Postscript
Zooming Away in a Traffic Jam?
Bangladeshis living abroad are appalled when they come to Dhaka every few years. How can you live like this they say. Things just seem to be getting worse. We, the locals, agree with them wholeheartedly while they salivate over mangoes, lichis, kanthal and ilish pulao.
True, we have reached a real low this year.
We tear our hair (whatever little is left) everyday over the painful gridlocks that paralyse regular life. A ten minute journey has become a two hour ordeal. People don't go for a drive just for the fun of it anymore – such an idea would be preposterous. This excludes the few delusional individuals who decide to take out their convertibles with the top down only to experience the dust storms and beggar attacks as they sit with all the other regular folk in the abyss of a traffic jam.
But nothing beats the craziness of hartals, which have become more normal than traffic jams. Opposition parties have taken it upon themselves to call a hartal for most of the working days of the year. In the old days a hartal meant a day of zero air-pollution, breezy rickshaw rides around the city, going to say, Purana Paltan from Gulshan in half an hour – an impossible feat on a non-hartal day. Now however, opposition parties have caught on – they don't want hartal to be a breezy experience. They want people to suffer so that it shows. Thus the unexpected attacks on cars and buses a day before the hartal – to make sure people are too terrified to take any kind of motorised vehicle the next day. Going in a rickhaw is also a shaky option as you never know when a stray bullet/brick will knock you out while the police and hartal vandals scuffle all over the city.
Foreigners and expat Bangladeshis marvel at the way we still seem to go about our lives swerving away from violent picketers, taking rides on ambulances or just sitting in our homes for days on end until a hartal-free day comes along. Usually it is a Friday though certain political parties have even used this day to make a point as violently as possible.
Another thing that people who don't live here are amazed by is the number of VVIPs we have in this country. Of course we don't run into them in the kitchen market like perhaps, New Zealand; but we do get a glimpse of a hand, a pair of sunshades, maybe even the shape of a revered head if we are lucky. VVIPS are very very important persons who have the privilege of experiencing Dhaka as if it were still in the 1960s. No matter what the traffic situation – the roads will magically clear and an invisible red carpet is laid out for this very special person to zoom by in his/her Mercedes or BMW, bullet-proof if you are in the top category. The entourage of security personnel in various types of vehicles is indeed impressive. Even more intriguing is the fact that anyone related to a VVIP will automatically be given this royal treatment, complete with a blaring siren and someone barking on a microphone telling the public to basically shove off. Thus if one happens to be the son, daughter, cousin, even handyman of the VVIP it will be a fast, smooth ride to one's destination. It's also fun no doubt, to watch all the lesser populace sweating it out, scowling away as they wait until the grand cavalcade passes by.
These things should normally infuriate the ordinary citizen, who have gone out of the way to elect many of these VVIPs. But remember, we are known as the champions of resilience the torchbearers of impossible hope, the pioneers of tolerating nonsense.
That's why we don't mind when our elected Members of Parliament don't attend parliament for 316 days while happily pocketing around 4 and a half crore taka in perks and allowances. We don't hold a grudge against them for causing a loss of 59 crore taka to the national exchequer. Nor are we concerned about the fact that they do not let go of those snazzy cars that cost crores of taka, that too tax-free, as they zoom past us, entourage and all.
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