Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do | The Business Standard
Skip to main content
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
The Business Standard

Wednesday
June 11, 2025

Sign In
Subscribe
  • Latest
  • Economy
    • Banking
    • Stocks
    • Industry
    • Analysis
    • Bazaar
    • RMG
    • Corporates
    • Aviation
  • Videos
    • TBS Today
    • TBS Stories
    • TBS World
    • News of the day
    • TBS Programs
    • Podcast
    • Editor's Pick
  • World+Biz
  • Features
    • Panorama
    • The Big Picture
    • Pursuit
    • Habitat
    • Thoughts
    • Splash
    • Mode
    • Tech
    • Explorer
    • Brands
    • In Focus
    • Book Review
    • Earth
    • Food
    • Luxury
    • Wheels
  • More
    • Sports
    • TBS Graduates
    • Bangladesh
    • Supplement
    • Infograph
    • Archive
    • Gallery
    • Long Read
    • Interviews
    • Offbeat
    • Magazine
    • Climate Change
    • Health
    • Cartoons
  • বাংলা
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11, 2025
Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

Features

Jannatul Naym Pieal
09 June, 2025, 10:50 am
Last modified: 09 June, 2025, 02:56 pm

Related News

  • Dhaka's Eid waste cleanup mostly satisfactory with some hiccups
  • Begging booms in Dhaka while demand for domestic help remains high
  • Eid travel: Bus passengers suffer as schedules collapse due to jams on highways
  • Govt working to ensure hassle-free Eid travel, says Adviser Asif
  • Homebound rush to the south continues via Dhaka-Mawa Expressway

Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

Dhaka is where life happens, yes. But it’s also where life stops. And in between, we do the only thing we can do: Survive

Jannatul Naym Pieal
09 June, 2025, 10:50 am
Last modified: 09 June, 2025, 02:56 pm
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar

There's no love lost between me and the city I came from. 

A small town where the air is thick with gossip, politics, and dust. Everyone knows everyone, and no one ever forgets how stupid you looked fifteen years ago.

It's like a monument to the full catalogue of your childhood trauma.

The Business Standard Google News Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel

It's the kind of place where nothing ever changes; except the roads, which only get worse, and routinely disappear under the slightest rainfall.

Here, time stretches, people shrink, and all your dreams feel like they're sitting in a waiting room with no appointment.

So I left. Ran, even, for Dhaka. Thought I'd never look back.

But I hate Dhaka even more.

And yet, here I am again, returning to Dhaka after Eid, after a few short days of pretend peace, boarding a bus for the journey back into the belly of the beast. 

Not because I want to. But because I have to.

This year, the one-way journey from Dhaka to our respective hometowns before Eid took 12 to 18 hours for many of us. I mean, for those of us who could, at least and at last, secure a ticket.

A hellish crawl through highways choked with endless traffic jams, broken-down vehicles, and the occasional roadside tragedy.

A journey that should have taken four to six hours ended up taking almost an entire day and night.

We sat sweating beside crying children and coughing elders, eating stale jhal-muri, and staring at red veins on Google Maps that refused to turn green.

But we endured it. Because staying in Dhaka during Eid was never a choice. Just like staying in our hometowns after the vacation isn't a choice either.

We must come back to Dhaka. Broken, but we must come back. Even though Dhaka doesn't want us back.

The OG Dhakaiyas love their "Faaka Dhaka"—those rare few days when the roads clear, the city exhales, and silence falls like mercy. 

They post bird's-eye views of empty intersections like it's some utopia. "Dhaka now does feel like Europe," they say with the same energy as hero Riaz, sipping iced coffees with no queues.

And sincerely, we too don't want to bother them again with our return. But we do come back. Because life happens only in Dhaka. And for many of us, it only happens here.

But what is Dhaka now? Certainly not a city for people. It belongs to machines, bots, and, of course, autorickshaws.

Humans? We're background noise. An inconvenience.

We dodge traffic like dancers in a war zone, speak in filters, and live on borrowed time. The footpaths are gone. The lungs are full. The pace is claustrophobic.

Dhaka is not a city. It's a system. A trap. A machine that feeds itself with our hours, our bones, our agony.

And what do we even get in return? Not joy. Not meaning. Certainly not rest.

There is nothing remarkable here, except noise and hunger. Nothing to enjoy except, maybe, the Eid cinemas.

Ah yes, "Now showing in your nearest theatre." What a joke. Because in three-fourths of the country, there is no nearest theatre. They've shut down, converted, collapsed. 

But the movie promos still cling to the lingo. Because the film industry, like everything else, lives and dies in Dhaka.

Dhaka hoards the spotlight. It hoards tragedy, too. 

A flood in the north? Barely a news blip. A fire in the south? Silence. But let a wall crack in Gulshan or a tree fall in Dhanmondi, and suddenly it's breaking news.

