'Bedes' charm through winter in the south
A thick fog blanketed the picturesque Paira river and the nearby Bandra village few kilometres away from Amtoli thana under Barguna district. Bitter cold of the December morning kept most of the villagers inside their abodes. Many lit fires and sat around it. The morning sun looked like a worthless white bowl shedding a faint light on the nature.
In a small canal near the Paira, 17 well decorated boats anchored in the peaceful surrounding. Some of their occupants sat on the bank and concentrated on repairing fishing nets and traps. The colourful boats represented only a tiny group of the 11,8000 bedes (gypsies) living in boats and trading on snakes) in the country.
Mohammad Legat Ali, the headman of the group, kept busy repairing a fishing net. A tall thin man in his late fifties Legat had caught thousands of venomous snakes in his lifetime from the rural areas and the Sundarbans. Like his forefathers he lived in his boat with his family that was equipped with a colour television, a VCR and a radio set.
" Our biggest problem is the schooling of the children," Legat complained.
" Thousands of bede children cannot avail schooling because nobody has cared for their education," he said.
Legat said some bedes in Dhaka region were given assistance by foreigners to set up a school in a separate boat where teachers respecting the bedes' lifestyle were given employment. The project has worked well but it was yet to reach most of these floating population.
The bedes have a different marriage system. Marriages are held within the community and the man has to pay the bride's parents as per the working ability of the girl in snake charming and selling herbal cures. A good working bride could fetch as much as Tk 30,000 for her parents.
" Why wouldn't the man pay for a wife who could earn up to Tk 500 a day? asked Legat.
During the peak season which starts at the end of winter, the bedes are particularly busy catching venomous snakes from different parts of the country. Every 100 venomous snakes they catch, earn the bedes as much as Tk 45,000 from a farm at Savar near Dhaka.
Legat and other bedes of his group never use any trap for catching snakes. They said every place where snakes tread, bear a host of traces. It's the skill and experience of a bede in catching the reptiles that brings him respect among his community. The most ferocious of all the venomous snakes is the one known a eyeraj. The bedes said they have to use an umbrella while catching the eyeraj, for with the slightest provocation the reptile gets so angry that it almost stands on its tail and pounces on the attacker.
Most of the bedes sell their catches through licensed snake charmers based in the capital or its surrounding areas. During off-season the bedes earn their living by snake charming and selling herbal cures in the villages of Bangladesh.
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