Cover: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

According to a Global Innovation Index report published in July 2018, Bangladesh is ranked 116th out of 126 nations, the lowest score in Asia—below India ranked 57th and Pakistan ranked 109th. Bangladesh is below the likes of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (ranked 84th), which was only recognised as a country by the UN as recently as 1993, as well as conflict zones and low-income nations such as Rwanda (ranked 99th). The ranking measures key factors such as the political, regulatory and business environments, research and development, infrastructure, investment and credit, knowledge creation and diffusion—with a scope of determining how well each country is tackling the issues of energy, education, and quality of life.

With such a low rank—17th in Asia (which also houses the fifth highest ranked innovative country in the world, Singapore)—Bangladesh has been labelled a nation where innovation rarely takes precedence over conservative thinking and traditional values that make people resistant to change or unable to induce it.

The government of Bangladesh has initiated several projects since the ruling Awami League party came to power in 2009. Mostly floated under the banner and vision of a "Digital Bangladesh", the projects have since sought to create a policy framework where individuals and organisations can come forward with innovative ideas and receive funding, infrastructure, and knowledge support. Along with a significant push from the private sector in the form of "accelerators", the past decade has seen a steady stream of startups that tried to address the many issues that plague the country in various sectors—health, education, transport and other services.

"The startup ecosystem in Bangladesh has surely come a long way since we started our journey about 10 years back," says Minhaz Anwar, head of Grameenphone's Accelerator programme." The success stories of Pathao, Sheba.xyz andChaldal are building confidence among investors and promoters and at the same time contributing to major mind-shift of the young people towards opting for jobs with startups offering home grown solutions as sustainable career paths."

"On the other hand, ecosystem enablers are supporting the entrepreneurs by providing mentorship, network, guidance and investment readiness to the startups and scaleups from different stages from all over Bangladesh," he adds. "The culmination of all these efforts are helping us build the entrepreneurial ecosystem here," states Anwar.

While there are portions of the startup ecosystem that have managed to enter the fray and stay in the public eye, the innovation that comes from continued research and development (R&D) are still scant. The success of Pathao, Chaldal and Sheba.xyz are rooted in solving issues that have not been addressed by the government—Pathao looks to reduce wait times on Dhaka roads by jump-starting the concept of motorbike ride-sharing, Chaldal wants to reduce the number of people crowding around the city hubs that are traditional bazaars by having them order groceries online, and Sheba.xyz looks to formalise a blue collar service sector that has largely stayed under the radar of who can be considered human capital in the country. While these startups are doing well short-term, these are also a constant reminder of how little these issues were addressed by long-term R&D projects that can remove the need for private intervention.

 

The barriers to innovation

Shafkat Alam, Chief Technology Officer at HiFi Public and a consultant to various other startups, says there is a distinct lack of communication and understanding between engineers and sales and marketing teams in local startups. "The product might be technically sound, but making it work in real world conditions requires input from users and people tasked with selling it. Often, they speak entirely different languages."

Tech experts keep reiterating this point: the startup industry has plenty of people to build products or mobile applications that will technically work, but it needs better product managers. The industry folk do not know how to do proper market research to find out the habits and demands of their customers.

Either way, aside from the asymmetry of information that persists between developers and entrepreneurs, a global issue that is being resolved at different stages in different parts of the world through various methods, there are more pressing issues that act as a barrier to implementing innovative ideas.

"There is a lack of perspective in Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) graduates in the country. Most developers and systems engineers have a lack of broad ideas, bigger pictures and how each piece of the puzzle can make up a bigger puzzle. That's a by-product of how computer science and programming is taught in Bangladesh at the undergraduate level—broken down into modules that make it easier to learn and teach, whereas an undergraduate course should be casting a net as wide as possible so that the students can get the basics of the bigger picture before specialising during higher studies," says Shafkat, who has interviewed over 80 developers for various positions in the past year alone. He calls for more project-oriented teaching at universities—in order to develop the practice of piecing together bits of whatever the students are learning and using them to solve a problem at hand. That way, a clearer picture of what tools can serve what purpose will be made clear to the students before they graduate and enter academia or the tech industry.

