The Safe (part 2)

 

From Misir Ali’s Diary of Unsolved Cases

                                     -----Humayun Ahmed

                 (Translated by Atique Rahman)

This is an unresolved mystery from the childhood days of Misir Ali, the most interesting character ever been enliven by the popular most novelist in Bangla Literature, Humayun Ahmed.

The Safe, Part 2 (Being continued from part 1)

Often I saw him sitting beside the safe in a way as if he was eavesdropping on something inside the safe. He felt kind of abashed when I saw him doing this.

Had you got the scholarship in grade five?

No. I couldn’t even sit for the exam. During that time, my father was seriously ill. He could have breathed his last at any moment. I kept always clung to him. His mental condition was unstable. The keys of the safe were tied to his waist belt, but, still, he used to grab them tight in his hands. He was afraid of the fact that the evil spirits would steal the keys and open up the safe. And then there would be catastrophe. 

Listen what happened one night. My father was in high fever. He was dozing on the safe. Suddenly he asked me to come close to him. I went to him and he asked, “Give an ear to this safe and try to eavesdrop. Can you hear anything?”

I placed my ears on the top of the safe.

Father asked, “Can you hear anything?”

Hum.

What do you hear?

I can’t figure out the sound.

Is there anyone walking inside the safe, wearing anklets?

Hum.

Listen carefully and tell me exactly what you hear and not only in ‘hum’. My time is up and it’s time to handover the responsibility of the safe to you. I will be free of this burden once I hand it over to you. Tell me what you can hear.

Someone wearing anklets is tiptoeing inside the safe, with short pauses.

Now you will realize why I used to eavesdrop on it.

Yes, I have got it. But, why aren’t we opening it now? Let’s see what’s inside the safe.

Father got angry. He said, “Don’t even think about opening the safe. My father handed over the responsibility of this safe to me during the time of his death. He forbade me to open it ever. I complied with his order. You too won’t open it. You will keep the keys with you all through your life.

I remained silent for a moment and told him, “Father, while I was giving an ear to the safe, you were swinging your body, which was why the keys clashing into each other created the sound like that of the anklets.”

Yes, you are right. In the wishes of Almighty, you have become such an intelligent boy. After my death, you will press your ear against the safe. You will do so whenever you get the chance. You will be listening to various types of sounds. You will hear the voice of a young girl; her laughter. If you ask any question, you may even get answers sometimes. But, there is only one thing you must conform to. Don’t ever open the safe.

Just after one week, my father passed away on a Wednesday night. On his death bed, he was uttering only one thing – ‘the keys of the safe’. In a state of frenzy, he kept screaming, “Alas! The evil spirits have stolen the keys of my safe. I am undone.”

There were no keys tied to his waist belt. We searched every possible corners of the house, but the keys were gone.

After the death of my father I was fallen into deep trouble. My schooling was about to be stopped. Pranab Babu, the math teacher of our school, asked me, “You, shift to my home. Let this house be locked.” 

I shifted to the home of my teacher. His wife’s name was Durga. She said, “You will never enter my puja room (prayer room). To refer to water you will have to use ‘jol’, not ‘pani’. If you can remember these things, your staying here won’t be a problem. Now greet me with a pronam (a common practice, in Hindu religion, to vow down before someone to show respect). But don’t touch my feet. I have just taken the shower. I will now enter into the puja room."  

I did the pronam but more like a kodombuchi (a practice in Muslim community to greet someone with a salam by touching their feet). She said, “Look, at this Muslim kid. He even doesn’t know how to bid a pronam.”  

I got a bit hurt by how the woman treated me at the very first day. But within a few days, I came to realize that she was one of the five best persons on earth. She never asked me to address her as ‘mother’. But I called her ‘mother’. She used to call me by the name, ‘Misri’. I performed the cremation ritual after her death. It was her last wish. Before her death, she appealed, “Let this naughty Muslim boy perform the cremation ritual for me.” 

