Love is a kind of commitment

This picture was taken by our colleague Jewel Shil at nine in the morning on the day before Eid, 21 August, at the Chottogram railway station. I saw the picture and froze for a few seconds. These people hadn’t been able to find a place inside the train. At the risk of their lives, they had clambered to the roof to travel home, wrapped in sheets of polythene to protect themselves from the torrential rain.

We see such scenes every Eid, of people huddled on the train roofs, desperate to get home for the holiday. For those of us who have never travelled home like ants clinging to a slippery roof, we will never be able to understand this challenge. We see this reality year after year. It has become commonplace, the norm.

Why do they travel this way?

Everyone breathes a sigh of relief and says, “The city is finally empty! We’ll be able to move around in peace and breathe freely for a few days.” Before uttering such callous words, they don’t think for once that the city cannot run without these people. The city will come to a standstill without their labour, development will come to a halt like a stopwatch. They are the drivers of urban civilization, partners in our lives and livelihoods, yet how far do we acknowledge them as people of the city? When abroad, these Bangalis, rich and poor, all celebrate Eid and other festivals as one. They unite in their common identity. But such cohesion doesn’t happen back in Bangladesh, in their own cities of Dhaka or Chittagong. It’s each for his own, but this issue warrants thought.

There are over 160 million people in this country. No matter how ‘corporate’ Dhaka or Chittagong may become, no matter how many billions of dollars are poured into the concrete structures, none of them are able to love this city as their own. They cannot. Where have things gone wrong?

There is much to be learnt from the rural people. When city people go to the village, the people there treat them with respect, give them time. But when the village people go to the cities, they are not given the same respect or treatment. The city people seem ready to mistreat at any time, as is so evident in mills and factories and in households as well. The city ladies can’t run their household without them, but they are contemptuously called ‘bua’. These ladies mistreat their household help as badly as the Saudi housewives. These rich wives in our cities burn these hapless helping hands with hot spoons, iron and boiling water. What perverse pleasure do they get from imparting such torture?

These two major cities have honourable mayors of the city corporations, but they take no initiative to address this situation. They do not have the gumption to embrace these people as their own, with love and care, to speak out for them. The ministers and leaders have failed to do so too. They cannot says, “Celebrate Eid with us. This is your city too. You are not bound to this city just through your labour.”

And so these people, who give their blood, sweat and tears labouring for the city, struggle away from this exploitative economy, searching for a couple of days’ respite. Does any other city in the word become so very vacant during any festival?

As the festival of Eid comes around, these people take on a strange strength and courage. Going home for Eid is a surreal nightmare, with death reaching out enticingly. Every year hundreds of lives are lost en route home or back. The concerned minister evades censure by rattling out statistics of accidents in other countries.

Before venturing out to enjoy Eid, there is the hassle of getting the tickets to travel home. That itself is a tedious, tiresome and frustrating exercise. Perhaps we are not as practical as the West. They would not risk their lives in such a manner to leave the city. But here there is the pull of love, not just for the family, but for the community, for one’s anthropological roots.

In response to the urban people, the people returning to the villages perhaps silently reply, what a relief from the torturous life in the city! After all, they are going home to the arms of Mother Nature.

* Shawkat Ali is senior moderator, social media, Prothom Alo. This piece has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir.