English Getting Politically Bengali

Today's a new day for Bangladesh as yesterday there had been an election after 7 years to mark the dawn of a new government to rule Bangladesh. Not to mention things are gonna remain the same the wolves would take a different skin to rule over the flock of sheep.

I'd been thinking of putting a few pics on use of Bengali in UK politics. Few months back it was mayor election for London and the battle heated up quite a bit. This was one of the bilingual posters that I picked up from a Bangladeshi dominated mosque. Explaining all the good reasons for voting Mayor in charge Ken Livingstone for the progress of minority, Muslims and London.


No wonder the new mayor of London is doing exactly opposite of his former mayor and undoing most of his policies. Politics! it never changes.


This photo is for the office of Labour party for Bethnal Green and Bow. The writing in the billboard is in English, Somali and Bengali. Representing the large concentration of the later two ethnic minority. Here's twist as well :) at the time of national election, the old multilingual signboard dissapeared all of a sudden and it sported a english one and after the election the old style came back with a new board.

A fuller picture of Bangladeshi New York

As I mentioned earlier a few posts earlier that a friend of mine managed to get some ghost shot of Bengali capital of USA. Here is how they look in the daytime. The big apple had been favorite destination as a starting point for almost all the alien nations making their roots to the wild west. The matter of fact same applied for the Bangladeshi community.

To all my surprise I found someone who had taken the trouble of taking detailed photograph of Bangladeshi community of New York especially of everyone's favorite hang around Jackson Heights. With his permission I'm sharing some of the photos with you lot as well. I'm giving the link to his flickr stream and his blog as well. Quite a few interesting stories to be told as well.

Mr. Elyaqim Mosheh Adam writes regularly in his blog http://elyaqim.blogspot.com/ where I found quite a few very interesting articles and his flickr profile can be accessed from this link. I would like to thank him again for permitting to share his work with others.


Rundown shop for Halal Meat & Fish

We cant survive without fish. or can we?

We get sick of leaving Bangladesh and call it sick. So here's the place :)


Or can we forget the unforgettable Farmgate ?

We need an Arong at evrey corner of the world.

And our own plaza to walk around and relax

Here's one regular grocery shop for day in day out shopping


Oh! what about Alauddin? we need that too!

Photos from: http://www.flickr.com/people/elyaqim/

Just another Dutch Bangla

Great thing about running a online bookshop is that you get to know of a lot of people whom you'd have never imagined. Over the past few years I had the opportunity to come close to a very interesting person who is all over Bangladeshi food and cooking. Although never visited Bangladesh he knows the food, vegetables and spices very particularly and too opportunity to grow a few of them by himself as well. It was a pleasure to provide him with some indigenous cooking of Bangladesh.

He was very kind enough to respond to my distress signal for Bengali billboards. He managed to find out this very interesting Dutch Bangla supermarket, which he himself made his regular destination. What a surprise!

I'm sharing the photos with you as well. Keep sending Global Bangladeshi Footprint from all over the place.

By the way, we've Dutch Bangla bank as well in Bangladesh. The first bank to take ATM to masses. I bank with them too. Love their service :)

Ghost shots of Jackson Heights

Friend of mine moved to New Jersey from India for some first hand experience of the American exposure. But unfortunately he came to the worst of all times when credit crunch has bitten the soft underbelly quite hard. So he has to zip his three month trip to three weeks and wrap it up for home.

good thing though he had a chance to pop into the big apple and take a few ghost shots of the famous Jackson Heights of NY. I'm very hopeful that these wont be the very last of NY that we would host in our site. If any of you have some daytime shots of Bangladeshi New York please do send us so.


Bangladesh PlazaEnglish school with Bangla Support

Talking sign of Royal London Hospital

This is one of the posts which I was planning to do for ages.Royal London Hospital is one of the finest medical research facilities available. This famous hospital is expanding its operation number of times and I spoke to a doctor who said by 2012 they expect to be one of the largest medical research facility in Europe.

The good thing is, this one of a kind hospital is in Whitechapel area and that is great news for us Bangladeshi people as a number of doctors and staff speaks Bengali as well. The result is Bengali became the top priority international language over here.

