Who works, who eats?

Abstract

One evening, shortly before our departure from Katni, Bangladesh, we sat talking with our neighbor Aktar Ali. The conversation turned to our writing plans, and he asked if we had chosen a title for our book. “You need something that will catch the eye,” he advised us. “Something that will make a person stop and think.” He furrowed his brow in concentration, and a stream of beautiful Bengali titles came pouring forth. One of them—“Who works, who eats?” cut to the very heart of the relation between rich and poor in rural Bangladesh.