Destination Dhaka

Zoning appeals

You don’t need a PhD in anthropology to figure out that some social practices broadly accepted and followed in Western countries are either alien—or simply ignored—in other cultures. A case in point is the orderly line or queue. 

It’s certainly annoying when someone jumps in ahead of you at passport control or while you’re in line at a bank or waiting to pay for your groceries, but it’s hardly a crowd control issue. However, queue-hopping becomes a problem when a lot of people do it simultaneously. It certainly creates a challenge for global organizations such as airlines that need to control human movement.

I had met my colleague, Nicola Christofides from the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, in Dubai. Our flight to Dhaka in Bangladesh on an Emirates Boeing 777 was full, as it usually is, with migrant workers returning from the Gulf states. It was the Bangla new year, and many were returning for the holidays. All passengers had boarding cards with their zones listed.

The gate agent made the routine announcement, inviting first class and business passengers and families with children to board first. The crowd parted to allow a few to make their way to the jetway. When the agent announced, “Zone A,” the crowd surged forward, pushing past the few Westerners who were dutifully waiting for their zone to be called.  The pushing and shoving was all pretty good-natured, but it was evident that the battle for overhead compartment space was on.  For a few minutes, the agents attempted to collect boarding card stubs, then simply gave up. 

On board, passengers ended up in the wrong aisle and had to make the long detour around the bathrooms to reach their seats. The United Arab Emirates women’s under-19 soccer team, on its way to compete in a multinational tournament in Dhaka, boarded en masse and clambered over seats to be with their friends. The cabin crew remained calm. They were evidently used to the chaos.

Communication problems

On the drive from Dhaka airport to our hotel--the curiously named Bengal Blueberry in the Gulshan-2 district--the conversation with the driver, Mohammed Deloa, went something like this.

“They’re selling a lot of fruit at the roadside stalls. Which fruits are in season?”

“You will find many good restaurants close to our wonderful hotel. I’m sure you will be very happy with the choices.”

“Yes, but what about the fruits? It’s April. Are the mangoes good?”

“The Blueberry restaurant has a good menu.  But you may also eat at the food court in the mall next to the hotel.”

Obviously, it was time to change the subject.

“Why is it called the Bengal Blueberry?  I’ve never seen blueberries in Bangladesh.”

“The company has three hotels in Dhaka. The Bengal Blueberry, the Bengal Inn and the Bengal Canary Park. All offer superb service.”

“But why Blueberry?”

“Our staff will make you very welcome.”

Nicola and I decided that Mohammed had mastered a few key marketing scripts in English but was not able to offer much more. I reverted to a standard Dhaka topic where almost anyone with basic English can participate.

“The traffic from the airport isn’t too bad today.”

“No, sir. It is the weekend. Much worse during the week. Only 20 minutes to the hotel. One hour or more at other times.”

We pulled up at the Bengal Blueberry, where a sign advertised the Bluelicious Restaurant. Mohammed dutifully pointed out the entrance to the mall. We resolved to try the food court.

Food Court

I have no ambitions--and certainly no qualifications--to be a food critic.  But I’ve eaten at enough cheap places in malls around the world to offer some insights. I guess I can modestly claim to be a food court critic.

Mohammed was right. The food court in the small mall next to the Bengal Blueberry--two floors up from the Unimart supermarket where I’ve shopped on previous visits to Dhaka--offers an amazing variety of cuisine, and an even more amazing variety of names. Collectively, if rather pretentiously, it is called The Chef’s Table.

Nicola and I decided to skip “The Crack Shack,” which offered nothing more addictive than smoothies and snacks. I eat Mexican at home in West Virginia often enough that “Dos Locos” did not appeal. “Uncle Sam’s” offered crepes and waffles, but no burgers (try “Impulse Burger” two floors down for a Bangladesh Whopper). We passed on “Pizza Guy,” which offered the “Nightmare Firestorm” (probably the one with all the toppings).  There was “Pastamania” and “The Italian Place--a place to hang your hat” (if you have one), “Madchefx” and “Hakka Chaka” (looked Japanese). We considered the Middle Eastern place, but ended up at “Taste of Lanka,” where I had the “Housefull” combination plate. Pretty good, although more generic South Asian than distinctively Sri Lankan.

