Bangladesh Impressions By Bangladesh Summary

The impression that the poet receives from his maiden visit to Bangladesh as recorded in “Bangladesh Impressions” is that of a country divided within socio-politically and economically. There are two contrasting worlds at the east and the west of the magnificent Meghna River: one bedeviled by corruption, underdevelopment and poverty and the other basking in the glory of a globalised liberal economy. One is represented by the agro-based rural Bangladesh to the east of the Meghna River and the other by the industrial urban centres of Dhaka district to the west of the Meghna River. The poet suspects that the contrast and divide that plague Bangladesh may have a political origin. The violent ideological conflict that separates one group of people from the other may be the reason why more than a half of Bangladesh is poor, backward and is struggling to survive. The poet enters Bangladesh from the eastern front. His first interface with Bangladesh begets an impression of a landscape suffering and tottering in economic poverty, corruption, and underdevelopment. At the Akhaura Check Post, the enthusiasm with which the poet and his friend Murasingh entered Bangladesh received a serious dent as they saw the road conditions and the traffic after paying “a hundred and thirty takas” to the Land Customs Officer for permission to cross the border. There was complete chaos on the road as nobody obeyed any traffic rule. There were rickshaw-pullers everywhere and people travelled as they