Bangladesh: Din Ek aur Dui

I landed in Dhaka on Wednesday to find a crazier Bombay. I’m here now, in Bangladesh, my earlier passport woes taken care of. The airport was surprisingly not chaotic, unlike Bombay’s Chattrapati Shivaji International airport. After a quick immigration procedure, I made my way to the hotel with another intern I met at the airport (Simon, from England, very nice guy) and someone from the hotel. The drive was long but we got to see some of the less dense parts of Dhaka, with water/sand/marsh everywhere and elevated roads. Our hotel, however, is located bang in the middle of all the chaos of this megacity. When I say chaos I mean the absence of any driving rules whatsoever, hoards of eve-teasers, power cuts at least three times a day, the smell of garbage mixed with food being cooked, and excruciatingly loud honking. For those of you who think this is a lot like India, well, it is. But ten times more chaotic. Plus, I’m a lot more confident in India since I know the language. Anyone who “accidentally” brushes into me on the streets of Bombay will get a firm “Eh! Dikhta nahi, kya?” (Eh! Can’t you see?”), but here I get groped all the time and can’t even make a big scene to ward off other men.

Anyway, before I go on about Dhaka, the main reason I’m here: I will be interning /researching with the Grameen Bank for a month and a half. For the uninitiated, the Grameen Bank, under Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus, is a pioneer of Microfinance. Microfinance, popularized by its division of Microcredit basically consists of giving small, uncollateralized loans to the poor to help them start their own businesses and eventually cross the ‘poverty line’. One of the main features of the Grameen Bank is that they work with rural women only, and hence not only help alleviate rural poverty, but also bring about social change in terms of a woman’s place in society. Since it was founded, the Grameen Bank has helped millions in Bangladesh cross the line of poverty. Grameen has expanded to a conglomerate of sorts and now has 26 “sister” companies, some of which include Grameen Shakti (providing renewable energy for the poor), Grameen Telecom (providing mobile phones at affordable prices for the poor) and Grameen Communications (providing internet access and data processing services for the poor). The entire list of sister companies can be found here.

My area of research with Grameen will be their Social Businesses, which basically promote a strict adherence to the triple bottom line, with profit being the last “line”. Bangladesh, much like every other developing country faces a plethora of problems ranging from economic to environmental to religious and social problems, each of these being cruelly intertwined. Social Businesses, at least in theory, seem like a utopian solution to all of these. My study will (hopefully) determine the feasibility of these businesses and determine ways to increase their efficiency (and thereby their positive social impact). Ideally, I want my study to be used to further urban development in cities like Bombay.

So, back to my first two days here. I managed to get a phone connection for 900 taka, which is ridiculous in my opinion. I was obviously kidding myself when I assumed Bangladesh would be much cheaper than India. An average meal costs about 200 taka which is pretty similar to India. I did however get some really good naan (bread) and sabzi (cooked vegetables) at a dhaba (basically a very sketchy looking restaurant defying most hygiene standards, with amazingly cheap and delicious food) for 40 taka, i.e., 28 rupees or 58 ccnts. The hotel I’m at is pretty nice except for the fact that I share my room with about a dozen cockroaches. Three of them are nice enough to even share my bed with me. Oh well, all part of the adventure  

More later! Khuda Hafiz!