Should we order more food from The Chef’s Table?

Apart from the variety, there are two cool things about The Chef’s Table. First, each establishment has a kitchen and the food is freshly cooked. You pay and come back in 15 or 20 minutes to pick up (or sometimes they will serve you). Second, all food is served on real plates with cutlery--not a polystyrene dish or plastic fork in sight.  After you’ve finished your meal, a busboy clears the table. In other words, restaurant-style service in a food court.

As a newly minted food court critic, the only recommendation I can offer is to Madchefx which put out a board advertising “Today’s Special.”  It read (I am not making this up):

Today’s Special: Buy two meals--and pay for them both.

What a deal! 

All at sea in Chittagong

“Can you give me a window seat on the left side of the plane?” I asked the Novoair agent at Chittagong airport as I checked in for the return flight to Dhaka. I usually request an aisle seat to get a few extra inches of legroom, but it was going to be a short, 50-minute flight and I hoped for a good view of the Bay of Bengal as the plane headed northwest. I had read newspaper reports of major back-ups at Chittagong’s container terminals and expected to see a few ships anchored, waiting to enter the estuary of the Karnaphuli River. I wasn’t disappointed. Through the patchy clouds I could see dozens of container ships at anchor over a wide area. Between them, like smalls insects, were the black dots of fishing boats.

There’s a vigorous and usually good-natured debate between residents of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, and its second-largest city, Chittagong, about which has the worst traffic jams. I’m not going to take a position on this one, but I’m pretty confident in saying that Chittagong’s largely unseen jam--the shipping back-up--may have the greater effect on the economy. I’m no maritime expert, but it’s evident that if a large container ship has to park in the Bay of Bengal and wait up to a week to get into port, then someone (and probably more than one person) is losing money. The scene from the plane window is a tranquil one, but the economic effects are real.

Chittagong’s natural harbor, noted as early as the 1st century AD by the Roman geographer Ptolemy as one of the major seaports in the East, was the ancient gateway to Bengal. From the 9th century, Arab traders became prominent in the city’s commercial life, and introduced Islam to the region. They were later joined by Portuguese traders. In the colonial era, the British built railroads to link Chittagong to Calcutta (Kolkata) and other cities in India. Today, it is a major industrial and commercial center, with the Bangladesh Navy’s largest base. It’s estimated that roughly 90 percent of the country’s seaborne trade passes through Chittagong. With China now Bangladesh’s largest trading partner, efforts are underway, under the so-called Belt and Road Initiative, to build rail and road links from southern Yunnan province to the port. With direct access to the Indian Ocean, China will no longer be dependent on shipping through the Straits of Malacca, between Malaysia and the Indonesian island of Sumatra, a narrow seaway that can easily be blockaded in time of war.

Chittagong, with a population of about seven million, is still a city of heavy industry--think of Cleveland or Sheffield before the steel mills closed, and the cities rebranded themselves as commercial centers and scuzzied up the downtown areas with boutiques and tapas bars. It is a major steel producer, importing iron ore and coal and recycling scrap from shipbreaking yards along the coast. It has textile and cement factories, and others processing agricultural produce. Truck traffic is heavy. In Dhaka, trucks are banned from the metropolitan area during daytime hours, but in Chittagong the major port roads are clogged at all hours with yellow Tata and Leyland trucks carrying containers, fuel and other cargoes. Fortunately, most of them run on compressed natural gas (CNG); otherwise, the city’s pollution problems would be a lot worse.

Slow going in Chittagong, April 2017 (photograph courtesy of Daily Star). As is the traffic wasn’t already bad enough, the city also regularly suffers from flooding.

