New Road Day & Night

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

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.

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.

Walking around Whitechapel

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

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

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

Between Brick Lane and Fourniar Street

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.