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Dhaka: The city of paradoxes

Published : Sunday, 29 October, 2017 at 12:00 AM  Count : 306
Ahmed Tahsin Shams
Dhaka, if personified, will stand as: a postmodern hero having no 'heroic' features, and it is full of paradoxes. If Dhaka is a literary text, the city streets are crowded with walkers who never read the text. But, they all 'love' Dhaka blindly like lovers in each others' arms.

That is why, in Dhaka, bookstalls are shut, authors-publishers are imprisoned or exiled, as well as, shriek to seek justice against the war criminals at Ganajagaran Mancha knocks the air. And, because of this air, Dhaka is 11th in the world in the global Pollution Index Rate by 2017 mid-year.

Nevertheless, this was age-long-ago assumed in many 'golden' songs, as if these 'golden' dust particles in the air of Dhaka, which the walkers taste each day, perhaps, have made our land the 'Golden' Bengal!     
It is interesting to note how Dhaka has created paradoxical spaces within itself. It celebrates Pahela Baishakh in traditional grandeur manner; on the other hand, it attempts to shut participation of one gender, based on patriarchal religious values. In Dhaka's Shahbag, TSC areas --- revolutions took place, as well as at these places: Abhijit Roy was murdered in broad daylight, women were abused and dehumanized.

The practice of rituals here is also self-contradictory. Most of the Dhaka dwellers in the Ramadan put on excessive weight and food business reaches at peak in the month of fasting! The ritual of sacrifice, during Eid-ul-Adha, becomes the tool to measure social status, as if below 70 thousand taka priced cow for 'qurban' will take away the societal dignity!

In Dhaka, in no time, dwellers will celebrate Waterlogging Day. Waterlogged capital is the dream-place for countryside residents who rush into the capital for bread-butter-books. People prefer to study in Dhaka based private universities, even if they are selected in countryside public universities!
Regarding jobs, many private banks raise the salary bar for them who will be posted out of Dhaka, yet people toil, moil, and look for the lobby that can hold their back in Dhaka!

Dhaka is magic, as beggars here are not only choosers, but also owners of residential flats. Dhaka is mystic, as its inhabitants find it the most insecure area even when guarded by police check posts and patrolled by RAB vehicles.
Suddenly, you might see your phone has vanished! Within a blink of an eye, your necklace might just fly away, and wallet might evolve having its own legs!
Dhaka is artistic beyond the head! Wall-arts of Dhaka resemble this city as a 'land of lovers' where mathematically couples names are added surrounded by cupid's arrow. Moreover, in few areas, texts represent 'masculinity' under veil of 'abusing' dictions against particular gender.
Dhaka --- the most progressed city in Bangladesh is too liberal for its residents, and therefore let all do toilet here and there off and on. Signboards like "Do not Pee" work as Beckett's dramatic monologues!      

The paradoxes can hardly be full-stopped. Dhaka, a growing feminist city, shows different colours when a girl is raped. Dhaka blames the attires, calls names, rebukes her routines, and creates new chains to construct one gender as the 'weaker' ones.      
Emotionally Dhaka surpasses Facebook emoticons! Uprooting Baul sculpture leaves no scratch in hearts, whereas removal of the sculpture of the Greek Goddess hurts in deep.

Dhaka is in grey in colour, here carnivals are colourfully constructed hierarchically, thereby kills the Bakhtinian 'carnivalesque' manner. Dhaka moves ahead with skyscrapers, as well as goes down with quack-collapses.
In education, Dhaka succeeds compared to the most other cities; and in crime -- it becomes 'devil doesn't listen to the scriptures'. Here, parents even jump for hidden centres unofficially known as 'admission question leakage houses'.       
For child labour, Dhaka is the best school to be admitted; for patients, public hospitals serve the soonest --- to prepare the funeral bed! For women, Dhaka is the place to score higher CGPA to be a homemaker of a wealthy groom; for teen urban kids, Dhaka is the city of 'gaze' after breaking their fast in shopping malls. For working middle-income men --- it's a nightmare of bank-loans; for well-off aged grand-parents Dhaka is the morning walk that makes way for a bucket of 'luchis' or 'paratha' prohibited at home.    

The drama 'Dhaka' goes on, dwellers' dreams boil and boil, and Dhaka lives with unpredictable paradoxes full on.    

Ahmed Tahsin Shams is Lecturer, Department of English Language and Literature, Notre Dame University Bangladesh, and Editorial Assistant,
The Daily Observer






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