Dhaka as seen through windows

The capital city has many faces. It presents itself in different ways to everyone who steps inside the city. Albeit all experiences are subjective, some are shared because they are inevitable. One such experience is how Dhaka is perceived through windows, more or less for everyone.

At home

We all know the most familiar window. It’s the window in your bedroom, and through this opening, people get a peek at the outside world; a peek at Dhaka. This is the window that feels like home. Even though the view out the window is not always pleasing.

If you are lucky, your window might be a few floors up and you get a good view of the city, a view that stretches quite far. Maybe you can see the sky. If you are one of the luckier ones, your view is not blocked by another building; instead, it is ornated by a playground in the view.

Unfortunately, most windows in the city present the tedious view of another window. Or worse, a solid wall or maybe the decaying walls of a building. A view that is not very appeasing. But that is the usual Dhaka through a window for most people.

A child’s view

Perhaps the most ardent enthusiasts of the window view are the children of Dhaka. The average home has barely enough space for all of the family members. For many, a porch is a luxury and a window is the only source of natural light in their home.

The children sitting at the window experience the city through these tiny grilled up opening. Whatever view they get, it is not enough for them. It is not enough for anybody. It’s much like a caged bird that you sometimes see through your window in your neighbour’s porch.

Moving window

Once you leave home, you get to feel the city out in the open, but only for a little while. Before long, people get on a vehicle.

And through that window, we get a glimpse of a city that is busy. A city that goes by in a blur when traffic is flowing and a city at a standstill, glowing in the hue of red taillights when the traffic gets in a congestion.

The view out the moving windows is never the same. They start simple at the stoppages: people are trying to board the bus. Then they change as quickly as the traffic lights. Street markets, hawkers, altercations in the middle of the road, a beggar asking for alms, a random fruit seller, an exhausted traffic police trying his best to stand tall, a random street child running with flowers, a fish seller in the middle of the road, an old couple trying to cross the road and failing, a confused passer-by waiting for the right bus with one bag too many — there’s a lot to see out the window and each individual has a story to tell. Do you ever wonder if you too are observed through the windows like this?

The consistent window

Once you get off the bus and clock in at work, the only thing that is constant is that the city of Dhaka is still visible and still busy as ever out the window. Even at work, you will get a view of the city but this time, a different form. Corporate offices usually face other skyscrapers, so the windows here present a view of a city that has no time for chitchat. You will see vehicles coming and going, all for business. You will see people running about. Suited, booted, and with no time to stand at the window and appreciate the view.

What’s there to appreciate? Well, many unlucky offices have their windows blocked and they do not get any view at all. Perhaps it was done out of safety concerns, but in a city like Dhaka where most of our experience of the city is visualised through windows, it sure is a loss.

Each window presents a different face of the city; it’s almost like every single window is a negative on a film roll and all of them together completes the image of Dhaka.

That being said, what these window views expose is a matter of concern. It recounts the fact that how little work-life balance there is in this city and even worse, how densely the buildings are built that most windows do not get a view that is decent enough to entertain a gust of wind.

Will we be able to address these issues and clean up the ‘image’ of Dhaka? Or will it be just another unsavoury view out the window?