With scorching heat sweeping the country for the last few days, everyday life, especially in urban areas, has been exhausting.
Adding to their woes, the Met office on Friday said the heatwave may continue for another three days.
From pedestrians to daily wage earners, all urban people are trying their level best to get rid of the sweltering temperature.
In the process, they are thronging juice bars to quench their thirst. Many are also buying green coconuts. But low-income people can only afford sherbet being prepared and sold at roadside makeshift stalls.
But this begs a common-turned-crucial question: how hygienic are the roadside drinks?
This reporter visited several spots in the capital, including Gulistan, Paltan and the Bangabandhu National Stadium area, to find customers flocking to the makeshift stalls to enjoy drinks.
To attract more customers from different walks of life, the stall owners are selling coloured drinks alongside other popular sherbets, mostly lemonade.
Each glass of lemonade costs Tk10, while the drinks prepared using wood apple, packaged drink mix, and tokma (basil seeds) with fruits cost Tk20 apiece.
The sherbets are prepared amid dust under the open sky, and the ingredients are not even covered.
When asked about the hygiene issue, a seller said: “These are just samples. We don’t prepare sherbet using those.”
However, after a little while, he was seen doing the same thing he denied.
After the reporter approached for a second time, the seller declined to comment.
CNG-run auto-rickshaw driver Md Abul Hasan, who bought a drink at a roadside stall, said: “I hover around the city throughout the day. It is even hotter inside the three-wheeler.
“How long can I tolerate this? So, whenever I make a stopover, I drink some sherbet to cool down,” he said.
Abul is quite confident that the drinks are prepared in a hygienic manner.
“The drinks are prepared using clean water, as claimed by the stall owner,” he added.
Md Rafiq, a sherbet vendor, said that they use filtered water supplied in large jars.
“Is there any dirty water in Dhaka city? All the water available here is clean.”
While en route to Jatrabari accompanied by her family members, Hasna Hena bought some sugarcane juice.
But when she was informed of the hygiene issue, starting from dust to flies, Hena argued: “It does not matter if we consume such a drink all of sudden.”
Not only the water and ingredients used in making the drinks are questionable, but the ice put in them is also unhygienic.
Sherbet seller Hashem Miah said: “I use clean water. And I collect quality ice from a shop in the stadium area.”
The reporter visited an ice shop in the stadium market area, where trader Md Harun said they usually sell the ice to sportsmen.
“They use the ice when injured and even for taking a bath. Plus, some air conditioner mechanics use the ice,” he said.
Harun went on to say that roadside sherbet vendors, too, buy ice from them.
“The ice is unusable in foods or drinks,” he said.
“If they (stall owners) use the ice in the drinks, what can we do?”
Public health expert Dr Lelin Chowdhury said that people become dehydrated as they sweat excessively during the scorching summer.
“So, pedestrians prefer drinking at roadside shops. But the water used in preparing the drinks is mostly unhygienic,” he said, adding that in most cases, piped water is used in the drinks.
He, too, said that the ice mixed in the liquid items is unsafe.
“We never saw ice manufacturing factories use safe water,” he said.
Unhygienic drinks can pose the risk of spreading water-borne diseases like typhoid, jaundice, and diarrhoea.
“These ailments break out notably in Dhaka every summer. We’re witnessing the same this time around,” Lelin said.
The public health expert suggested consuming oral saline to hydrate and advised children, expecting mothers, and elderly people against going out.
Using umbrellas during the day can also help beat the heat, he concluded.