There's a lack of R&D initiatives at the university level as well—a significant factor for the lowly rank in the Global Innovation Index. A lack of funds at private universities and unused research funds at public universities, as well as a dearth of experienced professors to lead research work while balancing course loads has led to a crop of engineering and programming students who are either not interested in research, or do not have access to platforms for conducting research even if they are interested.

"The programme for my undergraduate degree at the University of Dhaka had a fantastic curriculum—almost everything you would need to excel in either academia, or in the industry. Comparing that with the software engineering program at the University of Waterloo, I don't see a whole lot missing,"says Zarif Masud, a graduate of Software Engineering at Dhaka University currently in Waterloo.

 The way the content was taught did lack focus, however, he adds. "Critical thinking is rarely ever a primary focus of these programmes. Students, in general, focus on learning application development and getting a job in the tech industry over research. Once our students don't flinch at the sight of an unseen problem, we will start making progress"

"Research in our universities focus on abstract problems and have little to no application in our country. The industry, instead of working with the universities on innovation and problem solving, looks for ways around issues. I think there is a real gap between academia and the industry that needs to be bridged," Zarif adds.

Illustration: Noor Us Safa Anik

Redefining success

Innovation, be it in solving a need or in addressing productivity, can also be contextualised. Ride-sharing is not a new concept—Uber has been operating its ride-sharing platform in over 785 cities around the world having launched in 2009, while nearly every major global city has its own local ride-sharing or ride-hailing service. Pathao, in that sense, is a copy of the traditional ride-sharing model—linking people with motorbikes or cars with people who need an alternative to public or privately-owned transport.

"Pathao has successfully contextualised ride-sharing. They have taken a model used globally and customised it to the Bangladeshi context before applying it at the right point in time, and in my eyes that counts as innovation. Success is defined differently in Bangladesh because we are still at a transition period, where the first draft of success stories is gaining exposure and being acquired, which frees up the subsequent batches to more accessible funds. With access to funding, individuals with ideas have better chances at implementing them," says Tina Jabeen, Deputy Project Director of ICT Innovation and a Senior Consultant to iDEA, a government run accelerator and networking project under the ICT Division.

Pathao's Vice President of Operations, Ahmed Fahad, stresses how most startups aren't really able to do what they want to at first, but have to rely on the team and work towards a common goal that they believe in.

"Pathao originally started as a logistics company. The market was not yet ready and the first few years were a grind, but it set us up well for what we really wanted to do, which was change the culture of what was considered ordinary. Now, Pathao is in unscripted territory—we are trying things, doing things that has not been done in Bangladesh before. We need our team to believe that these things are possible in Bangladesh, and a big part of that is breaking the mental barriers that we ourselves put up. We're not there yet but we're in the process of getting there," he says.

Pathao had to grow organically to get any kind of attention. The sustainability of the team, tech and the management, of any startup, are all factors that define how successful it is. Validation from investors help—getting past that kind of intense scrutiny shows how committed the team is to climbing.

"Pathao is by no means a success story, not yet. But there are glimpses of what it could be, and that's what pulls in investors and sets you on the path to building something great," Fahad adds.

 

Illustration: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

The funding question

In a few short years, the ICT Division has seen a steady rise in the amount of funds allotted to it,. In FY2011-12, the ICT Division got Tk 288 crores as funding. In FY2014-15, that grew to Tk 8,114 crores. In FY2016-17, the division's funding went up to Tk 13,298 crores! Compared to other government run institutes, the ICT Division has gotten the lion's share of funding, with a majority of the expenditures going behind hi-tech parks for startups and tech professionals to operate out of, app development (such as Bengali text to speech programs, Bengali optical character recognition, talking books among others), freelancer training, interactive education development, green architecture, and awareness campaigns. A significant portion of the ICT Division's funds go into developing "IT villages" at the district level, as well as the establishment of Union Information and Service Centres at the union level, alongside the development of an ICT Intra-network for the Bangladesh Government.