You don’t even need to leave the airport to get a sense of Chittagong self-image. At many airports around the world, the display ads and video screens pitch high-priced luxury goods and financial services. Not at Chittagong. In the check-in area, the major visual competition is between two cement companies. You are invited to “Trust in Confidence Cement, an A grade clinker” (whatever that means) or in Ruby Cement, part of the Heidelberg Cement Group. Both feature images of projects that stand tall because of the cement used--hotels, commercial buildings, bridges, tunnels, power plants, overpasses (flyovers). Between them is a screen displaying what holds all this concrete together. The KSRM steel company, “Your Steel Partner,” claims to build “Future Bangladesh on a firm foundation.” You can even upgrade to KSRM Premium “for colossal construction. The video screen features computer animations of bridges, overpasses, and cloverleafs with high-speed trains speeding over almost empty highways. KSRM has a claim to fame because its steel is being used for construction of the major bridge across the Padma (Ganges) which will at last provide a direct road and rail link between the east and west of the country, but it is also a utopian, animated dream of a future Bangladesh without traffic congestion.   

 My hotel was close to GEC Circle in the city center, where several main roads meet, and the traffic backs up at most hours of the day. GEC is the name given to the newer part of Chittagong, north of the old city and the river. I wondered why this major commercial area had such a prosaic name, rather than the name of a major figure in the city’s history. A university colleague explained: “General Electric once had its corporate headquarters here. It was a landmark, so the everyone called the area GEC.”  General Electric is long gone. There’s also a CDA Avenue  but that’s more easily explained--it stands for Chittagong Development Authority. One night, I wandered around the circle. It’s lined with stalls selling cheap clothes, fruits and vegetables, fresh fish, tea stands, and booths selling mobile phone recharges. Behind the circle are arcades of small shops selling bakery goods and sweet desserts, jewelry, lighting fixtures, saris, electronics, and pharmacy products. At 11:00 p.m., the streets were full of people, walking, shopping and getting on and off the bicycle rickshaws.

GEC Circle

The two universities where I met with faculty and administrators and made presentations to students on communication and development offered a contrast in location, facilities and style. Port City International University, a six-year-old private university a mile or so from GEC Circle, is in the Khulshi Hills, a leafy upscale residential area with high walls, guard houses and security systems. Compared with Dhaka, which is flat as a pancake, Chittagong has some gentle rises but to call them “hills” is an overstatement. Khulshi Hills is about as elevated as those Cleveland suburbs a couple of miles from Lake Erie that call themselves “Heights” because they’re a couple of hundred feet above lake level.

 The university has 6,000 students and a new campus under construction, At the entrance, two sentries snapped to attention and saluted. I was greeted by an entourage of faculty and students and walked slowly so that the photographer could keep in front of me, taking shots of me chatting with the welcome committee. At the opening ceremony, I sat on a dais, partly obscured from the audience by the large flower display on the table. Later, I was presented with a bouquet and a fancy plaque with my name on it.

Chittagong University, a public institution with about 25,000 students, is in a semi-rural setting about an hour’s drive, depending on traffic, from the city center. “There are monkeys and snakes in the forest,” my UNICEF companion Hasan warned me. Muhammad Yunus, the Bangladeshi social entrepreneur, economist and civil society leader, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for founding the Grameen Bank and pioneering the concepts of microfinance and microcredit, studied and taught at the university. Hasan told me that he piloted his development projects in villages surrounding the university. The Faculty of Social Science building, where I met with faculty in communication and taught a class of 4th year and masters students, is named for him.

The facilities are similar to those at other public universities in Bangladesh--aging, concrete academic buildings, with the paint peeling from the heat and monsoon rains, large classrooms where three students squeezed together on each wooden desk, and faculty offices with padlocks on the doors. Yet it has attracted talented faculty who are dedicated to their work, and I enjoyed my conversations with them.

The university has long been a center of student political activism. While I was meeting with the Vice Chancellor, a group of students was staging a noisy protest outside the administration building. I asked one faculty member about the graffiti on the walls of the academic buildings.  She said the names and symbols represented student groups or clubs. Because the university is so far outside the city, most students commute by train to a special station on the campus. “The students travel together, and they give their group a name,” she explained. I asked if the so-called clubs had a political as well as a social side. She smiled but did not answer directly. “There have been a number of research studies done on their activities,” she added guardedly. I think I know what she was trying to tell me.

The traffic jam that never ends

Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, like other South and Southeast Asian cities, is notorious for traffic snarls that can make even the shortest (in distance) journey frustratingly long. Traffic flow is also unpredictable; if you leave 10 minutes later than planned, what would normally be a 20-minute trip can turn into a two-hour marathon. Although the city has morning and evening rush hours, you are just as likely to be stuck in traffic at 2:00 p.m. or 11:00 p.m.

