One night, in Srimangal, the power went out, as it does several times daily. Walking along in the dusty gutters, all of a sudden, there was blackness.

Men, everywhere, buying sweets, talking over cha, rickshaw drivers smoking cigarettes, telling jokes, all usual in daylight, but now I could only trace dim outlines; cloaked in black, the village appeared far more sinister. I couldnt tell where I was stepping and wetness meant piss or blood or toxic mud. I was frightened.

There was a sweet shop that had a generator and we gravitated towards it, though the windows were clouded with buzzing things, jumping things, wing-ed things, small but scary.

We ordered cokes and they were warm.

I miss Bangladesh, for the very first time, sitting at my window, looking out at rows of buildings and pavement and streetlights until inifity.