The ICT Division has also launched several sub-projects, such as the Innovation Fund—designed to support ideas and individuals that a panel of experts deem worthy. It's not all government though—the iDEA accelerator is operated under the Startup Bangladesh banner, where submitted ideas are scrutinised by a panel of accomplished private industry experts and leaders with experience in the startup and corporate industries. If accepted, the individual submitting the idea is liable to receive funding from the Tk 282 crores pool allotted to iDEA, as well as incubation in their accelerator programme

Once the startups are selected they are given the first round of funding, with subsequent funds available after a certain number of milestones have been met, as per the term sheet. iDEA has only been around for just a little less than a year, with the first batch of funding announced at Digital World in December 2017. 64 startups have since been funded, most of them at the idea stage, and are awaiting performance evaluation in order to gain further funding.

Even in the private sector, there's no shortage of fund sources. "In terms of local investors, there is a growing angel network in Bangladesh, as well as Venture Capital (VC) firms. International VCs like Aavishkar, 500 Startups and Fenox Capital are also present. However, the gap still remains in finding investment ready businesses within the ecosystem. Success stories like Pathao, Sheba, BKash, Chaldal are paving the way for more investments for Bangladeshi startups," says Minhaz Anwar.

"The Alternative Investment Fund is leading to growing interest from a number of local and international VCs in the market. The government has been working on a small cap exchange for tech companies to go public. However, we have a long way to go."

Looking ahead

Where is the startup industry headed in the coming years? Now that the initial buzz of being involved in something exciting and new has died down, how will the startup scene mature into an industry that fosters innovation and delivers on promises made?

"True innovation is on the horizon. If you execute your idea well, with a proper team and advisory panel, success will come. Key players in the startup ecosystem, the banking industry and government backed initiatives like Startup Bangladesh play an important role—if we stick together we will start running, whereas at present we're barely walking," says Tina Jabeen.

Is the market ready to run, though?

"Dhaka's market is very different from the rest of the country, and startups are mostly cosmopolitan in nature. They try to find success in Dhaka first, and then expand to the rest of the country. In that sense Dhaka's market is very much ready, but with the help of an expanding IT and telecommunications network the rest of the country will be ready for innovation in the form of ride-sharing and e-commerce, quite soon"

Minhaz Anwar, who has been involved with the Bangladeshi startup industry from the very beginning, warns that what we call "innovative" elsewhere may not be the same in a local context.

"Innovation is not always about creating the next Google or Facebook, rather it is about creating solutions that are cost effective, efficient, and able to reach to last mile consumers. There are a number of innovators and entrepreneurs from all over Bangladesh who are shaping the economy of this country. The educational institutions should create a strong base so that innovation can thrive. We need more investments flowing in. I believe as an ecosystem we need to go through the journey from idea to exit for a few to reach the tipping point."

At the same time, the knowledge gaps between entrepreneurs and developers, academics and industry folk, private and public sectors—thes have to be resolved so that the environment for forward thinking innovation can be created.

Shaer Reaz is Incharge of Shift, the automotive publications of The Daily Star.

Teachers call off hunger strike

Finally, the hunger strike of non-MPO teachers has come to an end following the assurances of the Prime Minister. Now that the teachers have been assured that their demands will be met, they can resume taking classes after the sufferings of both the teachers and the students for the last six days. According to the teachers' federation, the number of non-MPO educational institutions is around 5,242 of which 80,000 teachers have been working outside the MPO for more than a decade. They have been living a life of hardship. Additionally, while it is the non-MPO enlisted teachers who have been covered by recent news, the conditions of MPO school teachers are not far better. Measures should be taken to bring approved institutions under the MPO scheme. We further hope the assurance given by the PM is implemented soon. The salary structures of both MPO and non-MPO teachers deserve an increment.

