In this era of globalised tourism, many capitals brand themselves with enticing sobriquets — from the City of Minarets (Cairo) to the City of Beer (Brussels)! Dhaka, known as the City of Mosques, due to the 700-plus mosques built from the 15th century onwards, is no exception. Of course, titles don’t always live up to expectations, and even the most loyal residents of Dhaka will admit that everyday life has more than its fair share of challenges, like in most Indian cities.
For one thing, Dhaka boasts some of the worst traffic anywhere. Urban sprawl is swallowing up older buildings, with individual houses being replaced by identical apartment blocks and the ubiquitous shopping malls so dear to the South Asian heart. Gardens are a thing of the past, green areas tend to be few and far apart.
But the news isn’t all bad. The first Bangladeshi woman to summit Everest (yes, more than one have done so, even in my flat-as-a-pancake country) is a city animal and a bureaucrat. And amidst the clutter and chaos, the switch to compressed natural gas (CNG) technology has reduced pollution levels, while the banning of plastic bags provides some relief from the once-chronic blockage of the city’s drainage system. Fewer people live on the streets than might be expected, compared to cities like Kolkata or Mumbai. UN statistics indicate that just 2.5 per cent of Bangladeshis don’t own a toilet, compared to India’s 48.3 per cent.
As far as titles go, Dhaka could also rightfully claim to be the City of Restaurants — ranging from garden variety
But perhaps the reality of the city is best reflected by calling it the City of Stories — a million a minute, and some of them quite unbelievable. For example, I recently asked someone who does home-visits for sports injuries if he found the traffic exhausting. “No, because I sleep a lot,” he replied. “This morning, I napped for two hours on the number six air-conditioned bus! And I have other places to rest, because I like a nap after lunch, too...”
“But where do you find a place to rest in the middle of the day, so far from home?”
“Oh, I find the nearest mosque, curl up in a corner and cat-nap. After all, a place of worship should be open to anyone of the faith! Usually, they assume that I’m a regular worshipper, because of my haircut,” he smiled, gesturing towards the half inch of fuzz covering his scalp.
Street harassment, while perhaps not as bad as some of the stories coming out of neighbouring countries, is part of everyday life. A friend of mine, Polly, recently had a stranger follow her up to her third-floor apartment in a housing colony. It was evening, and she was on the phone as she climbed the stairs, so she didn’t notice his stealthy pursuit until he suddenly groped her, and then took off, racing to the building exit. “I kept thinking, he actually climbed up all those stairs just to grab me like that for a few seconds! What do these perverts get out of such behaviour?!” But the creep got his comeuppance. Crashing through the darkened yard in his attempt to escape, he provided neighbours who had heard her scream some unexpected entertainment: he ran straight into the clotheslines and fell flat on his behind, before scrambling up to make a decidedly undignified retreat. By the end of it, everyone was laughing.
Sometimes, even in the mega-city, things aren’t what they seem. On another occasion, returning from work very late at night, Polly twisted her ankle and fell. She was trying to get up, when two young men in a rickshaw stopped. “They asked me what was wrong. I said ‘nothing’, because I didn’t want any trouble. But they got down, insisted on helping me into the rickshaw, and walked the rest of the way to their destination. I was really surprised, but it was such a nice surprise!”
Dhaka’s many cafes and eateries provide not only a variety of snacks — ranging from phuchka and chatpati, to red velvet cupcakes and shawarma — but their own form of unexpected entertainment. A list of stern rules at one place makes it clear that customers will not be permitted to lick each other’s tonsils. Not that such admonishments are always effective. My 20-something intern, Emmy, left me feeling a little bruised with her observation that “some old people” who were making out in the café put her off her Belgian chocolate milkshake by their (mis)behaviour.
“Seriously, Farah, the guy had to be at least 40! And the woman was over 35!” she said, appalled. This condemnation was of course delivered blithely to my 40-something self, thereby firmly establishing that no one a day over 29 has any business engaging in any form of hanky-panky.
On a less exclusive note, such places provide an unrivalled opportunity for people-watching — whatever the ages of the specimens under scrutiny. Sitting in a café recently, my friend Farah T observed two teenagers giggle about the butterflies in the stomach a boy at school had evoked. At the next table, a six-year-old girl overheard them and burst out crying, “How could they do that, Ma? Who eats butterflies?!”
(In this monthly column, authors chronicle the cities they call home.)
Farah Ghuznavi is a writer , newspaper columnist and development worker based in Dhaka, Bangladesh