Essential Bengali phrases

The standard greeting. 'Nomoshkar' is the Hindu equivalent and is heard more often in Khulna than in most Bangladeshi cities — the southwest has one of the country's larger Hindu populations.

The mangrove forest an hour and a half south, and the single most important word in Khulna. It is where the tourism, much of the research funding and a great deal of local identity comes from — and the barrier that absorbs the cyclones.

Salinity. Not an abstraction here — it is why the city's drinking water is piped from a river tens of kilometres away, why farmland has gone over to shrimp ponds, and why household water quality is a real question to ask a landlord.

The river on the city's eastern edge and the bridge across it. 'Rupsha-r opare' — across the Rupsha — is how people describe the eastern side and the road toward Mongla.

The three-wheeler auto-rickshaw. Khulna is small enough that CNGs, battery rickshaws and easy-bikes are the entire transport answer — there is no metro, no BRT and no need for either.

The battery-electric three-wheeler that dominates Khulna's streets. Cheap, quiet, everywhere, and the default way to move around a city this size.

A shrimp or fish enclosure — the embanked ponds that cover the district. 'Gher' is the unit of the rural southwestern economy the way 'garments' is the unit of Dhaka's.

Tiger prawn and shrimp generally. Khulna, Bagerhat and Satkhira together produce the large majority of Bangladesh's shrimp exports, and the sector's contraction is the region's biggest economic story.

Jute. Khulna was built on it, and the state mills at Khalishpur closed in July 2020. Say 'pat kol' — jute mill — to anyone over forty here and you will get a long answer.

'Brother', attached to almost any man's name and used for strangers; 'Apa' for a woman. The fastest way to sound less foreign anywhere in Bangladesh.

The cyclone warning number, from 1 to 10, issued by the Bangladesh Meteorological Department. In coastal Khulna 'great danger signal number ten' is a phrase every household knows and acts on — learn what the numbers mean in your first week.

999 is the national emergency service — police, fire and ambulance on one number, the same across Bangladesh. 333 is the government information helpline. 109 is the national helpline for violence against women and children.