Let me start with a cliche: It was just like any other day. Because of course it was.
I was visiting back home from the US at the time, a year into my graduate program. On Friday, July 1, 2016, my sister and I were talking about going out for a coffee. She had long mentioned this amazing bakery, the best in town, that she had wanted me to visit with her.
I, on the other hand, was always uncomfortable with overly fancy establishments. This place, with its open space in the heart of the diplomatic zone, and the food and bakery items that I had little knowledge about, appeared to be something out of my comfort zone.
Yet, on July 1, 2016, my sister had almost convinced me that I would love the place, that the croissants were the best by far, that the atmosphere was serene, calm, and just perfect for a hang.
Since it was the weekend, it seemed like the perfect day. Despite my discomfort with expensive food, I certainly also loved quality food of any kind. Going was a no-brainer.
Somehow, maybe through a combination of laziness and my illogical repulsion of such establishments, and perhaps also some divine intervention, we did not end up going to Holey Artisan Bakery on July 1, 2016.
Instead, I ended up about half a kilometre away, at North End at the Lakeshore Hotel. It was from there when we heard gunshots. Or at least, we think we did.
For anybody reading this who somehow isn’t aware, July 1, 2016 remains among the darkest days in Bangladesh’s recent history, when militants stormed Holey and brutally killed 20 hostages, including numerous foreign nationals. Two police officers also lost their lives, as did five of the terrorists.
I remained in Dhaka for a few more weeks in 2016 before flying back to the US. To say that Dhaka felt completely transformed during that stay would be an understatement. Dhaka always felt so irrelevant to me that such an attack within my city just didn’t feel real. It still doesn’t.
Holey in its original iteration never operated again. Yet, the fact that it reopened, albeit in a far smaller capacity, and reestablished itself as among the best places in Dhaka to just go for a coffee and conversation, is a testament to the people behind the establishment, from ownership to their employees who somehow found the strength to not let fear rule and dictate their fate.
It’s been 10 years since that day. I’ve long been back to Dhaka, and my sister has long since moved away and settled in Australia. Yet, just a few days ago, during her own visit to Bangladesh, we once again spoke of how we almost ended up at Holey on that fateful day.
Every subsequent year, for the last 10 years, every now and then and usually when I am visiting Holey, I selfishly think about what could have happened had my sister and I chosen to go on the day.
Would we have been spared? Would we be able to live with ourselves had we been spared?
We’re lucky that we never had to answer those questions. We can only hope that nobody in this city ever has to.
AHM Mustafizur Rahman is Editor, Editorial and Op-Ed, Dhaka Tribune.
