Coming to Dhaka as a foreigner but also a native offers me windows into various interpretations of the society today. Dhaka is a meshpot of individuals, coming from all over the country, and the world, to create a hub of chaos, as well as inspiration.
I am both a foreigner and a native because I was born in the desh, but have spent all my life in New York City. Since moving here in October 2014, I’ve been on a journey to discover more about this land, people’s lives, and my personal attachment to it all.
As the case of many cities, Dhaka is divided in two— the haves and have nots. The contrast between the two socio-economic groups is remarkable, if we were to observe the extreme scales.
The former, are affluent individuals and families, that have copious political, social, and economical power in society due to their wealth coming from businesses, social enterprises, education institutions, and connections to the West. These are folks who have their lives made— with housemaids, chauffeurs, cars, and safety and security in their neighborhoods of Gulshan, Bonani, Boshundora, Baridhara and Uttara. These areas fall in the Northern part of the city.
The latter, are hard-working impoverished Bangladeshis, living in the slums, hidden away in alleyways, and tin houses, squeezed into uncomfortable spaces, and without much economic or social agencies over their future. Here in Dhaka, many of these folks work as household help, day laborers, rickshaw / bus / van / personal drivers, boatmen, or run dingy small businesses.
Many slum-dwellers also travel outside of the city walls to work in neighboring areas in the garment factories. These folks have unstable lives, severe lack of education and a lack of any real social mobility. It takes generations for kids to dig their families out of poverty. It is becoming easier with technology, and access to NGOs working hard on the ground, but the gap is still existent.
What amazes me most since being here is the attitudes between the two groups. Being an American, I have been conditioned into believing in strong notions of equality, justice, and fair treatment— and though the US has its own issues with race, and socioeconomic systems of oppression for minorities, citizens still have a sense of claim for impartiality and belonging. Here, it does not seem to be the case though.
In Dhaka, the lives of the two groups are utterly disconnected, although they exist within the same space of time, and environment. Household help do not utter too many words, and may be treated as shadows of their selves. Elite Bangladeshis expect those that are “below them” to address them properly, according to the hierarchy of social construct / conduct, in which they must be called “sir” “madam” or “boss”.
What has been most interesting to observe is the mentality of the wealthier class of young folks, who may be leading the country someday, given their privilege and positions of power. Rich Bangladeshi kids that hail from wealthy families, for the most part attend prestigious private universities, and do not mix with “locals” besides the ones that work in their homes— and even then, their behavior towards a lot of these workers may be belittling.
These kids are sheltered within their privilege, always traveling around in their fancy cars, even if the distance between Point A and Point B is a 5-minutes walk, because they cannot spoil their rich imported clothing with dust, from the streets of Dhaka. They look down on not only the poorest, but also middle class folks, who must travel in crowded local buses or prefer to eat street food, since it is much cheaper than the alternative option of dining out. These kids go to fancy restaurants and coffee-shops in the upper-scale neighborhoods with pricing equivalent to what we would pay in New York. Often, one bill may come out to be thousands of taka, which would feed a rickshawala’s family for a month.
The disparity is devastating and mind-boggling for someone like me, coming from the West, and having to come to terms with the differences in lives and mentalities of these groups. Inequality exists everywhere, but not as extreme as in these parts of the developing world.
On the opposite spectrum, in order to survey how the poor cope with their socioeconomic standing and lives, I have been having conversations with household workers that reside in my relatives houses, as well as speaking to people I run across in my wanderings around town.
It is perplexing how many of the house maids I have spoken to, are living within their own realm of reality, and never fully coming to terms with their situation or existence. It is as though some of them live only to go through the motions, without ever addressing their paucity of power. A housemaid in my sister-in-law’s house, from one of the most impoverished areas of the country, had been to Lebanon and Jordan, as a migrant worker, and yet she could not speak Bangla properly, nor sign her name– how is this possible?
Other workers I have spoken to, are bold and strong, and are working towards a better future and are very self-aware about their situation and what they must do to escape the trap of impoverishment. A housemaid in my Uncle’s house knows that if she works hard for two years as a maid, she can save up enough money to buy a sewing machine, and open up her own business; her dreams of entrepreneurship push her to continue working hard every day. Her husband is “lazy” and “unmotivated” she says, so she lies to him about her whereabouts, claiming to be living with her sister, and continue to work in households.
So many narratives, in one place, that often, if we do not learn to unpack all that we are seeping into ourselves from mere experience of ‘being’, it may become overbearing.
I find everyone I speak to has something to say, and with their stories, I am able to learn more about people’s perspectives of the world, in the place of where I’m from.
The slums of Korail, squeezed between the surrounding upper-class neighborhoods of Banani, Gulshan and Mohakhali.
REAL TALK 