Homage to Bangladesh: A Memoir of a Time and a Place

Bangladesh has been shunned by tourists from the moment it was created in 1971. Henry Kissinger described it as a basketcase. Poverty and humanitarian disasters defined Bangladesh in the ensuing decades. When Rupert Grey arrived in Dhaka in 1992, a sign announced that arrivals were ‘Welcome to Bangladesh before the tourists get here’. They still haven’t. Grey first came to Bangladesh as a London lawyer armed with three FM2 cameras. Many journeys and 30 years later he is a photographer armed with a useful legal background. The catalysts were Chobi Mela, the festival of photography, and its founder Shahidul Alam, an acclaimed photographer, human rights activist and Time magazine’s Person of the Year in 2018. This book charts Grey’s love affair with Bangladesh, including an epic transcontinental journey through India to Chobi Mela in a vintage Rolls-Royce, later portrayed in the award-winning, Sharon Stone produced film Romantic Road. His photographs, mostly taken on film, speak powerfully of the cultural vitality and energy which Kissinger missed, and which inspired Grey’s Homage to Bangladesh. As a libel and copyright lawyer Rupert has represented national papers, politicians, bankers, celebrities and explorers. He serves on the board of a number of front-line charities in the arts, education, photography and marine exploration. He has travelled on foot and horseback, by dug-out canoe, dog sledge, camel, elephant, bush-plane and Land Rover to the wild places of the earth. His photographs have been exhibited in several countries including Bangladesh, and his articles have been widely published. He lives with his wife Jan in a remote thatched cottage in Sussex, England, with their three daughters nearby.