According to a World Bank analysis, over the course of a decade average traffic speed dropped from 21 km (13 miles) to seven km (less than five miles) per hour, slightly above the average walking speed. Another study estimates that if vehicle growth continues at its present rate without improvements in public transport, the average speed will be down to 4.7 km (less than three miles) per hour by 2035. At that point, sensible city-dwellers would leave their cars at home and use their two feet, although that scenario seems unlikely. The World Bank estimates that traffic gridlock eats up 3.2 million work hours per day, a significant impact in an urban area that contributes more than one third of the country’s Gross Domestic Product and more than 40 per cent of total employment.

The roads are filled with cars, buses, trucks, auto rickshaws, and tricycle rickshaws carrying passengers and cargo. The fastest-growing species is the motorcycle, with an average of more than one thousand new machines being registered every day. Official estimates in July 2018 put the number of motorcycles on the roads of Bangladesh at 2.27 million, but all transport experts agree that’s a gross underestimate because many owners don’t register their machines. Less than half the drivers of registered machines hold a valid license, so at least one in three should technically not be on the roads at all. Accidents are common, as riders drive on the wrong side of the highway or on sidewalks or carry more than one passenger. Transport Minister Obaidul Quader described motorcycles as “terror incarnate.” In one ten-day clampdown in August 2018, more than half of the 83,000 traffic citations handed out by police went to motorcycle riders.

There would be fewer motorcycles if Dhaka’s public transport system was more reliable. Its challenges are symbolized by the aging maroon-colored Ashok Leyland double-decker buses, operated by the government public transport agency, the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC). It is the Indian version of the Leyland Titan, developed in the UK and a common sight on British city roads until the 1970s. The last was manufactured in 1968; one year earlier, the first Titan rolled off the Ashok Leyland production line, and for many years it was a big seller in the subcontinent. Keeping the fleet on the road is a challenge; old buses go into assisted living and eventually expire in a massive yard outside Dhaka where BRTC mechanics painstakingly salvage their organs for transplant.

Many of BRTC’s single decker buses are also showing their age. Like the buses operated by private companies, they look as if they have run the traffic gauntlet, with their panels scraped and dented, their windows missing or shattered, headlamps broken, their exhausts belching smoke. To offset their appearance, many sport upbeat slogans: God Bless You with his Love, Have a Nice Tour, Super, Hi-tech Travel, Dream Line, All Way First Class, Exclusive Journey, Heppy [sic] New Year.  The government estimates that about 4,500 private buses, owned by almost 2,000 small companies, are on the road in Dhaka, competing on a maze of 165 routes. 

Many of the auto rickshaws, the CNGs, are also casualties of the daily jousts and stand-offs on city roads. Because they are smaller than buses and cars, their operators, who sometimes stretch their leg muscles by propping their feet on the handlebars while driving, believe they can squeeze into the smallest gap between larger vehicles. Passengers on the narrow bench seat—it can accommodate three or four Bangladeshis or one or two reasonably well-fed Westerners—are not protected from accidents, but at least they do not have to clutch their bags tightly while stopped in traffic; a heavy metal grille door, locked from the inside, insulates them from beggars and purse-snatchers.

The government has announced ambitious schemes to relieve the city’s traffic crisis. It plans to build five metropolitan rail lines to carry 60,000 passengers an hour and two dedicated BRTC bus routes to carry 20,000 passengers an hour. It has promised to build 750 miles of new roads, three new ring roads and six new interchanges by 2035. Passengers will be able to use smart cards on metro rail, BRTC and water taxi routes. But congestion is likely to get worse before it gets better. A new subway system, currently under construction, has led to the closure of some roads and reduced the number of lanes on others. 

“Like other cities of the developing world,” writes Jay Rosen in the New York Times, “Dhaka is both a boomtown and a necropolis, with a thriving real-estate market, a growing middle class and a lively cultural and intellectual life that is offset by rampant misery, poverty, pollution, disease and terror attacks. But it is traffic that has sealed Dhaka’s reputation among academics and development specialists as the great symbol of 21st century dysfunction, the world’s most broken city.”