Nuzhat Rifa Ehsan

Baridhara, Dhaka

Unethical banking practices

This is in reference to the article "After 2017...what defines our banking sector?" by Eresh Omar Jamal published on January 5. The write-up is praiseworthy in attempting to cover the volatile banking sector. I would like to add another viewpoint—that of the grassroots level banking scenario.

So far, 56 commercial banks including 4 state-owned ones are operating in our small country. Every year, bank branches are mushrooming across the country without necessity. Most of the branches are opening in the commercial hub to make huge profits ignoring the need of rural and/or remote areas as a whole and of course, without any proper marketing assessment.

Newly opened branches are running with unhealthy and unethical competitive practices regarding deposits, investments and foreign exchange. They are avoiding standard norms and practices in the banking field. These banks are offering skyrocketing deposit rates that are risky for the banking sector in the long-term. Most banks charge service fees which are beyond clients' capacity and also charge without any proper justification. The regulatory authority, Bangladesh Bank, should curb these unethical practices sooner rather than later to avoid a total collapse of the banking sector.

Md Zillur Rahaman

Bhola

Stop slaying guest birds

Among the six seasons experienced in our country, winter is the most charming and elegant season. Many guest birds come to visit and make their residence in our country during the winter season. But sadly, we are slaying these birds who enhance our winters every year, alluring birdwatchers and nature lovers from around the country and world.

Many miscreants frequent the haunts of these birds and set traps. They hunt guest birds to sell or simply for amusement. Our laws about conservation are not strong. So, we should tighten our laws to suppress these rogues who are desecrating these natural habitats of visiting birds. Besides, we have to spread public awareness so that they can understand the importance of guest birds.

Naeem Ariyan

University of Chittagong

Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

A museum is meant to be a gateway—a magical door into another world at a different time and place. For those (like this writer) who are not avid readers and are more visual learners, there are not many places better than museums to learn, experience and marvel at the wonders of the world.

The Bangladesh National Museum (BNM), with a total area of over 200,000 square feet and consisting of 45 galleries under four main sections—History and Classical Art, Ethnography and Decorative Art, Contemporary Art and World Civilisation and Natural History—boasts itself as one of the biggest museums in South Asia. Aside from the main museum, it holds two temporary exhibition galleries and two auditoriums where various discussions and cultural programmes are organised year-round.

But the country's supposed premier space to learn and experience the country's history, culture, geography, anthropology and art falls considerably short of providing the experience its name promises. Walking into the first gallery does feel like walking into a different time, but not how you'd imagine. The blandly-lit room, with its huge wooden map of Bangladesh where different districts are indicated by little lights, was set up probably in its very early days (when it was transformed into the BNM from the Dhaka Museum in 1983) and looks and feels very dated. The vibe carries into the next galleries—rural Bangladesh (which is just a whole wall consisting of generic painting of the country) and the Sundarbans (a poorly-lit corridor with showcases replicating the mangrove forest and some gnarly-looking stuffed animals). The next few galleries—dedicated to rocks and minerals, indigenous flora and fauna, and "Life in Bangladesh"—consist of samples kept in showcases with no comprehensive text about the exhibits. It is difficult to feel a sense of wonder and amazement—one of the most important things one looks for in a museum—as it gives the impression of a walking tour providing basic general knowledge.

Visitors touch the artworks displayed despite a clear warning; there are few employees around to supervise the galleries. Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

While some of the galleries—like the boats of Bangladesh, tribes of Bangladesh, archaeological artefacts, sculptures, inscriptions and wood carvings—are more interesting, the poorly-written labels and lack of accompanying information mean that no visitor can really take a moment and be immersed in the displays. Some of the collections are impressive, but their incoherent and confusing placement (for example, sculptures from different eras placed adjacently without much explanation) seriously take away from the experience.

