SHAMHUGANJ (Bangladesh ): Traditional rural games are being revived in Bangladesh with a television show in which farmers compete to show off their skill sowing seeds, raft racing and climbing oiled banana trees.

In a remote northern village tens of thousands of people gather to watch the filming of the new programme which has astounded television executives by becoming a smash hit with village and city dwellers alike.

Excited crowds stand five deep around a huge sand arena; others perch in the trees eager to get the best view.

On the starting line, 20 super-fit young Bangladeshis with bulging muscles jostle for position in an atmosphere as tense as any Olympic sprint final. Hurtling down the track in a cloud of dust, the four fastest take a flying leap at a row of glistening banana trees. Their faces lock in agonised grimaces as they clamp their arms tightly around the slippery trunks and cling on with all their might.

The crowd roars with approval as the four battle it out for the glory of being the last to slowly slide to the bottom.

It’s all the idea of campaigning journalist and farmers’ champion Shykh Seraj, a man more likely to be seen on television quizzing politicians on agricultural and energy policy than wielding a stopwatch and whistle.

Seraj, whose long-running investigative programmes have been a fixture on Bangladesh television since the 1980s, set about doing something to lift the spirits of the nation’s farmers after two disasters in a year took their toll on rural communities.Floods last summer and last November’s devastating cyclone Sidr, which killed more than 3,400 people, wiped out many thousands of homes and livelihoods.

Extensive crop damage combined with the global hike in food prices also sent living costs spiralling to new highs, creating what has been called a silent famine in the impoverished country.

“They were really suffering, feeling really sad. I thought we had to cheer them up,” said Seraj, who organised more than a dozen individual events for the games from bullock races to children’s kite-flying competitions.

FESTIVAL ATMOSPHERE: The first show, named “Farmers’ Eid Delight,” was broadcast last December during the Muslim religious festival with contestants competing for prizes including bicycles, radio-cassette players and tea sets.

“We found that the city people were mad for it too. While the programme was on air we received 2,000 calls from people saying “It’s great’,” added Seraj. Over the years rural events such as boat races have become a declining tradition in Bangladesh. Bull fights to celebrate the end of the main harvest were once held all over the country but survive today in only one northern district.

With rural distractions in such short supply, villagers turned out in their thousands to see the latest games which are being broadcast on Seraj’s own Channel i network.

“Everyone in my family has come here to see these games. It is wonderful.

We have never seen anything like it,” said Aklima Akter Akhi, the mother of an eight-month-old baby who walked for miles to watch the filming of the second programme last month.

But despite the festival atmosphere, the problems the villagers face are never far away. Nearly 80 per cent of the country’s 144 million people live in rural areas with 40 percent getting by on a dollar a day.

Shamhuganj in the northern Mymensingh district nestles beside a branch of the mighty Jamuna river known as the Old Brahmaputra. It was completely inundated by last summer’s flooding.

The programme ends with ten of the poorest residents, mostly elderly women without any family, receiving brand new homes — sturdily-constructed, one-room bamboo huts on land that they will own.

The women are almost speechless. For most of their lives they have survived in flimsy make-shift shelters on any spare piece of land they could find.

“God bless you,” they tell Seraj one after another as he hands over the keys to their new homes.

For the other villagers, the new homes are also a source of happiness.

“No one here can do anything for these destitute people because we do not have any money either,” tea stall owner Jewel Rana said.

“But we are very happy that someone can help them,” he added.—AFP