Their family strictly maintains the vegetarian eating habit. I had to adjust myself with it. But, sometimes my mother cooked egg curry for me in a different dish, so that my non-vegetarian habit didn’t go away. I will tell the story of my mother some other day. She has got a small chapter in my diary of unsolved cases. She used to make offerings to the evil spirits or demons on every new moon. She used to roast a giant snakehead fish, wrap it with the banana leaf and place it under a demon tree (streblus asper) in a jungle behind the house. She used to tell that a demon would come down to accept the offerings just a few moments after placing it. The evil spirit had no eyes and an awkward smell of burnt meat would come from his body. One day I went there with my mother to make the offerings to the demon. Okay, let’s stop this topic now. I will rather finish the story of the safe.

I used to visit our home on school holidays. The house kept locked down. I would open the lock, sweep the rooms and sit by the safe by placing my ear against it for a while. There were no sounds inside the safe. I knew that there wouldn’t be any, but I did so just out of habit, you can say.

It was another holiday visit. I was sitting beside the safe, placing my ear against the safe. All on a sudden, a female voice came out of it: “hi there, it’s me, it’s me”. 

I was nearly frozen in panic. I sprang out of the safe. The safe seemed to be jerking slightly. Someone was trying hard to open up the lid of the safe from inside. Someone must be locked inside it and they were trying to come out of it. I sprinted out of my home and reached at Pranab Sir’s house. I couldn’t even think of locking the home. I was so scared that I had a fever that night. In the dizziness of fever, the female voice kept whispering me into the ears: “hi there, it’s me, it’s me...Hello”.

I made another visit in the next week. As soon as I gave my ear to the safe, the voice said, “Hello, hello.”

Who are you in there?

It’s me, it’s me. It’s me.

Can you please tell me your name?

It’s me, it’s me. It’s me.

How did you get inside the safe?

The same phrases in response came out of the safe: ‘it’s me, it’s me’. But now, in a clearer voice.

The electricity supply was resumed. Misir Ali blew out the candle. As I looked on his face, I noticed sweats over his forehead. He was still inside the story, as if the safe was just before his eyes.

Brother, Misir Ali, could it be kind of auditory hallucination?

Yes, it might have been. The extreme curiosity about the safe in my teenage mind might have caused the illusion. But, it was not an illusion.

How did you know that it was nothing like that?

I took my mother, I meant Pranab Sir’s wife, to my home. I asked her to place her ear against the safe to check if she too could hear something. She gave an ear to the safe and got surprised. A young girl was telling: “it’s me, it’s me… it’s me”. She asked me what the matter was.

I don’t know.

Where are the keys of this safe? Bring me the keys, I will open it.

The keys are not there. They had been lost.

I think there is a treasure inside the safe. The little girl was locked inside the safe to guard the treasure. The girl must have been enchanted by black magic. In the ancient times people believed that the treasure can be guarded this way. The safe should be unlocked by a mechanic, but that won’t be a wise decision.

What’s the problem with that?

The news will spread everywhere. This sort of things should be done in secret.

While lighting a cigarette, Misir Ali said, “I was able to find the keys when I was in grade eight.”

How did you find them?

I figured out myself where the keys could be. And the keys were found exactly there. Let me tell you how I had done the logical deduction.

The keys were always tied to the waist belt of my father. So, there weren’t any chance that the keys could fall down somewhere.

As my father claimed, the demons had snatched the keys away from him. But it’s not logically possible. Father himself had hidden them somewhere.

He was physically very ill. So, he wouldn’t hide them anywhere far from home. He would hide them either inside the home or anywhere around it. 

He would not even dig the soil to hide them under it, as he had not the physical ability. And if he would dig anywhere in the ground, it would have drawn the attention of people.

So, there remained only one place where he could hide the keys- the well. There was a well just behind our home. So, he must have thrown the keys into the well. There was a concrete boundary encircling the around our well. During the illness, my father used to spend a lot of time by leaning against the well-boundary.