There, however, is a gallery in stark contrast to all of this: the Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Gallery (which is sponsored by the IFIC Bank with technical assistance from Drik). From its floors, walls, lighting, curatorial process to aesthetics and digital displays, this is the first and only gallery that feels like an actual, international-standard museum. The recently-renovated galleries on Bangladesh's Liberation War are also far better-developed and maintained, both in terms of information and presentation.

Lack of curatorial oversight is evident in the glassware gallery which displays everything from an old CRT computer monitor to empty liquor bottles. Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

On the other hand, some of the galleries are downright confusing, like the first gallery of the second floor—a gallery of artefacts collected by the museum between 2014 and 2016. Artefacts are placed in the gallery without any classification and coherence: a sari with Tagore poems printed on it; personal documents of noted personalities; rare, old books; and pictures of two rare monkeys that were killed in a road accident, along with a video report on them, are inexplicably placed in the same gallery. The gallery is also a testament of what appears to be the museum's approach to its collection: amassing whatever artefacts possible and putting them on display without a lot of curatorial thought put into it. Another example is the gallery of glassware: one of the showcases contains bottles of alcoholic beverages that are available in the market, and can possibly be purchased from water bottle sellers at New Market. On the third floor in the world civilisation department, there is a corner called the Switzerland Corner, which contains two glass frames of old documents of some high-level diplomatic correspondence and nothing else.

On the third floor of the gallery, a Western Art gallery has rather poorly-drawn replicas of world famous paintings—from Van Gogh's "Starry Night" to Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" and "The Last Supper" and Picasso's "Guernica", which are more of an eyesore than a marvel. While it is understandable that iconic paintings of this stature may not be possible to be acquired by the museum, there could have been a much better way of showing them than pasting their prints on the walls.

Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

The keeper of the museum's Ethnography and Decorative Art, Nure Nasreen describes the museum's curatorial process as such: "When this museum was opened in 1983, a working board comprising experts made a manual and a design. We are now working to renovate those galleries. It is a continuous process." 

She admits that the main design of the galleries has not changed since their inception. "We have added video displays and new artefacts to make it modern and attractive, keeping the main design intact," she explains.

When asked why there is an old CRT computer monitor in the glassware gallery, Nasreen answers, "Because it is made of glass." Asked about the alcohol bottles, the unfazed keeper explains, "This museum began its collection in 1913 and it is growing. We have a contemporary history section as well where we display the modern objects we have collected."

She also highlights that every renovation is approved by the trustee board and committee: "It is not by anyone's individual decision."

Asked about the gallery of collections from 2014–16 and its lack of coherence, Nasreen says: "All the four departments display their main collections acquired between that time, so one of them may be natural history, the next one ethnography. This is a temporary exhibition, and we will soon dismantle it and move the objects."

Md Shawkat Nabi, Secretary of Bangladesh National Museum, admits that there is scope for improvement when it comes to curatorial oversight. "The curatorial team has more to do in this regard. Maybe all of that work is not being done properly," he says.

Cultural Affairs Minister Asaduzzaman Noor informs Star Weekend that he is not happy with the aesthetic look of the permanent galleries. "Maybe the people at the museum will not admit it, but we don't have a curator at our museum. We have a DG [Director General]. He is the head of the museum. There is no post of DG in any museum in the world, and it is not a transferrable post. One government official is there now; someone will replace him in a few years. This should not be the case for a museum. A museum has to have an expert as a curator. Since we do not have such an expert here, I think we should bring a curator from abroad and curate it. We want to start working on that. Those in charge of the museum are probably focusing more along the lines of expansion than curation. But if we had the capability, we could do all of it simultaneously."

The museum is poorly maintained with damp wallsvisible just above the artworks. Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

The cultural affairs ministry's budget for 2016–17 shows a total of BDT 31.99 crore allocated for operational and project costs of all museums under BNM for the 2015–16 fiscal year, including BDT 21.60 crore for BNM's operational costs alone. According to Nabi, however, the biggest challenge to implementing changes in the museum is finance. "We cannot design and decorate the galleries because of a lack of funds, but we have attempted to renovate one or two galleries every year. We are also trying to get sponsorships from banks and other sources," he claims.

