A Weekend of Culture

So I haven't posted in a while because, frankly, not too much has been going on. Life is well--full of squash, swimming, dinners with friends, but nothing majorly exciting. But, this weekend was full of culture.

Friday, I went to the studio/apartment of Kalidas Karmakar, a fairly well-known Bangladeshi artist. A few of his pieces are at the Embassy and I've really admired his work, so I lucked out when my boss organized an outing so we could check out some of his art. Frankly, I was hoping for a free piece of art, but I knew that was wishful thinking. Instead, I got a cool poster featuring one of his works, a booklet of some of his pieces, and a tasty Bengali lunch with nice company and good conversation.

Continuing my culural weekend, my colleague and friend David and I checked out an event at the Lalbagh Fort hosted by the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce and Industry. It was an evening of "Sound and Light" and ended up being pretty cool. The Fort is in Old Dhaka, and while I haven't seen it during the day, it was impressive surrounded by lights and all set up for this big event. A brief sound and light show depicting Dhaka's 400 year history started the night and then that was followed by...a fashion show! That's right, a fashion show. You can check out a picture of it here. It was the first fashion show I've ever been to and I felt very Project Runway/America's Next Top Model-esque. The show portrayed various fashion in Dhaka throughout the years--the Mughal influence, the British influence, post-1947 Dhaka, and post-independence Dhaka. It was definitely cool, although it went on a little long. So long, in fact, that we skipped out on dinner and went to Pizza Hut, where we knew what kind of food we'd be getting and wouldn't have to stand in a long buffet line.

Here's David and me with one of the "guards" for the evening. Incidentally, another "guard" offered to take our picture, we had to kindly turn the camera around for him since he had no idea which way the camera should face. Oops!


I topped off my weekend with a shopping trip to Dhanmondi with a few girls from work, where we visited the the Bengal Gallery of Fine Art. A weekend full of art and culture...in Dhaka.