Getting Jiggy WID it*

*WID=Weekend in Dhaka.  Maybe it will catch on.

Dhaka appears to have cosmopolitanized during my absence.  I had a Friday filled with fun and, wait for it, culture! 

I woke up early on Friday morning to the sound of my alarm.  Not early enough, because I barely have time to eat breakfast before I’m out the door trying to catch an auto-rickshaw down to “Puran Dhaka”, that is, Old Dhaka.  On Friday mornings, the incredible Taimur bhai of the Urban Study Group leads walking tours of old town, pointing out architectural gems to raise awareness of how vulnerable many important heritage sites are.  My colleague Ishtiaque, who lives in Puran Dhaka, had agreed to go with me this week, which is probably the only thing that got me up and out the door.

By the time I got down to Old Town, it was pouring rain.  The Christian cemetery where we met had limited shelter, so we were getting quite wet (Especially those who arrived punctually, which I, as a semi-local did not!).  Despite the rain, Taimur bhai decided to start the tour, and about 10 “visitors” plus 10 “volunteers” got moving.  What I love about old Dhaka, especially on a Friday in the rain, is that it’s quiet.  Many of the roads we took precede Liberation (1972) and they are too narrow for cars.  One has to keep an eye out for rickshaws, but to find a space to walk with relative peace and quiet is a treat.  We wandered into gardens and temples, even a few workshops were artists are preparing statuettes of Durga (the Hindu goddess of ??) for the Puja celebration next week.  While being in crowd of foreigners certainly attracts a lot of attention, and some of the volunteers seemed to think that I was actually there to entertain them, there’s something to be said for having a guide who is an expert on all things related to Old Dhaka, history, and architecture, and get access to rooftops, homes, and other cool things that normally you’d never get a glimpse of.  One thing about Dhaka that I really love is that it has so many secret charms that I’m still discovering.  We found a greenhouse of orchids, another anti-greenhouse (i.e. rainproof house) for cactus. Dhaka rewards those that are willing to explore.   The rain fortunately stopped pretty quickly as well.

We walked up an appetite!  Many left directly after the tour, but Taimur bhai, two British women who had worked in Bangladesh in the 1990s (one of whom was back for more!) and I went out for lunch at the famous Star hotel (for those who know Delhi, it’s similar to Kareem’s in reputation and décor).  There’s a Star Kabob near my apartment (I go often and in fact took my parents for breakfast there during their first WID), but this was one of the original locations and therefore thought to be even tastier.  Normally I might defer on the food choices to a Bangladeshi, but I’m freshly back in the country and have a list of things that I want to eat!  Taimur bhai and the waiter both laugh as I pepper him with questions about what they have that day.  I order mutton kichuri (dal, rice, and spices) and bhortha (smashed something, in this case potato and dried fish).  We order food for three, but are too full to finish everything in front of out (even me).  Wash it all down with a cup of tea with generous amounts of milk and sugar.  Avoid the sleepy stupor that white rice and the sugary tea can induce.

From Puran Dhaka I head to Dhanmondi, where BRAC is holding a photo exhibition on “Visions of Empowerment” at Drik Photo Gallery.  While the space is a bit drab and the walls a bit dirty, the photos speak volumes—the pictures really capture the depth, range, and longitude of our work.  On one wall there is a black-and-white photo BRAC’s first textile centers next to a portrait of a beaming young woman that just completed BRAC’s new driving course.  You’ve come a long way, baby.  What really brought the exhibition to life was another young woman darting around taking pictures.  She was smiley and very confident in her work—she was gallery’s own photographer for events.  I learned that she’s a member of BRAC’s adolescent clubs and through it had received a training on photography a few months ago.  Now here she was.  I went over to check out a few of her snaps (I looked good, so she knows what she’s doing), and was rewarded by excited and the opportunity to have my picture taken with her and a few other club members that were there.  It was fun and inspiring.

Around the corner from Drik is the Bengal Gallery of Fine Arts, considered the most prestigious in Dhaka.  Right now there’s a display of some of Goya’s prints.  We wander through and run into a few friends, who want to hear about the trip.  I personally think that the Bengal Gallery is just the right size—the Met kind of freaks me out.  So that makes 11 art museums I’ve seen in the last month (12 if you include Drik but photography isn’t art, after all.  That comment is for Ruthie).  I find myself making analogies of organizational coordination to impressionism (obviously French not American, geez), or more recently how we are making a mosaic…….so it seems that there is some level of art knowledge that can be gained by osmosis!

Final stop of the day was a place called Mermaid’s café, which just opened in Gulshan 2 circle.  The decorations look like a rundown tiki torch Hawaiian lounge or as one friend says, “where the truckers go for their honeymoon,” i.e. Cox’s Bazar (full disclosure, I took Ruthie there so obviously think it’s got some merits).  We didn’t come for the décor though, we came for the music (Jazz and blues) and the company (BFF, my guru, et al).  Dhaka’s a small town though, by the end of the night, I’ve seen one co-worker, two friends there with other groups, and two people who went on my walking tour this morning! No secrets here.  The band was surprisingly decent—in the middle a woman with a killer voice did some Norah Jones covers that were spot on.  By the end of the night, there was even a bit of a dance floor taking shape.  We of course added our support.  It was surprisingly like the Tavern, the bar I spent many a WIB (weekend in Boston) nights in Cambridge, with my crew back in the days.  Relaxed and fun.  I won’t say I forgot I was in Dhaka, but Dhaka felt a lot more like Cambridge that night than it has in a while.

So—walking+good food+inspiration+art+music+friends.  That is a GOOD Friday!

Up next: the story from the trip to the US that has been told THE most times since returning (and not just by those who were there).  Any guesses?