Dhaka to a Wannabe Resident

Dhaka. The capital of Bangladesh. Most people can’t say it, they pronounce it as “Dacca” or “Daika” but it’s Dhaka. A buzzing city which never stops, keeps moving at its fast pace and doesn’t let the slow ones go slowly. There’s something in Dhaka which wants me to stay there longer – I don’t know what it is. Definitely not it’s heavy pollution, total corruption, extreme high crime rates, the worst traffic jams ever, strange idiocy, complete shrewdness or of course it’s annoying beggars. It might be because my heritage is Bangladeshi and it takes me in or it could be because there is always something happening around every corner. Or perhaps because they have the best band gigs ever, everyone is so talented. Or because my cousin’s neighbour grows weed on his roof (and we can smell it when the wind blows). Perhaps it’s the great road-side food you can get, and the fuchka’s, and the paan. Nevertheless it is the “New York City of Bangladesh”, where the crooks and the high class society live. And I love it.

I just want to show you the Dhaka I know as a non-residential Bengali. I know that every time I go there I’m treated quite well and like a Goddess but it’s better than Travel Guides. I can either tell you that the rickshaw’s are so colourful and the life of any city in Bangladesh or I can tell you that they are annoying and all are extremely bad cyclists – which do you prefer? Truth right. :)

Don’t get me wrong. I totally adore rickshaw rides. I mean I go to Bangladesh and hire one for an hour just to go around no where. They’re so fun, even with all the dust flying about. Seeing there are a lot of ditches and uneven roads everywhere it makes it extra fun because you get to bounce up and down a lot.

Recently I’ve been getting more towards my Bengali side. First of all I’ve stopped calling people “Bangla” because I think it’s degrading. Let me get this clear – Bangla is the language (sometimes called Bengali) and we are Bengali’s, or Bangladeshi’s. I mean our people fought and died for that language, the Pakistani’s killed us because they wanted it to be Urdu instead. It’s been declared that 21st February is The International Mother Language Day and is to be observed globally in recognition of the sacrifices of the Bangla language martyrs who laid their lives for establishing the rightful place of Bangla. Get it right people!

As you can see I’ve really gotten into my heritage, even though I seem so Indian to people. I’m proud of my country. Guess who the first person to crack the iPhone was? A Bengali, who coded it and got quite rich. The best bassist in Asia was awarded to a Bengali. We have really talented musicians out there.

Most people don’t know but there are literally 100 gigs happening every night. They are all really talented, they are rarely plagiarized, each are unique and are good. They have the Bangladeshi Timbaland (Fuad) and D-12 (Stoic Bliss). I’ve been getting into more of their music and different bands. Bengali bands play at least once a week, get money and smoke it off.

The kids there are so “modernized” they put Westerners to shame. Majority of the children smoke cigarettes or beedi’s. Some are filthy rich and others pretend to be, by sticking cheap ciggs in an expensive packet. Most drink and almost all smoke sheesha. And everyone is doing drugs, sheesh is now banned because people used to put drugs in them. When I go there I go through my wardrobe and pick out the most conservative clothes and triple check them. Yet when I go to a casual restaurant I’m the only one in traditional clothing, and ironically the only one with a bad accent or speaking English. It’s crazy!

We don’t have a Government and so the political situation wasn’t stable for a while. The Army was in control and they swept up all the black markets. For example, there was a whole road of illegal stores and they’re all gone now. It’s good in a sense. However we do have our fair share of idiots. There is this Toshiba building somewhere in the city center of Dhaka and they were only permitted to build 5 floors but they built like 12. So when the new Government stepped in they decided they’ll remove it and went and chopped off the top 7 floors. Yeah, they evacuated only the top floors and started demolishing the top. The center of the building collapsed and there are apparently people trapped inside and apparently it smells of dead flesh.

We have shrewd crooks too. There was this group who rented a flat above the bank and started to dig a whole from their flat to the bank and got in and stole everything; got a lot of money. And the police surprisingly caught them within a few hours. Top job!

I’ve really began missing it. Especially since I’ve had 3 Bengali parties over the weekend and Tabi couldn’t go so I talked to other people. And all of them all miss Dhaka as much as me and probably more after our conversations. Anjalin, Sharmeen and Nahin. I'd love to live there if it wasn't for the traffic jams...