Rongpur - Day 1

My uncle's house in Rongpur.

When I was asking him to pose for a picture, I told him, "Imagine you are a jomidaar (landlord) and pose like that." Very indignantly my uncle turned to me and said, "What do you mean imagine? I AM a jomidaar!"

The view of the house's main courtyard from inside.

In the whole village this is probably the most developed house (or so the guardian of the house tells me). Apparently people when they go by, stop and come to look at the house.

I am just glad the washroom is comparable to those fancy ones in Dhaka. Wherever I go, the washroom has to be good. Before, I had to, er, calculate and plan bathroom breaks for the whole trip.

The multi purpose pond behind the house.

My uncle had let some fry in the pond, the guardian used to feed them daily. Now those fish are really huge (pangash, ruhi, mrigel, kaatla, silvercup and more). And undoubtedly no food beats the taste of freshly slaughtered chicken and fresh caught fish, prepared and cooked right there with those unique spicy style that Rongpur people have.

This hen found this corner of the house, gathered some straw and built itself a nest. Now it spends its time here, incubating the eggs. My uncle says they are almost ready to hatch.

Other hens run around the tube-well. My uncles have built a tube-well for every residence in the village.

It was hard to refuse to drink water at every house we visited, but man - the water had a terrible taste! It was pure and clean alright, after all it's fresh spring water, but in these parts the water has a lot of Iron in it (Fe). They give the water a ... unique ... taste, not to mention a slight reddish tinge.

This hen called her chicks to her as soon as she saw me. And the chicks responded immediately to the cry, gathering under her as fast as you could say snap. "If only my kids listened to me that well!" My aunt complained.

The hen and I eyed each other for a moment. Seeing that I was not moving, she cautiously led her chicks, single file, to some other place, keeping maximum distance between as as much as possible.