It was not that much difficult to pull out the keys from the well. We usually used a big hook to pull out the ewer or buckets, if they accidentally fell down. The hook was like a bunch of large fishhooks attached together. We had to tie the hook in a long rope, throw it down the well, move it around and then the things drowned in the water would get stuck to it.

So, you had got back your keys.

Yes.

And then you had unlocked the safe?

Yes.

What was inside the safe?

Misir Ali took a deep breathe in the cigarette, inhaled the smoke and said, “The safe was completely vacant. There was just nothing inside it.”

There was nothing?

Even not a tiny piece of black thread.

Had you ever tried to listen to anything inside the safe even after this?

Yes, I had tried, but I didn’t hear anything anymore. This is the end of the story of my safe. Now, please go home, it’s so late at night.  

Bridgerton Books and the Backstage of the Regency Setting

 

Jane Austen published her classic novel, Pride and Prejudice, in 1813 and nearly 200 years later in the USA, Julia Quinn, in love with the aura of love, romance, courtship, literature and cultural renaissance prevalent in the Regency period, traveled a long long way back to that very time and discover herself in the world of the earlier one she is deeply attached to by all her soul.

Julia Quinn could have ignited herself with the revolutionary zeal as orchestrated in Shelley’s ardent appeal to bring down a change to the world:

“O Wild West Wind………

Lift me as a wave, a lyre, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!.....

A heavy weight of hours has chain’d and bow’d

One too like thee: tameless, and swift and proud.”

              (Ode to the West Wind)

Or, as we have witnessed in Merry Shelley’s world shattering masterpiece, “Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus”.

With the feministic note like that of Jane Austin and the dreamy atmosphere of love and romance prevalent in the very period, Julia Quinn being so tightly touched and repositioned to the very time, starts writing the Bridgerton Romance series and brings the era back to life so lively as to make the readers wonder about the real existence of the Bridgerton family in the real Regency Setting.

Once Julia Quinn gets herself settled down on the era, it was almost irresistible to avoid the melancholic tone like that of Keats’:

“Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where beauty can not keep her lustrous eyes

Or new love pine at them beyond tomorrow”

                         (Ode to a Nightingale) 

Or the transcendental echo and the pessimistic sigh of the Romantics:

“As long as skies are blue and fields are green,

Evening must usher night, night urges the morrow,

Month follow month with woe, and year wake year to sorrow.”

----(Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, by P.B. Shelley)

Let’s forget about the poetry of the Romantics ruling over the era; it was the time that was witnessing the emergence of novels as the new ruler of the literary world. It was ushering in a new world, new belief and the much anticipated radical change to literature with the hands of novelists like Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy or Emile Bronte. It was the time when literary interest was shifting from the upper class to the common people. The protagonists from the common and ordinary class were beginning to steal the limelight in the political, social as well the religious turbulence best understandable in the majestic opening lines of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going the other way….. ”

However, despite the disillusioned belief and a rather dilapidated socio-economic structure after the Nepoleonic war period, the Regency Period, which the Bridgerton books are based on, marks the bemused glory of literary, cultural and architectural advancement with the highly sophisticated taste of Prince Regent who later became the King George the 4^th and magnified the look of Great Britain with the Houses of Parliament, Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Regent’s Park, Royal Opera House, the Pantheon, Mayfair, Pall Mall, Royal Parks of London, Ranelagh Gardens along with hundreds of  other architectural and cultural time-travelers.

 So, instead of digging deep the Tale of Two Cities, Julia Quinn chooses the earlier one  vivid in the glorifying visuals of the era, and embedded with wisdom, belief, light, and the spring of hope. Apparently Family life, celestial bonding of the siblings, love, romance, courtship and marriage in the setting of the great Regency period are the things our author Julie Pottinger deliberately tends to focuses on in her seductive Bridgerton Romance Series under her pen name of Julia Quinn. Considering her fervent enthusiasm and love for Romance novels since her very childhood days with Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High Book series, any other subject matter for her novels would have been utterly unbecoming. She didn’t spend her time on those romance novels with just the fancy of love and courtship and at the annoyance of her father. She had a vision and she had proved it by writing such a novel of her own in three years.

