I woke up today and saw I was running quite late. I probably wouldn’t make it to class on time. For a moment I thought, forget it, I won’t go to campus today. I’ll take a day off. It’s been ages since I just sat at home in peace. Then I thought, no, let me go anyway. If the roads are a bit empty I might still make it. So I got ready in a rush and left. It must have rained in the morning. The lane was a mess, all mud. I made my way through it to the main road. I hadn’t seen the main road like this in a long time. People everywhere, all along the road.
Everyone was waiting for a bus, but every bus that came was packed to the doors. I’ve been leaving early for a long time, so I hadn’t seen this in ages, and it brought back all the old memories. The last university bus had left a little earlier, so I was one of the people waiting. Bus after bus went by, with no chance of getting on. A bus went past every minute, sometimes two side by side, and still there was no room. Stand waiting for a bus here and you get some idea of how many people live in Dhaka.
After waiting a long time I realised that standing there wasn’t going to work. Even if I waited till noon, I doubted I’d get on. So even though the helper told me not to, I grabbed the door of one and climbed on. It didn’t help. There was no room to stand, so I had to get off again. The next one didn’t even have room to climb on. After a few more tries I saw some people getting off a bus. This was my chance! If I didn’t get on this one, I didn’t think I ever would. Everyone ran for that bus, and since I was in front I somehow made it on. A few others got on with me, but the women were all left standing on the road. I don’t know how much longer they had to wait there.
Seating service
Dhaka’s buses are a ‘seating service’ in name only. In practice they’re worse than local buses. The bus is packed, people are squeezed into two rows standing down the middle, and still when one person gets off they let two on. The buses drive all over the place so that no other bus can get ahead, and they even bump into each other. Most of the time people have no choice. They accept all of it and get on wherever there’s room to stand, because they have to get where they’re going. And that’s exactly what the helpers and drivers take advantage of. On top of that there’s the traffic. The bus sits and sits with no way forward, moves a little, maybe, and gets stuck again. Some of the fans work and some don’t. They don’t spend money fixing them, because they know people who have to travel will travel anyway, fixed or not. All in all, getting around Dhaka is in a sorry state.
I don’t know if this problem will ever be solved. If every bus in the city were a double-decker, it might help a bit. The other hope is the metro rail. I hope things get a little easier once the metro is running. Otherwise travelling in Dhaka will stay another name for a disaster.
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