Interesting post. Small but important typo to fix : snack charmer should be snake chamer

With that out of the way. Bede is a strange 'catch all' tribe. They are on the other side of the border too, where they may or may not live on boats, but some do just like you described. Further west, away from the gangetic plain, they exits too, but over there they have nothing to do with boats, and they are mostly nomads.

They are present in middle east, far east, and widely all over Europe, where they are called Gypsy. They always fascinated us. They are widely featured in books and movies, in all over the world, in virtually all major languages. However, their social condition remains improverished all over the world.

For some reason this reminded my of Makar Chudra... a rather famous short story by Maxim Gorky. It features a story of a Gypsy in a far distant land from Bangladesh, but somehow that is the story I thought about first... Human mind is a strange thing!

Also for some reason, thought about this song below (must be the reference to bhela, and kaal-keute)

কাল-কেউটের ফনায় নাচছে লখিন্দরের স্মৃতি
বেহুলা কখনো বিধবা হয় না এটা বাংলার রীতি
ভেসে যায় ভেলা এবেলা ওবেলা একই শবদেহ নিয়ে
আগেও মরেছি আবার মরবো প্রেমের দিব্যি দিয়ে।

........... Jatiswar (Suman Chatterjee, or Kabir Suman now)