It's as though everything that matters in Bangladesh must happen in Dhaka. Everything else is a footnote. A statistic. A blur. 

This city doesn't just run the country. It eats it. And still, we return. With blistered backs and empty wallets, we return. 

Not because we love Dhaka. Not because Dhaka deserves us. But because we are caught between two places that will never make space for us.

Our hometowns have no work. Dhaka has no soul. We simply go where the machine tells us to go. And we move when it tells us to move.

Until, maybe one day, it stops us permanently—on a highway, in a fire, under a collapsed building, or in a forgotten corner of a forgotten news cycle.

Because Dhaka is where life happens, yes. But it's also where life stops. And in between, we do the only thing we can do: Survive.

 

Bangladesh / Top News

Eid Travel / return / Dhaka

Comments

While most comments will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive, moderation decisions are subjective. Published comments are readers’ own views and The Business Standard does not endorse any of the readers’ comments.

Top Stories

  • Bangladesh's growth forecast unchanged: WB report
    Bangladesh's growth forecast unchanged: WB report
  • Faiz Ahmad Tayeb. Photo: BSS
    Import duty on raw materials for e-bikes, lithium batteries reduced from 80% to 1% in some cases: Faiz Taiyeb
  • Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who departed Israel by plane on Tuesday after being detained aboard the Gaza-bound British-flagged yacht "Madleen" after Israeli forces boarded the charity vessel as it attempted to reach the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, talks to journalists surrounded by French police as she arrives at a terminal at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, in Roissy-en-France near Paris, France, June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes
    Greta Thunberg says she was kidnapped by Israel in international waters

MOST VIEWED

  • On left, Abdullah Hil Rakib, former senior vice president (SVP) of BGMEA and additional managing director of Team Group; on right, Captain Md Saifuzzaman (Guddu), a Boeing 787 Dreamliner pilot for Biman Bangladesh Airlines. Photos: Collected
    Ex-BGMEA SVP Abdullah Hil Rakib, Biman 787 pilot Saifuzzaman drown in boating accident in Canada
  • File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar
    Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do
  • Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus leaves for a four-day visit to the United Kingdom from the Dhaka airport on 9 June 2025. Photo: CA Press Wing
    CA Yunus leaves for UK; discussion expected on renewable energy investment, laundered money
  • File Photo: Collected
    Enhanced surveillance at Ctg airport amid rising global Covid-19 cases
  • Inside the aid ship stormed by Israeli forces on 9 June 2025. Photo: BBC
    Israeli forces stormed aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg bound for Gaza: Freedom Flotilla Coalition
  • Photos: Collected
    Abdul Hamid wasn't arrested because he's not wanted right now: Home adviser

Related News

  • Dhaka's Eid waste cleanup mostly satisfactory with some hiccups
  • Begging booms in Dhaka while demand for domestic help remains high
  • Eid travel: Bus passengers suffer as schedules collapse due to jams on highways
  • Govt working to ensure hassle-free Eid travel, says Adviser Asif
  • Homebound rush to the south continues via Dhaka-Mawa Expressway

Features

Illustration: Duniya Jahan/ TBS

Forget Katy Perry, here’s Bangladesh’s Ruthba Yasmin shooting for the moon

9h | Features
File photo of Eid holidaymakers returning to the capital from their country homes/Rajib Dhar

Dhaka: The city we never want to return to, but always do

1d | Features
Photo collage shows political posters in Bagerhat. Photos: Jannatul Naym Pieal

From Sheikh Dynasty to sibling rivalry: Bagerhat signals a turning tide in local politics

3d | Bangladesh
Illustration: TBS

Unbearable weight of the white coat: The mental health crisis in our medical colleges

6d | Panorama

More Videos from TBS

Greta Thunberg deported from Israel

Greta Thunberg deported from Israel

11h | TBS World
BNP is not a revolutionary party: Mirza Fakhrul

BNP is not a revolutionary party: Mirza Fakhrul

12h | TBS Today
News of The Day, 10 JUNE 2025

News of The Day, 10 JUNE 2025

10h | TBS News of the day
Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles

Trump sends 2,000 more National Guard and 700 Marines to Los Angeles

12h | TBS World
EMAIL US
contact@tbsnews.net
FOLLOW US
WHATSAPP
+880 1847416158
The Business Standard
  • About Us
  • Contact us
  • Sitemap
  • Advertisement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Comment Policy
Copyright © 2025
The Business Standard All rights reserved
Technical Partner: RSI Lab

Contact Us

The Business Standard

Main Office -4/A, Eskaton Garden, Dhaka- 1000

Phone: +8801847 416158 - 59

Send Opinion articles to - oped.tbs@gmail.com

For advertisement- sales@tbsnews.net