In pictures: The odyssey in Eid

Eid makes everything better

Publish : 14 Jun 2018, 02:48 PMUpdate : 14 Jun 2018, 02:48 PM

Eid is more than a religious festival. It is an opportunity to return to your roots. It is a reprieve from the daily doldrums of life and find out what you have been missing for months and months. For those in Dhaka whose family homes are far, far away, the journey is a personal odyssey – fraught with challenges in procuring means of transport, fighting other aspiring Ulysseses and then surviving the voyage. But it’s Eid. Eid makes everything better.

Launches traverse the river routes of Bangladesh like mythical leviathans, but burdened with hundreds of passengers. All too often, they take on more people than they can carry. Ships capsize even before leaving port. Beaching, drowning, collisions, they are all possibilities that a homebound passenger are willing to risk during Eid | Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

The long journey is fraught with expensive onboard food. Travelling salesmen make modest fortunes by peddling their food products to passengers | Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune

No matter how close or how far you live, road journeys are incredible tests of patience and endurance as the traffic only gets worse | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune

Perhaps the single most beautiful part of a train ride is getting a window seat. Few feelings can rival the sentiment of looking out the window and marvelling at the world passing by | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune

The Bimanbandar Railway Station near the airport in Dhaka is a major rail station where a large number of passengers embark their trains | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune

Every year, every Eid, this exact same scene repeats itself. The eagerness to return home, bracing the danger of illegally perching on top of a train, because people are already spilling out of the compartments, has become a recurring trope of Eid holidays in Bangladesh | Mehedi Hasan/Dhaka Tribune