::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Star Diary

The Great Game

Photo: Star File

On Friday night, a booming sound in the neighbourhood shook off my slumber. It was a roar of what seemed to be hundreds of people shouting happily in unison. Such a noise in the night might have seemed to be a little out of place, but even in the obscure moments that follow when one is awakened from her sleep, I could grasp what was happening – Bangladesh had won!

Normally, I would curse anyone who disturbs my slumber, but not today. My sleep went off immediately and I rushed to the window to see the streets. They were exactly how they should have been – hundreds of people, men, women and children from all walks of life shouting hysterically and celebrating. The main road was blocked to traffic, but the motorists who had to drive slowly through the crowd seemed quite happy with their ordeal. Some got out of their cars and joined the crowd, which was growing bigger with every passing second and shouted at the top of their voice – "Bangladesh, Bangladesh..."

When there is a mob like this, one might expect things to go out of control. Yet that did not happen. There were a lot of women in the crowd and nobody felt insecure because nobody was disturbing them. Everyone was happy and united, and nobody felt like doing others any harm. As tears filled my eyes, I wished that Bangladesh would always be like this.

Mahdin Tareq
Bailey Road, Dhaka

Colours in the capital

Now that the ICC world cup 2011 is taking place in Dhaka, like many others I too am witness to a dull city that has changed its outlook. I find the city much more colourful and bright. This has been done courtesy of the world cup by redecorating principal locations with colour, art work, lighting effect and so on. Obviously we, citizens are very pleased to watch this rather than our usual memories of discolored, postered, stained and grimy Dhaka. World Cup has brought hopes that we would no longer have to sheepishly concur Dhaka as the second most inhospitable city in the world. But many have been whispering that this beauty will only stay as long as WC goes on, after that we would return to the old dusty Dhaka. That is so much frustrating to hear. Can't we keep this new Dhaka after the World Cup and not go back to where we started? Can't we keep this megacity shiny for long enough to gain some appreciation from the rest of the world? We want Dhaka to stay as it is now, colourful, joyful and full of hope!

Tahmidul Islam
University of Dhaka

Crazy Traffic

Like almost everyone who travels though the Dhaka streets, the unbearable traffic jam bears heavily on my mind. Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh is now known as the city of traffic jam. Among the various problems of this city, traffic jam is the most discussed problem which we face every day from the very dawn to late night. One has to spend two and a half hours to reach his flat at Dhanmondi from the airport. The only reason is unbearable traffic jam.

I often see vehicles parked on the roads defying legislation and common sense. One of the main causes of this traffic jam is illegal parking of vehicles on the roads. Most of the shopping malls in Dhaka city have no parking system. As a result the vehicles are parked on roads blocking the movement of vehicles on the roads. Sometimes I see that out of 36 meters wide road about 18 meters are blocked by the illegal parking. The administration seems to keep quite silent to take action against this illegal parking. Even the authority does not enforce the shopping mall authorities to create parking in the malls. Do we know the reason why the authority does not take action against them?

Hafizur Rahman
Dhanmondhi, Dhaka