Travel in Dhaka City: Where Life Moves on a Roller Coaster

As the twilight sparkles through the magnificent architectural glitz of the city, Dhaka unwraps herself from a tedious day of work to pave way for an evening that has loads to offer. Dhaka- a boring, unadventurous city of the seventies is now a total contrast, it is the half of all happenings, the city that throbs will all possible and imaginable diversity. Infused by a new blood of globalization the cosmopolitan infrastructure is constantly changing. A touch of experimentation can be perceived in all spheres. The city fabric itself under a manic metamorphosing process has lost the prosaic, bland colour that once upon a time made life-absolutely colourless. Be it food, entertainment, shopping or just hanging about, the people of Dhaka have a massive array of option to choose from. Madu’s canteen is now not just the only place.  Life is multifaceted, and Dhaka is hell bent to reap the fun out of life and her spices.

Start with eating, the capital has become a big-frying pan sizzling to the newly found taste buds of the city dwellers. Eat, eat and eat just stuff your stomach to your hearts content. That is the motto of the eating scenario. Bunking classes with mischievous looks on their face, young college kids hang around in the fast food joints. Munching on burgers and sipping sodas is their idea for a break. The latest Boyzone, Aqua lyrics are their driving force. To keep up with the demands of the “Tommy-Hilfiger” obsessed generation burger and fast food joints are springing up. The idle evenings are not spent on the roof philandering with girl next door. Now it’s cuddling in a fast food joint while listening to J.J Cale’s sensitive kind.  Rock lovers usually hang about the Rock Café. As Bruce Springsteen sets the ambience with “I am on Fire” the hips swing in the floors, the tension released through a bit of shakin and rollin. Dance-mania is on and Boogie-Woogie is a hit with the youngsters. American Fried Chicken, Southern Fried Chicken, Sously’s, Coopers and hundreds more caters to the gossiping, flirting young generation. Their identity now intertwined with a culture, that was once just a part of Archies comics. For a real hip and trendy ambience try the Hot Hut. Hot and wild-its got the delicious flavour of Eternity and Poison delicately blended.

The mobile food cart of Sajna and Yummy Yummy offer food in a novel perspective.

Some prefer to hang about the market places. Life and high heels both can be observed without offending anyone. Go near fuller road. In the serenity of the university area pairs sit on the pavement-engrossed in one another, oblivious to the world-love being the most powerful of all things. Gossiping finds loads of adherents near the TSC where all topics from Sharon Stone to Sonali Bendre get brewed up with sips of hot tea. Near Shabag the Boi Para-gives sanctuary to those who claim to be a bit different from the others. Lenin, Che, Polanski are familiar names and Kurtas with jute bags hanging from the shoulders are the patented attire.

The greens of Ramna echo the resonant voice of a would be poet reciting Robert Frost. The theatre buffs hang around Baily road. The evenings there are full of activity. The stages come alive as the actors weave a hypnotic world of cultural perfection. People sit by the road talking about Eugene O’Neil or Tennessee Williams. The air is that of sophistication-trying to make its presence solid within so much mediocrity around. For those who work during the day evenings in Dhaka is a respite from the demands of life. They unwind, relax and let the moments pass by leisurely.

Bibliophiles stroll around the second hand book shops. Who knows they just might stumble upon Jeffrey Archer or a Frederick Forsyth. Rainbow, Soor Bichitra is the regular hang about place for the music-lovers. Waiting for the new released Ritchie Blackmore L.P inspires nostalgic chats that go back to the years of temple of the king and snake charmer. Calvin Klein, Hugo Boss are no longer met with questioning eyes. Brand lovers go about the flashy markets that offer everything from Cravats to Cuff links.

People with a weakness of art can have their aesthetic senses invigorated by dipping into a different world in one of the many art  galleries in Dhanmondi . Those with taste as well as money to spend to go to galleries not only to appreciate art but to acquire them. Gourmands paradise will be the best name for the cosmopolitan and one might want to spend the evening trying the Kimchi or the delectable Spaghetti washed  down with a fine bottle of Baron D’Arignac. Cordon blue food is served in the vast number of restaurants in Gulshan . If your aim is to having a lovely evening  having an agreeable meal with a glass of good wine then money should not be the deterrent. Royal Orchid, Ninfas, Lemongrass, Wakana, Young Bin Kawan, Sky Room, Lazeez, offer variety and class in the eating scenario. A nice evening , a lovely companion and good food –a potent combination that revs up the system to go on.  After work the health conscious end up pumping iron in the gyms. This gym-mania is the latest trend that takes up the time of many people. This is a short of elixir, that freshens the system, releases tension and makes me ready to face life’s fickleness said Ershad a reputed banker. Health centres are coming to the scene and along with Van Dame encouraged figures. A bit of billiard with a few glasses of chilled fosters is some people’s idea of living the life in Dhaka. For those who can not operate without a pleasant libation there are the bars. In the cool darkness, drenched within the melody of Pankaj Udas and an iced whisky many tend to severe all bonds with reality. The crystal glasses create a spectrum of illusion as the night gets synthesized with the Tequila charm.

Those with a liking for the drink but unable to go to the bars settle for bottles bought from the Banani area. Meanwhile some just prefer the local stuff.

