Bangla in Use Globally

Bangla Food is No problemo

2009-08-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

Although we crave for fatty American fast food our own home grown cooking is unparallel in taste in many ways. That is reflected by the numerous food outlet in UK ran by Bangladeshi owners and workers.

So no wonder in the heart of desert land as well we would look for some rice and fish. Good news is someone wont have to look around too much as there is plenty of hotels and cafes other places to eat out in Mecca as well for Bangladeshis. I’m attaching a couple of typical example where the name is in Bangla, English and Arabic. Also interesting to watch the menu is given in multilingual format as well.

Now eat your heart out and show your wallet!

Makkah Mukarrama is all Bangla

2009-08-25T10:52:00.000-07:00

Sorry everyone had been busy for other stuff for a while. I had the rare opportunity to visit the greatest two islamic cities of Makkah and Madinah. No surprise the whole county is flooded with abundence of economy Bangladeshi labourer. As well as there is a thriving business community as well as a select few professionals in education, health and construction sector as well. as a whole the Bangladeshi community is a self sustaining one and there is proof aplenty everywhere. I was staying at the area of Misfalah where no one would say it's any different from any odd neighborhood of Dhaka. Only difference is some signs are in arabic too :) I'd try to give out brief commentry on the bottom of each picture as well

This is the famous Dhaka saloon. The only one unique on the crowd of Pakistani ones
If you look really sharp you may read out super tailors in bangla

Same goes for Century tailors as well

This is a Red Hot Post

2009-01-26T15:40:00.000-08:00

The use of bangla is quite at large, especially in the UK. Because of the large bengali speaking community and because of their common lack of English skills, the local govt is bound to provide necessery information in the language of their choice. As a result although there is a large community of Gujrati speaking community Bangla always gets the preference.

Here's one fire safety leaflet I picked up from our local mosque. Qutie good stuff. Sharing with all of ya.

Enjoy! But hope you never have to use it :)

More of Dutch Bangla

2009-01-21T04:42:00.000-08:00

Hey folks! Your remember my friend from Netherlands who sent those brilliant photos of a Bangladeshi departmental shop from Netherlands? Guess what! He's got more photos. As it's said a good customer service is always paid off.

Enjoy the shots! Send more photos from all around the world :)

New Road Day & Night

2009-01-01T17:37:00.000-08:00

Here's couple of snaps I took the other day on my way to cannon street.

This one is the front porch of a Lettings agency that has it's name in English, Bangla and some wired language, Russian I guess? What the hell is Russian is doing in E1? Has the world gone mental? I wish someone could explain. It's not Alaska :) We cant see Russia from here

Night shot on cannon street. Money transfer agency promoting great rate and quick remittance.

English Getting Politically Bengali

2008-12-29T21:02:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-02T10:24:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-27T23:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-17T06:08:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-09T13:23:00.000-08:00

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

2008-08-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

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

2008-07-13T04:53:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

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/

Canada Cronicle

2008-06-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

Canada is in line with australia and america to be all foreigner nation. So welcome everyone in and try to accomodate everything. With some honest try that might actually work! More on the source.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/etobicokesouth/33768991/

Sleuth on Flickr

2008-06-30T10:20:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how much stuff people do upload over the Internet these days. As you can see not much is happening for the blog for quite some time. So instead of personal contacts I had to resort flickr which is the largest photos sharing website at the moment. First 10 minutes were quite infertile but after that when I started to go more specific and more acute, tonnes of goodies started to unearth. From Singapore to Spain to Germany to everywhere. I've so much stuff that it should be able to self sustain the blog for months. ha ha ha

I think I'll update the posts sometimes unless there is a tonne comming at one go but let me give it a start for now

Singapore

Old and mysterious port city singapore always attracted flock of bangladeshi workers for the high dimand of workforce. Apparently they managed to name a little square on their roots.

Please visit the original page for quite a bit of additional information on Al-Huda bangla market

http://www.flickr.com/photos/skinnylatte/66896567/

Bangla Barbar in Sydney

2008-06-10T04:37:00.000-07:00

Someone snapped a photo on his phone from Sydney. Back home touch added to make things more attractive to the students :D

Mind remind you of this one from the other end of the world

Enjoy!

