By Anika Ali & Adnan M. S. Fakir

Photos courtesy of Finding Bangladesh

W
hat's
there to see in Italy? There's all of Rome, some great looking men, the
golden spaghetti and then there's the grand, old Leaning Tower of Pisa.

While
travelling in Barisal our crew experienced quite the lack of the
“golden” spaghetti. They discovered hunger, toil, bumpy back breaking
roads, and a great lacking of good looking chicks. However, their
efforts met their reward when out of the blue they saw a pointy brick
thingy sticking it's nose out of the surrounding palm trees, leaning,
getting ready to fall on some unfortunate fellow. They stumbled upon the
leaning tower of Mahilara better known as, Mahilara Math [read: moth
not mathematics].

	Rumour has it if you enter this temple of love,, you can still hear the designer giggling

Given
that this structure is our national response to the Leaning Tower of
Pisa, we tried to give it some Bengali nick-names. The top contenders
were “beka” math, “tera” math and “oi dhor, poira gelo” math, but we
didn't think that the authorities would approve.

The
tilting of the temple is possibly due to all the blows that this temple
has endured over the decades. It was attacked several times, during the
1971 liberation war and then some more by local anti-Hindu terrorists.
Even after all the exploding ammunition, the beaten temple kept standing
albeit tilted at an awkward angle of roughly 5.5 degrees. Compare that
to the Pisa which now leans about 3.99 degrees, our one definitely wins
the lean competition.

After
all the smacks, whacks and ka-booms on the temple, the Department of
Archeology arrived at the scene. They restored the temple and was well
on the way to becoming the temple's hero. But then the department
decided to give it their favorite finishing touch: they painted the
structure pink.


Facepalm.

Despite
the girly outer layer, the interior of the temple is adorned with
images of Radha-Krishna, immortalised in appraisal of eternal love.
Rohini Kumar Sen, a respected philanthropist and a Zamindar, however
isn't very happy about this. According to his book 'Bakla' the math was
not originally built to hold immortalisations of Radha-Krishna but to
house Shiva, who is locally perceived as the symbol of love. We'll just
remember it as a culturally inclined (pun intended) site to take our
significant others to, on the next Valentine's Day.

In
case you need help finding this leaning beast, it is located in
Gournodi, Barisal, in a village called Mahilara. Head to Barisal first,
then make a trip to the Nothullah bus stand. From there head towards
Gournodi and get dropped off at Mahilara. A rickshaw from there can take
you there in a day.

The
Math is also known as the helano math or the Radha-Krishna math or the
Sarkar-bari math. It is a good 100 feet shorter than the Tower of Pisa,
but we don't care. In fact, now that we think about it, Mahilara Math
doesn't resemble the Leaning Tower of Pisa at all! It actually looks
somewhat like a small rocket about to launch to infinity (and beyond).

Catch exclusive photos and more of the Radha-Krishna lovin' at www.facebook.com/ findingbangladesh.