As night gets older, the skin of inhibition falls off the night-clubs roar. As the fog lights flash on the dance floors couples get wild in ecstasy –Ricky Martin pierces through the heart as the limbs roll with the bit. Tramps,

Atlantis, the International Club take life to the peak of fulfillment. Clad in Armani skirts and Gap t-shirts, young girls with their curvaceous figures chill out. “Youth passes in the blink of an eye so enjoy it while it lasts” is their motto and they surely are living up to it.  With the clock reaching for the 12 o’clock mark life slows down. Down to the waterline or Sultans of Swing play in the car stereo as many take long drives through the isolated streets of the capital.  The cool night air freshens the lungs. Some just sit around the corners of silent streets and savour the lucidity of silence.

The sun shines again over the capital and announces the beginning of another new day in the city. Life and her variations roll again and one is reminded of that famous saying in a different way. “If one is bored with Dhaka, he is bored with life, cause Dhaka has everything that life has to offer.”

Travel in Dhaka: The Life and Times of Dhaka in My Eyes

There is a short anecdote about Jug Suraiya, the renowned columnist, which I am fond of retelling.A fellow guest at a party in Greenwich Village told Jug Suraiya that when he visited Calcutta, Satyajit Roy showed him around the city. “I bet I know your Calcutta better than you do” he said. “No,” Suraiya replied. “You know Roy’s Calcutta not mine.” So it is with Dhaka. Anybody who has stayed here or even visited the city has his own pleasures and pains, memories and anecdotes. Though I was born in Calcutta, my first conscious memory is that of Dhaka. In Dhaka I have been moving from houses in Madan Mohon Basak road, to Azimpur, to Dhanmondi and now in Uttara. All these movements have coincided with distinctive eras in the history and development of the city. In the fifties and sixties  I have stayed in  Madan Mohon  Basak road  and then Azimpur, which were at that time the newly developed areas, and then in the  seventies and eighties in Dhanmondi which has now become replete with offices and multi-storied apartments, making it too crowded for my tastes. Uttara is now for me a place with urban amenities and with the quiet of the suburbs. The secret of karate is to turn your adversary's strength to your advantage. Similarly to survive in Dhaka, the secret is to make every adversity, every misfortune, and every misery work to your benefit. At least that is what I have been trying to do in my Odyssey through the city. Perhaps no other place exercises quite the same kind of lure, composed of about equal parts of nostalgia and anger.

In the various decades and the various areas I have stayed in the development of the city I have seen the first paving of roads as Madan Mohon  Basak road transformed from a bed of brick chips to a broad swathe of asphalt, along with others in that area and elsewhere north of the railway tracks. Speaking of the railways , the railway canteen  of Sorabjee's at the Phulbaria railway station was a good place for dining out, as were the ‘cabins’ of Sadarghat, where cutlets-prawn or chicken-were a prime attraction. Then came the Chinese restaurants, first Cafe China and then Chu Chin Chow. This ‘Chinese’ revolution has brought about by now the highly popular concept of eating out in a Chinese restaurant. The Gulistan building housed the Chu Chin Chow, and Gulistan cinema hall itself, which was in the fifties the largest and the first and only air-conditioned cinema hall.

One of our principal recreations in our younger days was to loiter around in that novel market place, the New Market, the first example of a shopping mall in our country. In the evenings a saunter around the New Market, mostly to ogle at women and sometimes to browse in book shops. And then an hour or more of chatting at a tea shop. The chatting is one institution, present also in the neighbouring metropolis of Calcutta, which is most importantly an instrument of cathartic release. All the pent up emotions that the average Dhaka  dweller builds up in the course of his daily Odyssey, careering between  the Scylla of chronic shortages and the Charybdis of chaos rampant, while clinging on to an overcrowded minibus, are poured out in the Homeric epic of the chatting. The daily chatting acts as an emotional armour which protest the participant against the slings and arrows of outrageous urban life. The range of chatting is as vast the city and as small as the closed circle of cronies. From street corners and the tea-stalls there, to the private clubs such as the Dhaka club, and in between the two extremes are the tea shops in the markets and the educational institutions, these are the locales of the Dhaka citizen for his marathon talkfests.

Festivals such as the Eid, the Pujas, Christmas, and also Bengali New Year and fairs of all types such as Ekushe Boi Mela, and Export Fair, are occasions for us to indulge in an orgy of festive activity.  All our bottled-up emotions and sentiments are let loose and we undertake recreational parades around the town and on the fairgrounds. The simple reason is that there are now precious few places to wander around.

The only park worth the name, Suhrawardy Uddyan, is like New York’s Central Park, quite forbidding at night, and not quite enjoyable in the daytime. The same goes for the zoo and the botanical gardens. The minuscule Shisu Park is always overcrowded.

Cultural events in the city are of infrequent occurrence. The most regular amongst these are the theatrical performances, while public musical or dance performances are rare and often relate to events like Bangla New Year, or Boi Mela or visits from artistes abroad. These days cable television has literally opened a window on the world but we are at the same time swamped by the invasions of other cultures.

The city therefore seems to be all past and no future, and so capable of inducing a virulent attack of nostalgia. Random, haphazard, raucous the city has lived through wars and riots, epidemics and floods. But Dhaka, as many of us have discovered, is a movable chatting. In our homes, in the clubs, in tea shops, and on the streets, Dhaka is everyone's childhood, measles mumps and all.