DT e-Paper 21 March 2017

In defense of the Bangali
Opinion 13
To understand one part of Bangladesh, you need to understand all of it
DT
TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 2017
THE
WORLD IN
PARENTHESES
• SN Rasul
Sometimes, when you’re
sitting in the dirt and filth
of Dhaka, listening to verbal
and physical abuse around
you, it’s difficult to understand
how a people could allow
themselves to fall this far.
How could people be so cruel,
mean, blasé, how could they
continue to not comprehend the
extent to which they have failed to
inhabit qualities which are deemed
to be, for, lack of a better word,
“human?” Haven’t we progressed
enough to leave this behind?
If you ever need to take a
snapshot of Bangladeshi progress
though, head on over to Mouchak
mor. If you’re fortunate enough
to be waiting for a bus instead of
having your very own car, after
having traversed through the
mud-caked streets, tip-toeing on
your only pair of shoes worth a
damn, dodging debris and produce
along the way, you will have a
better view of it than anyone else.
Are the cracks in our economic growth easy to ignore?
MAHMUD HOSSAIN OPU
There are 50,000 people carrying progress
on their backs, and everyone wants a piece
of that pie
As you pull yourself up on to
the bus that has come through
Shantinagar and Kakrail, going
through similar terrain of flyover
construction leftovers of metal and
concrete, clambering down the
wrong side of the street, almost
knocking some poor bloke’s head
off, you are greeted by the sweaty
musk of your fellow citizens.
Hard work and perseverance,
trapped inside a ramshackle tin
bus. This is how far we’ve come.
If you’ve ever been on a
bus, then you also know that,
sometimes, these ramshackle,
moving, tin huts are also hotboxes
of conflict. You are maybe
privileged enough with sympathy
and kindness to not begrudge him
the extra Tk5 he’s attempting to
make on the fare, but others aren’t
as kind.
Verbal fights are common,
fistfights aren’t unheard of. The
conductors, most of the time,
stuck with passengers on their
bus, are unable to win the fight.
Often, the passengers hand them
a Tk5 note and don’t even answer
back.
The conductors continue to
inquire: “Mama, where are you
headed? Where are you going?”
The questions fall on deaf ears.
The conductor and the driver
need to make money, though.
They’ve been given a daily quota,
that’s why the driver, who you’ve
been calling a son of an animal
because he’s been driving like a
maniac, has been almost killing
pedestrians and brushing against
competitor buses.
The customer, though, is hard
not to judge. He could betray
some sort of decency of character,
as a fellow human being, and
try and understand the plight
of the conductor. Instead, he
merely hands him a Tk5 note and
doesn’t even bother looking in his
direction.
But maybe, much like you,
overworked and weary, he has
just come from a family that he
is struggling to feed more than
he thought he would, especially
with all the development and
progress getting in the way, all this
economic growth.
Tk5 a day, six days a week,
for years, over and over again,
of having to come through these
pathetic roads for what seems
to be years now, can try one’s
patience.
He, too, perhaps, has only one
pair of nice shoes, which he has
to spend every night polishing for
the mud that sticks to the leather
like glue.
When the bus lotor-potors down
the wrong side again, because
all the way up, past Malibagh
rail-gate and beyond, one side has
been blocked, and the other side
is not policed, at all, you will see
construction workers flinging fiery
spit from the top.
Alongside this, there are blocks
of concrete left all along the road.
Open carcasses of steel lie uncared
for underneath the half-finished
symbol of growth.
And this is topped off by the
constant movement of massive
vehicles which carry these massive
structures, impeding both traffic
and life.
One cannot help but wonder
why they care so little for life
when they fling fire from the
heavens as they solder. Do they
not wonder of the life that lives
underneath?
And why, indeed, has it been
taking so long? Are the workers
lazy? Are they inefficient? Even if
one is aware of the initial fiasco
with designing the flyovers
with left-hand drive in mind, it
shouldn’t be taking this long,
should it?
But this is the kind of behaviour
that has been allowed to nurture
in this society, this complete
disregard for decency and life. Life
is cheap, especially theirs. You
see the occasional yellow helmet,
maybe a harness, but most of the
time, they have dangled on the
precipice, staring at Death on the
ground, mouth opened wide,
ready to devour.
There are instructions and red
tape. There are 50,000 people
carrying progress on their backs,
and everyone wants a piece of that
pie. As each slice is cut, each one
thinner than the last, it takes a
little more time, and a little more
time, and a little more time.
A few days ago, you heard
the news of a part of the flyover
breaking down and killing one
person, and amputating two. You
thought, how does this continue
to happen? How can a government
get away with so much negligence
in the name of progress?
But, to understand one part of
Bangladesh, you must understand
all of it. You must understand
everyone, from the corrupt bus
owner to the conductor, from
the ministers in parliament to
the street urchins who have been
forced to amputate their legs so
that they can beg for change.
But it’s okay if you don’t
understand. Look at today’s
headlines. Bangladesh just won
the Test match against Sri Lanka.
That’s reason enough to be happy,
right? •
SN Rasul is an Editorial Assistant at the
Dhaka Tribune. Follow him @snrasul.