The Minister states that work is being done on modernising and renovating the museum. Most importantly, a new building for BNM is in the works. "The Prime Minister has already approved the design, now a plan is underway. Once the building is completed, it will definitely improve the museum's facilities. You'll see that there are a lot of activities like programmes, exhibitions and publication ceremonies these days, which shows that the BNM is more active than before."

The Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Gallery is one gallery that feels like it belongs to an international-standard museum. Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

It  was hard to get a hold of updated documents and administrative authorities to figure out how the museum operates. The museum's latest annual report is not online. When asked about it, education officer Syed Shamsul Karim claims it was readily available on the website, but could not provide it when requested. He promised to send it over e-mail, but when this writer followed up with him the next day, he said, "Let me see if it is ready." BNM entertained a total of 770,000+ visitors in the 2016–17 period, and the number is steadily on the rise. 

"According to the annual plan of action with the government, we give a target to the Ministry (of Cultural Affairs)," says Nabi. "We set a target of visitors we want to attract, and according to that, we act proactively. We have a school programme, and we contact schools across the country to bring their students. We have succeeded in fulfilling this target every year."

When asked who the museum's target audience is, Nabi says, "Our target is people from all walks of life, but we have a special focus on children. We want them to take back an educational experience from here."

One of the four major goals of the museum (as per its website) is to "Study", including to "support scholarly investigation and research in order to document, catalogue, and publish the museum's objects as well as to contribute to knowledge and human achievement." Asked about the museum's research and publications in recent years, Nabi says, "We have begun work on the e-newsletter. Our yearly journal was not published for the last few years, but a new journal is waiting to be published in Bengali and English. In fact, one of the conditions for promotion for our officers is to do research and our officers are all doing their work."

Upon checking the museum's publication section, the last published journal came out in 2013, and the one before that came out in 2005. Almost all the other publications of the museum in the last few years have been catalogues for special exhibitions, postcards and the like, save for a book on Nalinikanta Bhatashali, the first curator of the museum (when it was established under British Rule as Dhaka Museum), another titled "Muslin: Our Story" (which was part of a project by Drik) and a descriptive catalogue of Arabic and Persian inscriptions at the museum.

BNM also operates five other museums across the country—Ahsan Manzil (Dhaka), Museum of Independence (Dhaka), Osmany Museum (Sylhet), Zia Memorial Museum (Chittagong) and Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala (Mymensingh). Of them, according to the 2015–16 BNM annual report (which does not list the Museum of Independence in the list of organisations under it but refers to it later in the table for attendance numbers), no new items were acquired for Ahsan Manzil, Osmany Museum, Zia Memorial Museum and Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin Sangrahashala that year. It says 49 items were acquired for Polli Kabi Jasimuddin Sangrahashala (which is not listed as an organisation under BNM). The museums in Sylhet, Chittagong and Mymensingh also saw less than 100,000 visitors each in the year (with Osmany Museum seeing a measly turnout of 2,957 people). The condition of these museums calls for a much deeper and detailed investigation, which, while beyond the scope of this story, definitely remains of interest to this writer.

Granted, the national museum can be an exciting visit for a school-going child, in a city where educational entertainment is a grave scarcity for the adult population and with the resources BNM has, is it doing enough? 

As the rickshaw, painted bright with a distorted Bengal tiger and even more distorted images of Dhallywood stars, breaks through the sea of other rickshaws, the kites appear almost suddenly through the narrow old Dhaka skyline. 

It is a sea of colours, almost as though humongous, mutant butterflies have laid siege to the Old Dhaka sky.

Always tormented by nostalgia and of memories from another time, the scenes of busy rooftops, old crumbling mansions and the passionate screams of kite flyers quickly take me back to the time I was reading The Kite Runner, a book by Khaled Hosseini, now a household name.