As one of the most widely read novelists in the historical Romance genre, in line with Mary Balogh, Jo Beverley and Loretta Chase, Julia Quinn brings to light the respectable Bridgerton family, consisting of a loving and widowed mother and the eight tightly-knit siblings in the Regency Setting. With the love stories of every eight brothers and sisters, Julia Quinn makes an elaborated series of Bridgerton Romance series with nine books published in the following order:

1. The Duke & I (2000),
2. The Viscount Who Loved Me (2000),
3. An Offer from a Gentleman (2001),
4. Romancing Mister Bridgerton (2002),
5. To Sir Philip, With Love (2003),
6.  When He Was Wicked (2004),
7. It’s in His Kiss (2005),
8. On the Way to the Wedding (2006), and
9. The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After (2013).

In each of the first eight books, Julia Quinn makes one among the eight loving siblings find their true love against all odds of the upper English Society in the truly Regency setting. The culminating book in the series, which was published seven years after the eighth one, was the second epilogues of the earlier love stories along with the story of the Violet Bridgerton, the caring, proud and beloved mother of the eight siblings: Anthony, Benedict, Colin, Daphne, Eloise, Francesca, Gregory and Hyacinth. 

Julia Quinn’s Bridgerton Series: Seductive Stories for the Romance Lovers

 

Julie Pottinger, one of the most celebrated novelists in the genre of Romance Novel, has earned the worldwide popularity under the pen name, Julia Quinn, with her famous Historical Romances mostly based on the Regency Period of England. The books of this cherished novelist have been translated in 29 languages so far and her novels were placed in the New York Times Best Seller List for an unbelievable 19 times, crowning her as the unparalleled Maestro of Historical Romance.  

Among all the romance Series, Julia Quinn has written so far, The Bridgerton Literary Series is the most elaborated one, which has earned her an astounding reputation among the romance lovers all around the world for her magnificent and captivating skill in weaving a story with the lively presentation of the characters and the settings that readers just can’t resist to dive deep down the plots.

Set between the years from 1813 and 1827, in the period of Regency England, the Bridgerton Romance Series features the stories of the eight siblings of the Bridgerton family consisting of Violet Bridgerton, a widowed mother, and her eight loving children, closely connected to souls of one another. In each of the eight books published between 2000 and 2006, one among the children chases, finds and wins the true love in their life against the odds of the upper English society of the period.

The Bridgerton Romance Series has been published in the order as follows:

1. The Duke & I (2000),
2. The Viscount Who Loves Me (2000),
3. An Offer from a Gentleman (2001),
4. Romancing Mister Bridgerton (2002),
5. To Sir Philip, With Love (2003),
6. When He Was Wicked (2004),
7. It’s in His Kiss (2005),
8. On the Way to the Wedding (2006), and
9.  The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After (2013).

 

The very first book, entitled The Duke & I, features the love story of Daphne, the fourth daughter of the Bridgerton family, and the Duke of Hastings, Simon Basset.

The second one in the Historical Romance Series features the eldest Bridgerton, Anthony with his love interest Katherine Sheffield in the book entitling The Viscount Who Loved Me.

The third one in the Bridgerton Series is about the second son in the family, Benedict. This historical romance relates his love story with Sophia Beckett in the Romance Novel entitled, An Offer from a Gentleman.

The fourth installment in the Bridgerton Romance Series tells the story of the Third Bridgerton, Colin with Penelope Featherington in the novel entitling Romancing Mister Bridgerton.

The next Romance is based on the second daughter and the fifth child of the Bridgerton family. In this Historical Romance Novel entitled To Sir Philip, With Love, Eloise’s love story with Sir Philip Crane has been portrayed in the usual seductive story-telling style of Julia Quinn.   

The sixth book in the Bridgerton Literary Series features the romance of the third daughter Francesca with Michael Stirling in the book entitling When He Was Wicked.

The seventh book in the Romance Series tells us about the love story Hyacinth, the last child of the Bridgerton family. In this Historical Romance Novel Entitled It’s in His Kiss, Hyacinth is seen finding her true love in Gareth St. Clair.

