Written by: Sabib Mubassir
A humid,overpopulated,congested,dusty,dry and dirty city, is what Dhaka habitants woefully visualize when their ears makes sense of the word “Dhaka”.
The aforementioned description doesn’t compliment the city’s ‘A fast developing mega city’ title. The words ‘Mega city’ gives us an image of a very highly developed city, very clean and tidy, with an organized traffic system.A city which fulfills the dreams of its habitants and puts a smile on their faces. Unfortunately the opposite can arguably be used to depict Dhaka.
Locals puts alot of expectations on the shoulders of the Dhaka. Are these expectations met in reality?
A clean and tidy environment is a common expectation made. Yet, there is barely a street here which is not dressed by bunch of wrapping papers and other organic garbage. People spitting on footpaths is merely a common sight and common practise. Wastes are thrown out of windows like the word “bin” has been erased from our dictionary. No,Dhaka doesnt meet out idea of tidyness,but we are to blame.
Expecting a quite afternoon here is equivalent to a sin. Locals will unanimously agree that Dhaka is a raucous mess. Hell is not a place where mischievous people fo after death.Hell is living by a main street in Dhaka.The impatient horns, the screams of roadside quarrels,the head wrecking, continuous whistles of traffics are bound to turn your life into a living nightmare.
Have an important meeting? Expecting to reach office in time? Not a chance, not here. To reach any destination, you’ve tobrace yourself to go through a minimun of an hour of traffic. And God help you if you are in a vehicle with no air conditioner, sweat soaked shirt and dehydration is a must.
What one can expect is the annoyingly ridiculous amount of load sheddings and shortage of running water in the hotter climates, which is almost 8months in this part of the world. A mega city and load sheddings? Oh, the irony!
And finally technology. Yes there has been miraculous development in this field.High speed internet connection has been established for bith work and home.Education is becoming more and more internet based. Projectors are being used in classrooms. Though in some fields the dvelopment was significantly below average, eg. Taxis still doesnt use metrs for rents and most of the schoolsand colleges has still not been able to experience the bliss of technology they deserves.
Dhaka is a fast expanding,sole mega city of Bangladesh, reeling underthe expectation of a population of almost 12 million. It is bound to crack under the plethora of expectations we put upon it. But to be honest, it has done sufficiently well in the last 4 years or so. Loadshedding and water crisis reduced significantly. A miraculous feat was achieved in the field of technology, highways has been built to reduce traffic, places like Hatirjheel was renovated to add to the beautification of the city. And,Dhaka never ceased to disappoint food lovers, with its rich and variety of both street and restaurant food. Dhaka is slowly but gradually getting there
Source: Dhaka Insider