In the book, the schools close for the icy season, and boys spend this time flying kites. Baba takes Amir and Hassan to buy kites from an old blind man who makes the best in the city. The highlight of winter is the annual kite-fighting tournament, when boys battle kites by covering the strings in broken glass.

For me, it was like being thrown into scenes from the book and old Bollywood movies, names of which I find difficult to remember now.

Kite flying and the festivities surrounding it is not simply unique to our region or to any religion alone.  Residents of old Dhaka start preparing for Shakrain, celebrated on the last days of Poush, the end of the ninth month in the Bengali calendar from weeks back. Poush is the first month of winter in the Bengali calendar. There is another month of winter left—Maagh.

Here in Old Dhaka, Shakrain, is a veritable carnival of colourful kites, fireworks, fire-breathers, paper lanterns, old school games and food.

It's being celebrated here since the Mughal period, says resident Ishti: "My family is Muslim but there was never any talk of not celebrating this festival. After all, Shakrain has been celebrated from the Mughal times, probably even before!"

For another Old Dhaka resident, Taposh Ghosh, an undergraduate student of the Institute of Business Administration at Dhaka University, Shakrain means going down memory lane. "I used to look forward to going to Narinda, my maternal grandparents' house. All the festivities happened there."

I get down from the rickshaw where the narrow lane paves way to the narrower 'goli' of Shankhari Bazaar, an almost 400-year-old neighbourhood.  The narrow lane is lined with jewellery stores casting a golden-yellow hue from the gold ornaments showcased inside the glass windows. There is the smell of incense and syrupy laddus in the air.

Everywhere there is chaos. Although celebrations start from morning, it is dusk by the time the pace picks up.

"We start preparing from weeks back at least. There is a lot of work. Buying the right kites and then preparing them for war takes time you know," says Pratik, a teen from the Shankhari Bazar area.

For Old Dhaka residents, Shakrain is not simply about flying kites. They are at play here. From each rooftop, competition ensues. In the kite fight, the aim is to slice the other flier's string with your own, sending the defeated kite teetering to the ground.

Photo: Star File

The kite string is coated with a resin made of glue and finely crushed glass, which turns it into a blade. This is done weeks in advance. 

"I managed to cut 26 kites today so I guess it is a relatively good Shakrain for me," said a grinning Pratik.

Here, kites have different names based on their shapes, sizes and designs, such as hearts, goggles, squares, eyes and the traditional kite shape.

As the sun sets, a new kind of party kicks in. Old Dhaka becomes modernised. The old and new mingle seamlessly. Old Bangla songs from one roof intermingle with Linkin' Park from another roof. Light shows paint the city red, green and blue. Fireworks go up as though everyone is in some Olympics game vying for top firecracker spot. 

"It is as though the whole neigbourhood is partying. We only see scenes like this in the movies," says Rahnuma, a Dhanmondi resident who was visiting Shakrain for the first time.

She also talks about the stark differences that still remains between Old Dhaka and New Dhaka.

"I still do not know any of my neighbours in my building in Dhanmondi.  But here, people are having full-fledged conversations between rooftops," says Rahnuma.

The light shows and fireworks go on late into the night. Plates of food keep piling up. Pithas, samosas, bottles of Coke litter the floor.

Shakrain is often celebrated on two consecutive days by the people in Old Dhaka depending on their locality. One day of the celebrations is based on the English calendar and the other is based on the Bengali Calendar. 

This day is also celebrated by the Hindu community in India, Nepal and Bangladesh in many cultural forms, with a variety of names like—'Maghe sangkranti', (Nepal), 'Saakrat' (Delhi and Haryana), 'Uttarayan' (Gujarat), 'Maghi' (Punjab) and many more.

