Dhaka
A short tuc-tuc cage ride out of Gowair towards the airport and we came across a familiar mass of horns and rattling engines. There was a hold-up ahead from a striped red pole across the road. Cars, trucks, richshaws and easybikes huddled together, filling every space and disregarding any orderly queuing fashion. In the tiny passageways between vehicles, passing pedestrians thrived: squeezing through to the front of the amoeba of stinking metal vehicles.
We were stuck before a level crossing one hundred metres from the airport railway station. The station itself looked to be in disuse for normal function; Bangladeshis overran the tracks and platform roofs. A group of children squatted on a rail, talking and throwing stones at the ground out of idle boredom. Further along, an older lady wobbled across the uneven ground, a basket balanced on her head filled to the brim and beyond by almost a metre with sacks of cucumbers and gourds. Beside her, a smartly dressed man in a sleek brown silken shirt and dark linen trousers strolled across the gravel, stepping with a light touch onto the station platform, a step of at least two feet, whilst talking on a cell phone at his ear.
There is a continual juxtaposition across Dhaka where the old is married with the new, the poor with the rich, the busy with the quiet. On our way to the level crossing, we had passed empty fields with a crop of large-leafed ivy bordered by neat houses with clean walls and smart cars out front. This relative richness was a minute’s journey from our guesthouse in Gowair, where buildings were still being constructed with mess and dust covering the entire area around each site and everything that passed within a few metres. Those buildings that were finished had either begun to crumble or had metal reinforcements protruding from every concrete surface.
We heard a loud foghorn and the tracks rumbled in front of us as an old train built during British occupation rolled towards the platform, passengers leaning out of open doorways and dangling their legs from the roof. Stragglers on the ground skipped out of the way of the ancient train as it whisked at their lungis and sarees. Our driver restarted his engine and the mob stuck at the crossing pushed forwards, aching to swarm over the tracks. The people pinned towards the front ducked below the pole, crossing behind the shaking locomotive.
After crossing ourselves, we came to the large roundabout in front of the airport—a very different sight during the day. Throngs of vehicles piled behind each other, marching and the intersections like streams of water. We cut across the road, edging between shifting lanes of speeding, honking traffic, to a swarm of buses, their hailers shouting and beckoning to passers-by. Solomon searched among the heaving beasts and indicated the bus we needed. We clambered aboard, cramped between other Bangladeshis, and travelled no more than two hundred metres down the road before Solomon tilted his head towards the door and we hopped off. It was the right but, but Solomon, the gracious Bangladeshi he is, wanted us to have seats for the journey. He hailed another bus and we were on our way to the centre of Dhaka.
Two separated individuals control the buses of Dhaka: the hailer, who pulls people on and off the bus, sometimes whilst in motion; and the driver, steering the clunky bus amidst the central city traffic. They had a one-way communication system, from hailer to driver, through a system of raps and bashes on the dented metal sides and door of the bus. With two words—stop and go—their language worked for the most part as a simple solution, but there were many occasions when communication broke down and potential passengers were left jogging in the fumes of the bus as the hailer thumped on the door and shouted at the driver over the din of the traffic, trying to get him to stop again.
With no wing mirrors, the driver had to rely on the bleating of other cars and a double rap from the hailer to know the safety of swerving from the right hand lane across to the pavement to stop for a few seconds as ten more people squeezed onto the bus.
Solomon stopped for breakfast at a small food shop jutting out of the broken row of houses lining the dual carriageway, and spent some time moseying around, looking at the food on offer and talking with the owner. I noticed the strange layout of the restaurant: the kitchen was on the street with a large naan bread oven and circular iron frying pan, allowing the smells of sizzling chapatti to overcome the pollution for a few metres around the entrance; inside, tables were laid and many Bangladeshis ate from plates of rive, daal and curry, relaxed in the cool shade and with fans spinning overhead.
A few doors down, a small alleyway cut underneath the houses. The noises of the busy road nearby softened and we were now in what could have been mistaken for a rural town. Down the rough stone-paved lane, two children in ragged clothes sat on their haunches near a metal gate, and over the walls on either side, I saw guava, date, and coconut palm leaves.
