Valerie, you are not alone

Valerie Taylor spent her youth begging for us. I do not know how many times she had been refused or insulted, forced to stifle tears, had to return with empty hands and heavy heart from doors. She begged for the poor crippled people she took under her wings. She begged for some space to house her patients, she begged for funds for treatment and rehabilitation, she begged for empathy for the ill-fated human beings who were physically impaired and had none to go to other than Valerie.

Valerie Taylor came to Bangladesh in 1969. She had to leave Bangladesh when war broke out in 1971, but came back in mid-war to treat the affected people. From then on she devoted her life for physically impaired  people,  mostly from the poorest  end of the spectrum,  doing everything  for them  within and beyond the reach of Physiotherapy. She was granted the citizenship of Bangladesh in 1998. She adopted crippled children, she provided jobs for her patients who would have to depend on others’ mercy had there been no Valerie.

Valerie literally gave birth to CRP in 1979,  and was given two cement stores in Sohrawardi  Hospital  to house her setup. It grew, thanks to her effort, to one of the biggest organization for physiotherapy in Asia, devoted to the poors in Bangladesh who can not walk for a couple of paces. People with injured backbone, impaired legs, numb body come crawling and limping to Valerie. Valeries heart rushes to people who could help, and often return crawling and limping, injured by the  indifference.

Valerie Taylor treated thousands of bodies and hearts. As a reward to her contribution, she is literally being kicked out from the organization she built over the years.

Shafi Sami, an ex-bureaucrat of high profile, is now reported to be steering CRP to a direction of sophistication.  Patients from now on would have to pay if they want themselves to be treated. Valerie A. Taylor has been exempted from any executive duty, had been stripped of any authority that could be asserted to guide the funds. CRP is becoming a place where poors are not welcome. Soon they will not be patients any more, they will only be poor people like the Prevalerian era.

I am ashamed of what has been being done to enfeeble Valerie, for snatching away the organization she built for sheer profiteering, for using her as an icon and then throwing her to the dumps.

I want to see Valerie Taylor taking charge of her brainchild. I want to see CRP as it were. I want to see the Borghee plunderers, who run this organization for milking out profits, relieved off their duty. Donors are requested to check the current status of  CRP as a humanitarian organization.

Valerie Taylor is old, is tired, is being hounded by looting bureaucrats who draw a salary 33 times more than her, but she is not alone. We, the People, will stand in rank and file for her.

Krishnachura

Translation might suggest it to be a misnomer … why on earth would Delonix regia be named Blacktopped?

However, it might have something to do with the mythological character of Krishna [Krishna means Black], but on this connection I do not know much. Did Krishna ever had a headware, in Battlefield or Loveground, of color that firey?

However, there is another flower sporting tree called Radhachura [Radha is the woman Krishna was in love with], and it suggests a poetic mind behind the nomenclature. Perhaps a lovestruck mind divined a scene of courtship between these two, Krishna with a blazing headgear, and Radha with yellow flowers around her knotted hair. I am not sure if it was the same person naming these two foreign flowers, but what’s so wrong in harmless imagination?

Krishachura is native to Madagascar, the wonderful Island so famous for it’s biodiversity [sadly, many species have been extinct and many are still on the verge of extinction]. Krishnachura is one of the species that are now rarely scene on the island, but it took wings to many distant parts of the world because of the riot of colors it houses: a glowing crimson that could quench a pyromaniac’s thirst, and a verdant plumage backdrop to garnish the fire flowers.

Krishnachura looks stunning in Bangladeshi summer. The sky turns grayish violet, the winds give life to the plumage, and all one can see is red petals flying around. A sudden shower also streamlines the fallen petals right below the trees, forming a red line. When I was a little kid, I lived in a neighborhood where giant old Krishnachuras guarded a lonesome street for miles. I used to go for a walk with my elder sister or brother, and I felt I would never see the end of that red line.

Crescent Lake is studded with Krishnachuras. It’s one of the few spots in Dhaka that makes me love this city. Beyond Dhaka, Krishnachuras rule the highways. Bangladesh is surprisingly rich in red flowers (perhaps that’s the freebie you get when you live in the tropics). Shimul (Bombax ceiba, tree cotton) and Palash (Butea frondoza, fire of the forest) signal the advent of spring with their amazing blooms. It looks wonderful from top, especially deep in rural areas, where a hundred shades of green is jewelled with sudden red.

I have the misfortune of not being able to travel with a good camera, but I believe it would be interesting if any photographer could have a vulture’s eye view around the countryside. All one has to do is to climb up to around 50-60 meters, and there are plenty of places where you could easily climb on.

I’ll post the pictures later, I guess.

Horizon Amnesia

Jared Diamond coined this term in his wonderful book on collapses of particular civilizations, Collapse. Horizon Amnesia could be defined as the inability to perceive subtle changes to the surrounding happening gradually over a long period. Though the accumulated changes might turn out to be very conspicuous, but Horizon Amnesiacs rarely take any notice to it since they usually live in that place for a long time and get used to the infinitesimal changes. Only an outsider could compare the past and the present and point a finger to the changes.

I was pondering over a plan to keep a photographic journal of Dhaka. The city is horribly under perpetual construction, and every now and then there are some shocking new works here and there. There grows a new shopping mall where a cute little cottage sported a Mango tree, or some new foundation work wields its quills like a porcupine where people used to play Badminton. Give them a month and they turn a neighborhood into a world unseen. It’s almost impossible to fall victim to Horizon Amnesia in Dhaka.

I had (still have though) the cursed luck of having seen the unimpeded view of the city from high rooftops. In most areas it’s gruesome, filthy concrete spreading all around to the horizon, with an accentuated absence of green. It would have been more interesting if we could paint our edifices with warm colors, generating a huge mosaic.