The eighth installment in the Bridgerton Romance Series relates the love story of the seventh child and the youngest son of the Bridgerton family. The Romance entitling, On the Way to the Wedding, features the love story of Gregory and Lucinda Abernathy. This brilliantly woven love story crowns the author with The Romance Writer of America RITA Award in 2007.

And then seven years after the publication of On the Way to the Wedding in 2006, Julia Quinn rocks the universe of Romance with one more book in 2013, featuring the Bridgerton family. In the last installment of Bridgerton Literary Series entitling, The Bridgertons: Happily Ever After, the novelist writes a novella featuring Violet Bridgerton, the proud, caring and the beloved mother of the eight Bridgerton siblings, along with the second epilogues for the love stories of the eight brothers and sisters.

Based on this Historical Romance Series, Netflix has lately produced and streamed the drama series entitled, Bridgerton, and has already declared the making of the second season this year. 

The Ickabog by J.K Rowling: A Political Satire under the Guise of a Fairy Tale.

 The Ickabog by J.K Rowling:

After a long long interval since the publication of Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows in 2007, J.K Rowling enchanted the universe of the book-loving children once again with her superb word-craftsmanship and magical story-telling expertise in the fairy tale entitling “The Ickabog”. Though the tale was meant for the children aged about 9 to 12, unlike the Harry Potter series it can amaze a large number of reader groups ranging from teenagers to adults.

Apparently the plot of ‘The Ickabog’ has got everything any fairy tale would ever ask for:

1. A Loving Kingdom called Cornucopia, full with the aura of happiness and prosperity.
2. A King called King Fred the Fearless, though the adjective stands as an irony in its purest form.
3. A cunning, greedy and shrewd villain called Lord Spittleworth, the actual ruler behind the king.
4.   A beautiful capital representing the shines and glory of the Kingdom with the bunch of apparently happy citizens so proud of their status of living in the capital.
5. A ghostly Monster called Ickabog who seemed to be an imaginary threat until the culmination of the story. 

Synopsis of the Ickabog:

The plot sets on the Kingdom called Cornucopia with five cities including the capital, Chouxville. The four among them are prosperous and specialized in particular kind of foods: Chouxville for its heavenly pastries; Kurdsburg for its sumptuous cheeses; Baronstown for its exquisite sausages and beefsteaks; and Jereboam for its extraordinary wines. And then there is the Marshlands in the north end of the Kingdom, a less prosperous and neglected city, apparently implying the irony that the farther to the capital, the lesser in the status and prosperity with the graver cause of humiliation by others.

While every single person seems to play the role of the happiest person on earth with the Kindness and Magnanimity of the King Fred, the Dovetail family, particularly Daisy Dovetail was rather disillusioned with him. She rightfully held the King responsible for the death of her mother due to the overwork in stitching a coat for the king.  

Apparently apathetic to the mourning Dovetail family, the king, with a view to prove his Kindness and valor, agrees to a Marshlander’s appeal to lead a war party and save them from the mythical Ickabog. But the overhyped march of the royal guard ended in the tragic death of Major Beamish, the head of the royal guard. Lord Flapoon accidentally shot him to death and then the lies began.

Lord Spittleworth attributed the death to the mythical Ickabog and to establish the lie he keeps fabricating a series of lies on a killing spree. With the panic-struck king cocooned in his chamber, he begins his tyrannical era over the entire kingdom, establishes Ickabog Defense Brigade, imposes heavy burden of taxes over the citizens, and introduces tax collectors and censorship on free speech. The prosperous and happy citizens gradually find themselves poor and starving with severe more impacts to the people living farther to the capital.           

Eventually after years in the doomed and devastated kingdom, Daisy Dovetail, who was thrown in an orphanage following the kidnapping and imprisonment of her father, regrouped with her friend Bert, Roderich, and Martha at the orphanage, fled to the Marshland, and came close to their death in the killing cold. However, they were saved by the Ickabog, the last surviving one in the species presumed to be mythical monsters. The Ickabog took them to her cave, and nourished them with the plan to eat before her bronding (the process of giving birth to baby ickabogs) time.