Up a dark set of stained stone stairs and along a sun dappled balcony, vines growing over the wire mesh roof. Past open windows, the thrumming of fans inside adding a gentle rhythm to the birds outside and the muffled traffic in the distance. We entered Solomon’s student hostel, the accommodation for Dhaka University. In his dorm room, four bunk beds hugged the walls, each with a thin, hard mattress and skimpy blanket strew across. The floor was unfinished stone and the only seating in the four-square-metre room was a dark wooden bench sat at a table swollen with stained and dog-eared books. From the bench, I noticed other figures in the room; sleeping bodies, half covered by hairy blankets, breathing heavily in their slumber. Solomon began introducing us to the inert sleepers: one studying law, another maths.
The area of Farmgate, where Solomon’s accommodation lies, is near to the buildings of Bangladeshi parliament and government. The architecture, stemming perhaps from the era of concrete madness, was bland. The parliament buildings were a series of red brick cylindrical silos with very few windows and flat roofs. With a wide moat at its base, the style could also have come from medieval castle designs with many circular towers laid out in a pentagon or hexagon.
The governmental buildings beyond had a design inspired by a shape matching game: a concrete cube with triangles, squares, and circles cut into it revealing rectangular windows within.
We approached the building and walked up to the security post blocking the road. Solomon strode up to the barrier. The security guard pounced from his booth, barking at Solomon.
“Aiee! Hey, mister!”
Then followed a fast conversation in heated Bangla before the guard turned to me.
“Doyouunderstandintheenglish.” At first, I thought he was still speaking in Bangla.
“Do you understand the English?” I stuttered in the affirmative, still reeling from his accelerated words.
“Where are you from?”
“England.”
“OK. Come.”
He twisted on his heels and sped towards the security booth. Inside, he interrogated me some more.
“What is your opinion: Bangladesh roads and communication.” His words spat out of his mouth like machine gun fire and warranted in me a speedy response.
“Good, uh, very good.”
He rattled out another question before talking on the phone in Bangla, still in brief, sharp sentences. Throwing the phone down, he spoke again to Solomon, who tipped his head to the side in obedience and led us back into the sun. The reason for our dismissal was unclear, but it had something to do with us being foreign guests. Perhaps there was important business within that they did not want us to witness.
We left the government buildings and headed down a street bazaar. Walking past overflowing stores, there was a slow transition from one end of the market to the other. Starting with carts and boxes stacked with melons, papayas, guavas and gourds, through to racks of silk shirts of all patterns—brown tartan, striped army green and white shirts with cream-coloured floral patterns—to stalls of porcelain wares. Teacups, saucers, plates, and cutlery adorned with the intricate patterns of Bengali writing and elephantine figures. Throughout the market line, vendors and shoppers crowded from every side as they pushed and pressed their way through curtains of lungis and trousers hanging across the way.
We piled on a rickshaw that took us off the main road and down a network of hidden alleys and dusty pathways, woven between the cream colours, crumbling houses. Construction sites cropped up at every turn, building in every space. Our driver pulled the bike around at an intersection coated with street sellers and other rickshaws awaiting passengers.
On foot now, we descended a parking lot ramp under a dirty concrete building and pass through a dark car park steaming with pollution and sweat. Out the other end of the dank, stinking tunnel, we entered into the glowing, dusty air of another dual carriage main street. To our right, polished stone steps led up to the glass façade of a huge shopping centre rocketing eight storeys above us. The American style mall was so far removed from the backstreets we had emerged from and the transition had been so short, it was like stepping through a portal to urbanised America, populated by brown-skinned Bangladeshis in sleek suits and silk sarees. The prices inside were tenfold of those along the streets near our guesthouse, but for food, we wanted to stay safe—not risking a curry from a vat that could have been out in the humid air for hours.
After a western meal in a semi-western mall, we headed for a window at the far end of the complex. The only road visible was that at the foot of this building; all others hidden by the sprawling mass of uneven buildings and exuberant number of billboards. The houses looked as if they were a child’s building blocks, scattered on the dusty ground and touched up only with slight brush marks for windows and doors. In the distance, the naked frameworks of abandoned builds were silhouetted in the orange dusty haze. Closer to our vantage point, we could make out plants—ferns and small palms—growing atop some of the buildings. These, along with the countless varieties of cement and concrete colour as well as building design, added an interest to the broken skyline not found in cities of clean glass and brick such as London. Here, every square inch of the vista was unique: from the colours, flora, architecture, rubble, and faded billboards.
We left the city, confused—from the many contrasting scenes, smells, tastes and sounds—and tired, heaving ourselves onto a bus again with one final vision of Dhaka: the wobbling rear end of an elephant, adorned with red and gold fabric, ambling into the dusty sunset. It was unfazed by the cacophony of nasal honks and clattering engines surrounding it and stuck true to its path.