near Drik… Where he bought bananas and bread to eat cos he didn’t want to eat the food at Drik Café… I got 2 bananas just for walking with him! (Did you know? It cos Tk2 for every banana… I think rickshaw drivers are at a losing end… they work so hard to ride 3 girls with heavy bags to Drik from Road 32… and they get a measly Tk6… The banana seller got Tk8 for 4 bananas! Think the rickshaw drivers should just quit their jobs and sell fruits…)
And you know what? I’m quite proud to say that I am confident enough of my knowledge of the streets around this area and of Bangla to be well equipped to go around on my own… I can hail a rickshaw… Tell the driver where I want to go… Bargain (doesn’t always work though…) & Stop exactly at my destination… At drik café, I can order food, and tea and pay… I even learnt how to compliment Jabar… the clever boy working there… Shopping… No problem there… Most shopkeepers can speak English… At least enough to get the right sizes and even get a new piece… And the shops I go to give fixed prices so I don’t even need to worry about bargaining… So yeah… I can pretty much go around on my own without much worry… “Chalak May!” (Clever Girl!)
Okok… Just a last bit for Rajib, my very patient Bangla teacher… (I know he only reads bits of my blog where I talk about him…) So, it’s a good thing that he’s really nice and helpful with teaching me bangla phrases… Otherwise I would just be stuck with “donnobud” (thank you)… I promised I’ll try to recall my Flash… so that I can teach him.. He’s been bugging me since the first week of Jan I think… but really… “ami Flash jani na” (I don’t know Flash)…Still trying to get out of it…
Yup... Quirky Drik... Even quirkier people in Drik... =)
posted by thebemusedphotog @ 10:30 PM
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