The unbearable heaviness of being a Bangladeshi

Rahad Abir
Rahad Abir

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness…Allen Ginsberg

You are a dreamer. You dream big. You dream that Bangladesh is becoming the next Singapore or Malaysia. You dream and you are damn sure that Bangladesh is getting the developing country status by 2024.

I salute you. And I respect your ambitious vision. But I, being a poor dreamer, have other thoughts and hopes. Let me share something with you.

I was in a newly married couple’s house for lunch. Meal over, I was talking with the husband at the dining table. The maid was walking past carrying a tray laden with bowls to the kitchen. The husband asked her to pop back and pour him a glass of water. A crystal water pitcher on the table was full, flanked by tumblers within the reach of his hand. He just needed to rise and help himself. After calling twice, the girl replied, and headed over to our table.

At Dhaka airport, I was in the long check-in line of Emirates Airlines bound for London Heathrow. Behind me was a balding man with his wife and two kids. Half an hour later, I spotted him front to the check-in counter, far ahead of me. Someone accused him of line jumping. I didn’t cut in, the balding man claimed, shouting back, I was here from the beginning. ‘‘Do you know who I am?’’ he pointed a finger at the accuser. Later, at the immigration desk, I saw that the balding man had a British passport. The Bangladeshi born British citizen, I was certain, would not dare doing the same (queue jumping) at Heathrow.

Often, in many narrow streets of Dhaka, I run into an overwhelming scene. A car pulls up, blocks traffic in single file. The chauffeur gets out, takes a U-turn himself across the car and hurries to the back door. While he holds open the door a hefty woman (in most cases), makes her way out. During the whole process other vehicles stuck behind keep blaring. The chauffer, instead of apologising, snarls at the honkers. The people do not dare to engage in any altercation. God knows who the car owner might be, they wonder. Could be a big fish, could be someone with good political connections.

We have become a nation, a growing population who bizarrely take a great ‘delight in disorder’. Bangladesh’s chaotic capital Dhaka is one of the least liveable cities on earth. The New York Times christened Dhaka as the ‘world’s most broken city’.

Take the example of spitting. Few friends of mine who spit sporadically in public places get chastised by me. ‘‘When the city will be clean,’’ they say, ‘‘we’ll automatically stop spitting.’’ But they balk at asserting that spitting is just a habit. Those who spit they do it everywhere, whether the streets are clean or not.

Another practice has proliferated, alarmingly of course. People happily tend to disrespect the rights of others. They damn care about neighbours’ privacy, causing nuisance and disturbance to others’ lives with everyday activities. In January this year, an elderly resident of Dhaka’s Wari was beaten to death for protesting about loud music in a wedding ceremony.

It’s not only in the capital. It’s all across the country. People are increasingly getting impatient, losing compassion, losing the warmth in their famous Bengali heart. If you have money, and political power added to it, you begin to believe-inside this hard-earned map of Bangladesh-you can do whatever you want. You can keep law in your pocket. This dicey, misplaced mentality is killing us, softly but slowly.

I imagine a future Bangladesh where there will be a massive change in the way of people’s thinking. Their way of looking at things. Their mindset. Attitude. Behaviour.

And I await the day when every citizen will not only dream big, but will also bear the spirit-the spirit that can turn a nation into an unstoppable force so every soul can proudly say: I am a Bangladeshi.

* Rahad Abir is a writer. His works have appeared in Aerodrome, Toad Suck Review, Blue Lyra Review, The Penmen Review, New Asian Writing and Wilderness House Literary Review.