Photo: bdnews24.com
We often bemoan lack of human rights in Bangladesh. Lack of or absence of people’s power. Individual rights. Citizen’s power. Freedom. Obstructions in the free spirited minds of its populace. I beg to differ.
I live in Sydney. Yesterday, a 12-hour flight, on a dreaded Malaysian Airlines, took me home — Dhaka. I sang “Country road take me home.” Dhaka is still my home, sweet home which my best friend calls a “hellhole”. He never lived outside Bangladesh. However, he takes a dim view of the mega city of Dhaka. Again, I beg to differ.
Now, I tell you why?
Last night, as we landed at Dhaka airport, which nowadays, has quite a convoluted name, we were huddled into a ramshackle airport bus, later off-loaded at the terminal. There are three types of immigration counters for 1) non-resident Bangladeshis, 2) foreigners and 3) Diplomats/First & Business Class passengers. I had the dream of using my newly issued Bangladeshi passport but observing the long queues at the non-resident Bangladeshi counter, I gave away the idea very quickly. I went to one of the foreigners’ queues. It took a long and agonising 70 minutes to get through it. More intelligent Deshi brothers with B-deshi passports who flew in our cattle class, went to more posh Diplomatic/First & Business Class counter without any qualm and availed themselves a better deal i.e. went home much quicker. Alternately, you can jump the queue and conveniently position yourself at the top of queue. You totally disregard or treat with utter disdain any complain by anyone who has been patiently waiting in the queue. This is about individual choice and freedom, isn’t it?
Free spirit of human being is on great display in our roads. Here you can express yourself with a perpetual poetic license. Draconian system will dictate that you will drive in a designated, marked but narrow lane, but as a freedom loving driver, you will drive wherever you like. It can be in between two lanes, or two-third of your car can be in one lane and one-third in another lane. Flow of traffic in Dhaka roads is like flow of water. Water flows in any direction if there is an opening — all mechanised, non-mechanised vehicles of Dhaka follow the same pattern. You just need a space; you compete against others to be there first and it is yours! It can be a car, a bus, a truck, a rickshaw, a CNG (auto-rickshaw), a motorcycle, a bicycle, a pedestrian or multitude of pedestrians.
We can also defy the law of nature or road rules. Like, you can choose to drive in the wrong side of the road. Pedestrians can cross the road at any point; they do not have to find an African Zebra crossing or a Bengal Tiger crossing. They can walk in any direction that they may want or choose. They can easily put monkeys to shame by virtue of their climbing prowess – long, black, sharp ended barriers in the middle of the road are no obstacle to them. They can walk between two moving buses, stand in-front of a moving bus/truck/car at will. This is called people’s power. Plus the idea of “Survival of the fittest” is proved time and again in our roads. For the naïve and unsophisticated minds, the phrase means — “postulating that those who are eliminated in the struggle for existence are the unfit.”
In the so-called western world, including Australia, roads are designed, designated and used for driving and riding only. Footpaths of those countries face the same fate i.e. they have a very limited use. It is not the case in Moghulai Dhaka. Our roads serve multitude of purposes, like driving, riding, also to park car/bus/truck/motorcycle at any location of your necessity and choice, to toss something that you don’t need around (roads are in fact socially accepted garbage collection space). Footpaths are to walk, to do small business, store your shop’s inventory, to sit around for gossips, to date, to urinate, to defecate, to beg, to sleep, to solicit for prostitution — you name it. Poor western town planners would not be able to comprehend such an optimum utilisation of scarce spaces. Such entrepreneurial mindset is hard to come by in the so-called developed nations.
Another area where citizens’ power is widely visible is road closure. No, we are not talking about road closure by the police department or homeland security in order to prevent a crime, investigate a crime or provide security to the powerful and elites. In Dhaka, road closure can be enforced by (practically) anybody. It may be to offer special prayer to the God of this mortal multiverse or it can be to recite loud eulogy of a politically powerful man (dead or alive) or to listen to a rousing, lofty speech by an aspiring pseudo-leader and/or perhaps you & your mates/comrades are happy or unhappy about anything/everything about you or around you. Nobody can dare to stop you, nobody can even frown upon your scheme; if anybody does, then he/she has to remember that there is no god that can save him/her from your wrath.
Oh! Citizens’ power!
In the midst of all the doom and gloom about Bangladesh in general and Dhaka in particular – time has come to recognise its uniqueness, the empowerment that it provides to its citizens. Citizen’s might is right and it is written in bold, underline and font size 49! Viva Dhaka!!
Source: Bd news24