February 08, 2012

Into the jam of Dhaka city

Its right past 6:30 pm, i have just stepped out of the office and got stuck in the jam. I am in officie microbus, and it cannot get out of the office premise.

This is an ordinary scene everyday, we look to the busy road before we ride onto the micro. Everyday we expect for less traffic, but never get that. Its already past six minutes after we started, and we are still there,right infront of our office building.



Sitting in the midst of jam is a boring experience. But we have to endure it everyday. Thats why most of us devised our own way to pass time. Like i watched people passing me, sitting around my vehicle, moving in the opposite lane. Its sort of interesting. You will find a lot of variations in dress, sitting style, talking patterns, walking style, even peeking into others mobile screen to see what they do.

If you look around, you will find a lot of tech gadgets people use. Almost everyone is either listening to mobile radio, playing games in mobile, listening music in mobiles and ipods, watching vedio in ipads and laptops. People are doing this sitting right in the jam. They have to pass time,right.

In most cases, severity of jam increases mostly because taking u-turns, moving in the opposite directions and abrupt lane changing. This is a very normal process of driving, right here in dhaka. If you are from outside Bangladesh, you will get scared in the midst of reckless driving. Yet the rate of accidents in this situation is comparatively low. This is the trivial situtation in dhaka. But you will find very different scenerio in othe cities in bangladesh.

It takes straight 20 minutes to pass a 5 minutes walking distance using the microbus. Is it sufficient to understand how dhaka looks like in the evening, after the office time?

This is a poor country, but you will not see the reflection in roads. At this moment, there is no pulic bus around me, i see only private cars. Cars, pajeros, rovers,micros, suvs, wagons.
Hey, do you know what is the most costly vehicle in dhaka? It is rickshaw. It will carry two to three people at a time, will run by a puller using physical strength and will demand a high pay. There are some motor driven rickshaws apeearing though, but they do not contribute to reduce the fare.

Living in dhaka is expensive, painful and challenging. Yet it provides you oppurtunity, like all big cities in the world. You will find some people looking for luck, right in the middle of traffic jam. You need to see it yourself to understand what i am saying.

Whatever, my fingers are protesting and my head is spinning as i write from my mobile. Lets finish it here for now. If you are reading this post, consider to visit me time to time, for getting updates about random topics, published write from my mobile.

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