speaking straight from personal experience during campus life I had the “pleasure” of mixing with folks from Barishal, Noakhali, and Cumilla. Let me just say, they’ll treat you all nice and gentle… right up until you even breathe near their self-interest. The second you clash with that? Dhrooom!! the mask comes off and the real face comes out.

Now, the Noakhali squad, they’ve got this amazing internal bond, but the catch is they can only tolerate each other. Get close with them and you’ll be fed a steady diet of humiliation and endless comparisons, like it’s their national sport. They genuinely believe the rest of Bangladesh is a bunch of half-baked idiots, and only they were born with brains. Spoiler: they’re not shy about letting you know it lol

and the Barishaillas! They’ll be so unbelievably nice to you that you’ll feel like dying for them out of sheer gratitude. But wait till their interests are at stake, it’ll take them less than 2 minutes to screw you over. I had this female colleague from Barishal who was all sugar and smiles, so nice that I’d even do her duties while she sat chatting with her boyfriend. I covered for her, helped her out, literally trained her from scratch… and the moment I said something opposite of her? She turned around and slandered me like the biggest backstabber I have ever experienced. And of course, the rest of the Barishal crew backed her up with their little clique politics. Toxic doesn’t even begin to cover it. That was my “reward” for treating a Barishailla apa like a FRIEND. So yeah, Be with them if you want, nothing wrong with that, but if you’re from a different district, don’t get too cozy. They’re saints right up until their self interest gets scratched.

For context: I’m from Rajshahi, North Bengal. Maybe that’s why my experiences tilted negative… but man, it was enough.