I was born in this great city at a time when it still had a lot of fresh air, a large amount of trees, plants, and gardens, a lot less turmoil on the roads, and a lot more peace. Dhaka was the city I never wanted to leave. I gave up my life in places like New York and London because I was just too confident that my city would never fail me.
Today I came across this article in the Daily Telegraph which, despite knowing for several years now, told me once again that Dhaka is now the worst city on the planet to live in. Some of us would wonder why. I would advise them to stop being so pleased of living in our own filth and take a deeper look at this beloved city of ours.
If I were to look into Dhaka very closely from different angles to find out why it has become so uninhabitable now, I would first point out to the great influx of people from across the nation without the government first having planned out appropriate ways to accommodate these people. Not only has this had an extremely negative impact on the cost of living in this city, but it has boosted up the overall congestion, pollution, traffic, and unwelcome agitation in this city, one of the greatest in South Asia.
Not only has the increase in the number of inhabitants given rise to the aforementioned problems, people are also forgetting to be cordial to each other on the roads because there are just too many of us here – too many to tolerate anymore.
To top that up, Dhaka is experiencing probably the highest rate of construction work since the last decade compared to any other city in the world, there are hardly any steps being taken to prevent the pollution caused by such high levels of construction, and the city has become more welcoming to ginormous earthquakes, the knowledge of which should have been enough to move us out of our homes. Of course, the city needs to be developed, but should that be at the cost of the gradual decline in the health of its population?
There is more to this. Have you seen the number of roadside garbage disposal boxes on the streets of Dhaka? Even near my home in Eskaton, an area once celebrated to be the home of top government officials and MPs, there are three big disposals that are always oozing out waste and making many people even throw up to add to that waste. Are we so uncivilised that we can live beside garbage like this? Necessary steps must be taken in order to dispose of our waste, but that’s just stating the obvious.
One of the most irritating sights on the roads, especially after dusk, is passing by people urinating on the pavements, and then some even defecating on the foot-bridges (over bridges). Before blaming these people, we need to blame our government for not having planned out appropriate numbers of public toilets in the first place.
Do any of our MPs or ministers urinate on the roads? Since the answer is “No,” then why don’t they care a little more for the people who voted them into their positions and make more public amenities available? Why do we common people have to feel as small as ants when we think of common facilities that we deserve, and yet have to beg to avail?
Water sanitisation has become quite impossible in Dhaka due to the overflow of waste into the waterlines lately. It is so bad that in some areas they have actually stopped even trying to purify water, and when you open the tap you get a whiff of excrement in the water, which you are supposed to use to clean yourself with, and later boil to drink or cook. But I guess people are okay with it, because I see people more concerned over making the biggest flags of Brazil and Argentina to use as drapes for their ten-storeyed buildings than to actually worry about the necessities they need to live with.
Trust me, I can really go on writing about the problems us denizens of Dhaka are facing at the moment. The city that once used to be known for holding horse races, or for its huge natural parks full of colour and life, is today deemed as the worst city on the face of Earth to live in. We have pretty much forgotten that besides working our lives away and later on sitting on Facebook posting pictures of every movement we make, we also need to worry about this once lovely city that we live in, and that we need to save it by all means.
Solutions, you ask? Well, start pushing the government to plan better from this instant, and try becoming more concerned as a citizen. If needed, create your separate communities and make community service a compulsory thing not only for the poor people living in your area, but yourself. Try studying what other better cities in the world do in order to keep in clean, safe, and lively, and then try and implement that suited to our conditions. My dear people of beloved Dhaka, we need to save this city, we need to save ourselves, so let’s start working for it now.
