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Travel Logue 65003



Along the Streets of Dhaka

 Film Details

 Synopsis

 : Global Television
 Episode Number: 65003
 Title: Along the Streets of Dhaka
 Languages: E De
  26 Mins
 Produced: 2020

Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and, along with its suburbs, has a population of twenty five million and is one of Asia’s cities that in recent decades has grown out of all proportion and at an alarming rate. It is a typical example of how a city’s population explosion can influence the daily lives of its inhabitants with air pollution and the continuous sound of traffic.

As public transport is not available everywhere, many people use rickshaws. There are more than four hundred thousand rickshaws in the streets of Dhaka and their drivers follow countless unwritten rules in order to pass each other without incident, even if the rules don’t always correspond to official traffic regulations! As an alternative to buses, motorcycle rickshaws provide passengers with security from pickpockets, and a grid cage to deter unwanted male attention is preferred by women.

The increasing use of air conditioning forces electricians to make temporary cable-laying solutions, and it is amazing that anything works at all, at least during busy times because in many of Dhaka’s neighbourhoods power disruption is very common.

The railroad provided many homeless with the opportunity to settle alongside the railway tracks and, over the years, at the foot of skyscrapers a ghetto grew in which hundreds of thousands settled in huts made of corrugated iron, cardboard and clay. Any peace is punctuated every twenty minutes by trains as they rush past the ghetto.

Other factors that affect traffic in Dhaka's streets are religious and political demonstrations, each of which is quite difficult to discern. The people welcome every occasion to fly the national flag and loudly chant religious and political slogans.

In the few days of our travels in Dhaka we have almost grown accustomed to the heartbeat of this city, a city that seems to thrive on chaos!