Daisy manages to change the mind of the kind-hearted Ickabog and took her to the capital while supplanting the fear for the Ickabog with love in the mind of the citizens marching along them. Meanwhile Daisy’s father with the help of Bert’s mother and other prisoners of Spittleworth escapes the dungeon, leaving Fred to face the angry mob.

And finally, Lord Flapoon gets killed by a new-born ickaboogle, King Fred and Lord Spittlworth are arrested, the kingship is abolished, a new governing system by the elected people is established, the existence of the Ickabogs is ensured and the country lives happily ever after.     

The Ickabog, a Political Satire under the Guise of a Fairy Tale:

The Ickabog is obviously a well-written fairy tale woven in a magnificent plot, but under the guise of her engaging story-telling, J.K. Rowling unravels the satire targeting the entire political system in the following ways:

1. The common people are merely puppet to play the role to please the king, no matter however stupid, and cowardice or apathetic he is.
2.  Devising out imaginary threats or other things completely irreverent to the public interest, the governing system keep imposing the burden of extra taxes just to siphon out hard-earned money from the common people. For instance, the Ickabog Defense Brigade.
3. The burden of the taxes gets double to manage the tax system. For instance, the tax collectors introduced by Lord Spittleworth.  
4. The political system with a body of lies, keep making the rich richer and the poor poorer. As things turns out in the cases of the prosperous and happy citizens of Cornucupia. 
5.  Another example is the distancing of the common people along with their interests and complaints with the sugar-coated happiness of the people around the government. And if necessary political dungeons, executions and censorship over free speeches are implemented. The people of Couxville were remained unaware of the devastating picture of the other cities and even the complete communication system among people from different cities had been hijacked by the bloody hands of Spittleworth, the epitome of a corrupt political system. 

So, the plot, the setting, the king, the name of the Kingdom, and the mythical yet real monster, play their perfect individual role as a fairy tale. But as the story spans out, the series of lies establishing another lie, the changing fate of the happy and solvent citizens, the autocratic ruling of an apathetic system, the swindling of public interest, the censorship of free speeches and the application of monstrous power to force people into obeying the government—all indicates a satire targeting a corrupt and a very common political system.

 

Sitakunda Hill Tracks: An Amazing Beauty to Brave in the Wilderness

 

What Makes You Give it a Shot at Sitakunda:

For the nature and adventure loving tourists and for the Hindu pilgrims as well, the Chandranath Hill (Sitakunda Hill) will be definitely an interesting experience. Going up above the Chandranath Hilltop along a serpentine track cruising the forest and stepping down thousands of stairs to get closer to the waterfalls, feeling the thrill of the wilderness while watching the panoramic view of the silvery line of the sea, about 30 kilometres away off the place, is simply mesmerizing. Sitakunda, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Bangladesh can offer any traveler a complete package with hills, forests, fountains, lakes, temple of historical interest and the wilderness in beauty. The Chandranath Temple and the Sitakund Eco Park are the most-sought tourist attractions of this very blessing of the Nature.

The Chandranath Hill:

Beginning from the eastern part of the Himalayas, The Chandranath Hill goes south and southeast as long as 50 kilometers and in the way through it crosses the Feni River through Indian states of Assam and Tripura before stretching up to Sitakund upazilla under Chattogram District of Bangladesh.

 

The Chandranath Temple:

The Chandranath Temple is located at the highest pick of the Bangladeshi part of the Chandranath Hill which is also known as the Sitakund Hill. The temple is of great religious interest as a Shakti Peeth for the Hindu community and as per the Hindu sacred texts the right arm of the goddess Sati (Dakshayani) fell onto the very place. The Chandranath Temple, one of the most popular pilgrimage sites for the Hindu, is about 1152 feet high above the sea level, making it the highest spot in the Chattogram district. The track piercing the forest line to the hill top is a secluded one with thousands of chirping birds and other animals (not ferocious) like monkeys or deer passing along. And the tourists are suggested to travel in a group to reach the pick.

