The Stare Factor

This being Bangladesh, group staring is something I have become accustomed to. It seems that wherever I go, I attract a crowd of curious onlookers and open-jawed, expressionless gawkers. Once in a while I am able to derive some humor from the situation but usually I just feel encouraged to move on. I am learning some clever phrases to break the monotonous, blinkless, public hypnosis but mostly, it’s just a way to amuse myself and whoever I am talking with. However, the hyper-attention I draw makes it extremely difficult to do any sound recording or photographic work when within moments of my arrival, the situation I have come to observe or document has completely changed due to my presence. If I remember correctly from cultural anthropology, this is known as the Heisenberg-Bengali Uncertainty Principle.

I’ve been told by Bengalis wanting to explain the hypnotic effect I have on people that I am probably one of the most interesting things that has happened for some of these people for quite some time. While I find that difficult to believe, the reality is that something is happening. The crowd might be diverse enough to include young rag-picking girls to old Muslim men with white beards, skull caps, and traditional Islamic dress. They all behave the same. Mostly though it’s the lungi (a leg length, long piece of fabric that is wrapped around the waist) wearing young men, the uneducated laborers, the overly-worked and under-paid who perhaps see me as a potential free movie.

This has forced me to make photographs in new ways. I’ve had to fine tune my ability to see something, compose the image, and press the shutter with unprecedented speed and agility. If I wait for even three or four seconds, that candid scene will be invaded by unwanted extras. Necks will crane into the frame from nearly all four sides of my viewfinder, and the boldest will just jump-in, thinking that with their presence, the image is now complete. Please don’t ask me how many great images have become digital carpet on the cutting room floor of my laptop trashcan due to overzealous teenagers!

And as you can imagine, a crowd of people just attracts more people. Soon, people are piling over people, everyone rubbernecking to get a glimpse of the alien freak/possible movie star. So unless the idea of thirty people gathered all around you, watching your every move is shanti-shanti then you’ve got to keep on moving. This is probably the thing that is the most difficult for me, being here, trying to work on my photography or just weaving into the fabric of life to observe and to learn. Even eating parotha and drinking my chai in the morning can come to resemble a celebrity book signing or at the least, a situation where I am the subject of some reconnaissance mission, where every sip of tea and every tear of fried bread between the fingers of my right hand are being noted and privately commented on.


I really wish that I wasn’t as interesting to the people here as I am. And this is Bangladesh’s second largest city! – it’s only more intense in the villages. There’s really no where to hide from Bengalis outside of my room. There’s a certain relief when I unlock the door to my room, slip-in, shut the door, and slide both of the bar-locks over. It’s the one place that I am reasonably confident that there will be no Bengalis. That’s why, last night, when a couple of new Bengali friends invited me to stay at their house instead of spending the 150 taka (two and a half dollars) on my hotel room, I immediately declined and felt no guilt whatsoever. Without the retreat, and the relative quiet of my hotel room, I explained to them, I would probably blow a fuse.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression; most of the Bengalis that I have met have been extremely kind and generous. And while their ideas of America are almost absurdly fictitious, they mean well, and can only be blamed for believing everything they see on TV and the worst of the western films that get this far (these usually never play in the U.S. – they’re that bad).

It’s culturally accepted here. It’s not just me – or at least this is what I tell myself. It seems that Bengalis will drop whatever they’re doing and gather and stare at anything unusual. It isn’t considered rude to stare at someone as it is in the West. Still, even with these reminders, it’s challenging sometimes because I feel like my whole life is in the center ring of some visiting circus. From eating meals, to asking someone for directions, to taking a piss with other Bengalis on the side of the road, to just standing still and watching the movement of the world in front of me on the street, my presence evokes an intense curiosity.

If it were one person, it might feel less overwhelming. Having a whole group gather is another thing altogether. There are interesting dynamics within these group stares too. For example, often there will be the show-off who will assertively ask, “Your country?” If more English is known, these truncated questions will follow. If not, the same, predictable questions will be asked but just in Bengali. The answers will be reiterated to all of those who are standing around – as if they did not hear or understand what I had just said – in Bengali. People will then reiterate to each other for a third time the answer to simple question before refocusing their gaze my way for more information. Sometimes I feel that I must wait to answer a new question until the third reiteration is complete so I am not asked the same question again after having just answered it!

There will often be a teenage boy who will come in to “rescue” me. He will swoop in and threaten the younger kids with a raised arm and an open palm. The kids will scurry off several steps away, just out of hitting range but still within ear and eye shot of me. Then the older boy will assume their original position and begin his staring! It is a starevival of the strongest.

Sometimes I use the partial cloak of darkness to mask my identity.
It’s easier to go for a walk in this way without drawing as much attention. I guess in my own way, I am curious too – of them. In my own watching, in my own focused attention when I am making photographs, I suppose I too am staring to a certain degree. Being stared at takes quite a bit of getting used to. I think if I were to live here, speak the language fluently, it would be the same. For them, I will always be the outsider. Ultimately, if I want to keep my sanity, it is I who will have to change – I’ll have to change the way that I think about being stared at. Maybe try to see it as a compliment?!