But as the new facilities are built for the research fellows I wonder if that advantage would remain over there as well. Here's a few shots of the current situation over there.

But never mind, go until the bottom to meet the big surprise!


This is the main reception hall. Quite a mouthful of languages around here.



This is the main bit. More fun coming with it later. Most of the signs of the old building has quite a bit of punch of Bengali.


More Examples...
And some more...




Finally this is the obvious. Chapel indeed ! We love these multifaith places. No other people ever bothers to enter except probably a stray pensioner once in a blue moon.



The Big Surprise!!!

Those who thought they've seen it all. Here it is! welcome to reality. Sylheti takes over bangla as official language. Made in Britain!

Stroll around Shadwell

I took a tour of one of the most densely Bangladeshi populated corners of London. It ranged from the back alley of East London Mosque to all the way to Shadwell. Not surprisingly there was plenty of road signs to take snaps. In fact they are so many that if I take them all then I guess even Flickr will overload :). Still I took whatever I could do in half hour. Here they comes!


Here's excellent example of butterfly effect. Nazrul finished his life with his undying love of 'Ogo bideshini'. Here it goes in foreign land a proper school in his name.





Here's a closer look into the matter. The fact though where we go we really have to mess things up! Damn it!



This is one of the demonstration of older businesses who opted back in the days to make use of Bengali to lure some local crowd through the door. Even when Bengali typefaces wasn't readily available. So hand come handy :)

A long shot to the chapel pharmacy.


"Carom Board and Mura pawa jay"

Here's demonstration of the newer trend. A very well organized full fledged business which has brought back powerful brand name from Bangladesh. Banoful is a very popular sweet franchise all over Bangladesh and they used their exposure to open up a business in London. Hope it does good against Ambala


Real sweets inside ! Yummy!
Ball games are not really welcomed around the streets of London. If you wanna play ball go in a cage and have a death match! But don't smash our windows! the're too precious.

Singapore in tune with Bangla

bangla writing on a bus
i assume it was a tourist bus. i went by myself to take some last minute pics of the merlion... as i turned a little while snapping away, i saw this. and my heart jumped. bangla! on a bus! i could've screamed.



bangla in mustafa shopping centre
serangoon plaza, sgp... the joy of seeing such flashy, huge bangla letters in a foreign land!






more bangla in mustafa
rear of serangoon plaza


Me friend lives in Sydney. She had to be in Singapore for a few months to do her higher course. She came back with a stick load of shots. After a number of hot and soft threats she just sent me a few snaps of Bangladesh. Enjoy the massive billboard of Singtel in the famous Mustafa Shopping Center. I've quoted whatever she's written in her own page.

Dubai Rocks with Bangla Mela

After quite a while some cultural kickabout from the heart of Dubai. Apparently a lot goes on there which simply doesnt make it into the mainstream. The largest home (temporary of course) for non resident Bangladeshis had plenty to show when it's culture and midea. Enjoy the shots.

Shots from Down Under

My Aussie friend Rony finally cared to move his bum and walk around for a few shots. He'd be promising me these photos for years but finally, they arrive. A friend in need is a friend indeed :)

Quite happy with the photos. Would like to see more of these ...

Spanish Bangla

I've absolutely no idea what this means!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bolsas_de_plastico/1283295995/

collected from flickr

Rise of the Roman Bangladeshis

Long gone the days of the Roman Empire but the strong economic and financial power Italy still survives. Past two decades seen an unprecedented flow of immigrants from Bangladesh to Italy. Scattered all over the country doing mostly physical labors and street side trades. Good luck champions.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ze6ke/672153127/

Election poster

what is bangladeshis when there is no groups, politics and election. we never cheat our roots!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/baizid/1678158242/

Boishaki mela:

Also not to forget, every country has it's new year and we have our moment at the beginning of boishakh. So there goes boishakhi mela!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bashiritaly/2483380768/

Euro Bangla

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rebekahnn/2105901277/

Chestnut Guy
I love peanuts all the way. That used to be my tiffin most of my school days. On the same way we see chestnut guys in London all the time specially in summer. But for no reason this chestnut guy in Rome made me feel sad....

You'd be surprised if you'd have asked him how much money he's invested to come to the country

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11995092@N07/2235755214/