Sitakunda Eco Park:

Sitakund Eco Park, the first Eco-park in Bangladesh, is located just on the foothills of the forest side of Chandranath Hills at Sitakund. Covering an area of about 1000 acres (4 square kilometers), the park was established in 2001 with a view to strengthening biodiversity and conservation with thousands of birds like parrots, swallows, herons, sparrows and animals like bears, deer and monkeys. The adventure lovers can climb up the hills through the track and again go down thousands of stairs to come close to the waterfalls like Suptadhara and Sohosrodhara. 

However, many more fountains and waterfalls, including Khoiyachara, Harinmara, Hatuvanga, Napittachora, Bagbiyani, Boalia, and Amarmanyaka are there to be explored in the eastern part along the hills in Mirsharai area.

 

Trekking along the wilderness of the hilly tracks and forest lines of Chandranath Hills might be really adventurous, but traveling to the spot close to the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway is comparatively a very easy one with any kind of vehicles ranging from a car, bus or auto. A day long trip to the wilderness of Sitakunda will definitely be an unforgettable tour for all the nature lovers in general.  

   

Mahamaya Lake: A Picturesque Beauty to Explore in Bangladesh

 

Mahamaya, the second largest man-made lake in Bangladesh, is an enthralling Beauty to explore for the travelers in love with the Nature. One can hardly imagine of such a soothingly enchanting water-body encircling a series of greening hills in Mirsharai, just about 50 kilometers away off Chattogram town.

“The Woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But, I have promises to keep…

The Painter is ready and so is the Canvas,

But words are not enough to paint so Deep...''

Covering an area of about 34 square kilometers, the Mahamaya Lake was inaugurated in 2010 and since then it has become a popular tourist spot for the nature-loving travelers, particularly for the mesmerizing beauty it creates with its calm and serene water-body encircling a large number of greenish hills and forests and fountains in the area.

Located just a few kilometers away off the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway, the Mahamaya Lake is an easily accessible tourist destination. Beauty-lovers even from Dhaka can comfortably make a day-long tour plan to explore the scenic beauty of the Mahamaya Lake.

Mahamaya Lake, the Spectacular tourist destination has also become a popular picnic spot with numbers of recreational events including boat-ride to cruise along the scenic beauty.   

Guliakhali Beach: a Beautifully Crafted Green Beach amidst the Mangrove Forest.

Guliakhali Beach

 

Guliakhali Beach, a seashore nestling on a green carpet with mangrove forest in and around, is unquestionably a captivating landscape to tune to the music of the beaches in a different melody.

Guliakhali Beach is a green beach unlike the other beaches in Bangladesh. You can just sit on the green grass encircling the mangrove forest line and see the panoramic view of the sunset. Lots of holes naturally created by the uprooted trees in the entire landscape will be filling in with the waves during the high tide and the scenic beauty in a peaceful mind completely surrendering to the laps of nature will spell you with an enthralling magical charm.

Lost in the enthralling beauty.

Guliakhali Beach is located a few kilometers away off Sitakund town of Chattogram District. It usually takes around 20 minutes in a car to get closer to Guliakhali Beach. But the road to the beach is kind of narrow and serpentine, which can cause a little delay in reaching the spot and probably which is why the beautiful Guliakhali Beach is still far away from being a popular tourist destination like other beaches like those in Cox’s Bazar, Patenga or Anowara.

Beautiful Sunset at Guliakhali Beach.

However imagining the view of an enchanting sunset by sitting on a green field amidst a mangrove forest and the sea waves crashing into the mini-holes all around you can surely allure any lover of the raw nature to give it a shot at the Guliakhali Beach.  With an auto available in the Sitakund bus stand or in a private vehicle you can easily make a short tour plan to the beautiful Guliakhali Beach. But matching the travel time with the sunset and the high tide will make the tour definitely an unforgettable one.