Singing the Singapore

2008-06-09T03:43:00.000-07:00

Singapore: the port of the world. The tiny port city is one of the very popular destinations for the bangladeshi workers to find a dream job. Over the years a large number of both very high skilled like the marine engineers as well as low skilled like construction worker or mechanics has moved from Bangladesh to Singapore. As a result the economics follows the demogrphics. A good number of Bangladeshi crowd has given birth of culture customized advertisement programming. Here are a few!

Thanks to blogger Tushar for sharing with us and giving permisson to share with you.

The full story here

http://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog/techants/28806873

National Multicultural Festival , Canberra 2008

2008-02-09T20:40:00.000-08:00

Sumon Mahbub bhai from down under sent me over some interesting pics. Apparently every year they do host an event which showcases the great cultural diversity of Australia. Good for them!

Apparently Bangladeshi community which are still small in number did manage to show their presence with a stall with I guess food arcade and probably some cultural programs. I'm still waiting for updates from Sumon bhai.

Until then here are some links to read further.

http://www.multiculturalfestival.com.au/
http://www.canberraonline.com.au/events/item.php?pid=3465

Labbayek form Hajj

2008-01-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

My mom went to Hajj this year. To my surprise when she came back she returned with a nice sleek Sony camera. I was so unhappy as I forgot to mention her about my website and to look for possible shots that could go with it. But anyway as I was going through the few photos she took while she was there, to my surprise I found a photo of this travel agent who's banner was in all bangla. Cool! But anyway south indians and other teasers around

So here it goes folks! Enjoy the show.

Cafe Noakhali from NL

2007-10-01T10:38:00.000-07:00

It was a pleasant surprize to find out cafe noakhali in the middle of nowhere in Nederlands. I dobut if I would have ever chance to find it out unless Mr. Sharif a friend of mine from Cyprus gave me a hint. As it appears we are literally everywhere.

Check out their website if you know dutch.

http://www.cafe-noakhali.dk/

Walking around Whitechapel

2007-09-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

Few shots from Whitechapel area, first is the chemist shop in the junction of Whitechapel Road and Valance Road, the other is in Bethenal Green road.

If someone wants to get the mood and feeling of Bengali community in UK or London, the best place to be is Whitechapel. This is one single place where everything meets its peak. The street market, next door Brick lane. Huge number of shops and residents of Bengali speaking people, proximity to the other Bangladeshi area makes it very unique place to be. When the Bengali community started immigrating to UK from Bangladesh, it was this area where many of them were settled. With time a lot of them moved to other areas and new people came in.

Enjoy the show!

Bobby of Brick Lane

2007-08-10T02:50:00.000-07:00

Brick Lane, The famous curry street! This tiny back-road was never known as the best part or the best behaved part of London. Let it be the tauts shouting for another customer in front of the curry places or in the recent past heaven of breweries and pubs.

I guess the police force of Brick Lane branch has to a heck of a job to keep the things under control. No surprise that they don't have enough time to look after themselves. This photo here is the notice board in front of Brick Lane police station. If you have a look into the closer shot, you will see that it has tried to simulate Sylheti with Bengali writing, on the same way one of the lines are flipped. Although no one seems to be bothered about it.

Whats in the Taj

2007-08-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

I am sure it will be difficult to find an educated person who doesn't know about Taj. When I say taj I don't need to say it is the Tajmahal by the Mogul emperor back in the days. But there is more taj than the taj of Agra. We are talking about the taj of Brick Lane.

It is surprising to see the assortment of collection in one store. Taj is one of the bigger departmental stores in London. Often the collection of Bangladeshi products will dwarf that of a large shop in Dhaka or anywhere in Bangladesh.

Some snaps of Taj were taken earlier this year in Brick lane.

Enjoy!

I'm sorry, forgot to take photo of the front and so

সিলিকন ভ্যালির ঢাকা

2007-08-01T12:24:00.000-07:00

Post from my cyberhero Ragib bhai,

Copy and paste of his entire post in somewhereinblog without permission :D

Jai Guru!

Original Post

ফরিদ ভাই চেয়েছিলেন, দেশ বিদেশের বাংলা লেখার সাইনবোর্ডের ছবি।

উনার জন্য ১০ দিন আগেই ছবি তুলে রেখেছিলাম। আলসেমি করা আর ক্যালিফোর্নিয়ার এখানে সেখানে ঘোরাঘুরিতে থাকায় আপলোড করা হয়নি।

ছবিতে দেখছেন, সিলিকন ভ্যালির সান্তা ক্লারা শহরের ক্যাফে ঢাকার সাইনবোর্ড। নর্দার্ন ক্যালিফোর্নিয়ার এই সিলিকন ভ্যালি এলাকার দেড়খানা বাংলাদেশী রেস্তোঁরার মধ্যে এটা একটা। (দেড়খানা বললাম, কারণ অন্যটাতে (গুলিস্তান) গিয়ে মেজাজ খারাপ হয়ে গেছে, ব্যাটারা নিজেদের পাকিস্তানী/ইন্ডিয়ান রেস্তোঁরা বলে দাবি করে সাইনবোর্ড দিয়ে রেখেছে, আর পাকি কাস্টোমারদের সাথে উর্দুতে গপসপ করে!)।

ক্যাফে ঢাকাতে চমৎকার তেহারী, সর্ষে ইলিশ, বিরিয়ানি, ডাল, সবজি, পিয়াঁজু পাওয়া যায়। মালিক বেশ আন্তরিক একটা পরিবার ... আর সবচেয়ে মজা হলো অন্য সব পাকি বা ভারতীয় রেস্তোঁরা যখন রাত ৯টা বাজলেই বন্ধ হয়, সেখানে ক্যাফে ঢাকাতে বাংলাদেশীদের আনাগোনা শুরুই হয় রাত নটার পরে। জিজ্ঞাসা করেছিলাম, কতক্ষণ খোলা থাকে , জানলাম, বাংলাদেশীরা আসলে আর যেতেই চায়না, সপ্তাহান্তে রাত দুইটা পর্যন্তও বসে থেকে ডাল ভাত খায়।

লস অ্যাঞ্জেলেসে গিয়েছিলাম গত সপ্তাহে, ওখানে আলাউদ্দিন আর লিটল ঢাকাতে খেয়েছি। তবে সন্ধ্যা বেলা হওয়াতে ছবি তোলা যায়নি আলোর অভাবে। দেখি, সামনে শিকাগোর ফিশ কর্নার এবং আল আমীন স্টোরের সাইনবোর্ডের ছবি দেয়ার চেষ্টা করবো।

সিলিকন ভ্যালির শত শত ইংরেজি, চীনা, কোরীয় রেস্তোঁরার ভীড়ে বাংলায় লেখা দোকানটার নামটা দেখলেই খুব মন ভালো হয়ে যায়। আপনারা কেউ এই দিকে আসলে ঘুরে যাবেন অবশ্যই।

Eskimo Never Rests

2007-07-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Few more Pics from Canada, Courtesy from the same contributor. This time link to Eskimo if someone wants to get to know the fearless fighter bit more closely.

http://www.somewhereinblog.net/blog/eskimoblog

As it appears people are ready everywhere to take a bit of the Yunus pie.

Everyone's welcome to contribute.

From Corner of Toronto

2007-07-25T16:43:00.000-07:00

Sorry folks, I was away for a while. So couldn't do the promised updates on the blog of global connection for the use of Bangla. Being offline for about two weeks in a streak was quite an experience.

But here is the good news. The Bangladeshi Eskimo lives in Toronto and was kind enough to lend a few shots. As it appears there is quite a bit of Bangla going on up north near the top of the world.

Enjoy the beautiful photographs.

Mini Commentry:

1. Departmental shop with Tri-Lingual signboard having a banner for Somoy Mela

2. The banner says Binodon bilingually but not really sure what the shop is for. Probably stationary service.

3. Bangla Kagoj. Looks like the office of a community news publication service. Good luck.

Between Brick Lane and Fourniar Street

2007-07-12T08:32:00.000-07:00

This was a shot taken late afternoon few months ago in 'Historic' Brick Lane. On the left the picture is of the road sign of Brick Lane and the wall is of brick lane mosque. The mosque is in junction between brick lane and Fournier St. As the area is dominated by Bangla speaking population, most of the road signs has Bengali version as well.

More coming on Brick Lane :)

I would recommend to click on the image to have an enlarged version.

Starting a Global Snapshot

2007-05-18T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today in the early twenty first century we have an amazingly large population that speaks Bangla and over the last century our population has been greatly diversed. From Japan to Alaska there isnt a place where it is impossible to find people speaking Bengali.

This blog is geared in general adding snapshots of pictures on the use of Bangla in different billboard and street signs from all over the world.

Everyone is invited to contribute