I made my way back home when the celebrations were going on full pace and I thought of 'Googling' why celebrations matter and why they are so important to us, irrespective of race or religion. Google answered me with many quotes, the gist of which boil down to this: without festivals, how would communities come together?How would there be fervour and excitement that break the mundanity of living in this urban jungle?

Abida Rahman Chowdhury is an online journalist, The Daily Star

That children from the slums of Dhaka have an unequal start in life is not a revelation. Sanitation systems are poor or non-existent, poverty affects nutrition levels, and access to advanced health care is limited.

But here is an appalling fact: by the time they are two years of age, the children of Mirpur Bauniabandh slum take 10 courses of antibiotics. In the first two years, these children have approximately 10 episodes of illnesses that warrant antibiotic intervention.

This was found in a World Health Organisation study that compared the conditions of 265 children in Bauniabandh with those living in similar conditions in Pakistan, Tanzania, Brazil, Peru, South Africa, India and Nepal.

So how did Bangladesh compare? The average number of antibiotic courses taken by children across the countries was 4.9, less than half of what the children of Bauniabandh were taking. In fact, Bangladesh comes out second-highest—the children of Naushahro Feroze in Pakistan topped the list by taking 12 courses of antibiotics in their first two years.

"Of course, pharmacists and doctors in Bangladesh prescribe antibiotics indiscriminately, but children in these slums are actually catching more infections," confirms Dr Tahmeed Ahmed, one of the main authors of this exploratory study and Senior Director of Nutrition and Clinical Services Division at International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b).

Three-year-old Sumaiya lives in a one-room corrugated-tin house teetering on the edge of the Beribandh canal. The child drinks water straight out of the tap but not due to habit—rather, it is because her family does not have a working gas connection and cannot afford firewood.

"Firewood costs BDT 12 per kilogram, and I end up spending BDT 150 or 200 just to cook food. I don't have the money to boil water," says Sumaiya's mother Asha. "Is that what you spend weekly?" I ask. "Weekly?" she laughs, "I spend that daily!" Most people with gas connections have to pay only around BDT 800 per month, which is the amount Asha spends in half a week. The mother works as a domestic worker in people's homes.

None of the mother-daughter duo's neighbours in the slum boil water for the simple reason that they do not have access to a working gas connection. Rowshanara Begum's four-year-old suffers from chronic diarrhoea. "I need to buy medicine several times a year for the child, simple oral saline solutions are not enough," says Rowshanara.

Their living conditions are similar to those in all slums—each of the families is squeezed into tiny windowless rooms of corrugated tin sheets. The bathrooms are open pits leading to the canal. All the households dump trash in the canal because the monthly garbage collection bill is an added burden nobody wants. That the contamination levels of this large water body has an effect on children's health came to light in a study last year that tested 200 water samples across four slums in the city and found distressing levels of fecal matter. The highest levels of contamination—about 600 fecal coliform bacterial colonies in every 100 ml of water—were found in the water from underground reserve tanks. Water samples collected from household containers like jugs were also highly contaminated. In comparison, the water supplied by the municipality was tested at source and it had no fecal matter. What that means is that the bacteria enter the water when being transported through underground pipes—pipes that come in close contact with soil that is already contaminated by the canal water, for example.  The study was done by BRAC University, Dhaka University, Dushtha Shasthya Kendra and WaterAid Bangladesh among others.

Shabana Begum, a 24-year-old mother in the same slum, managed a gas connection to boil water but her four children have another reason for falling sick—they have not completed their necessary vaccinations for illnesses like cholera.

"I moved into a room inside a brick building two years ago, so that I could get access to gas for cooking. The bathroom is also better," says Shabana. The building also houses a tiny one-room school run by an NGO, where her children spend their days. The room costs more than the makeshift structures on the side of the canal. If the mother is so committed to giving her children a better environment to grow up in, why has she not vaccinated them?

"The older women in the slum said my children will fall sick if they get vaccinated. The health workers will leave after vaccinating him but perhaps I will be left to deal with a sick child," says Shabana. The mother was married off at the age of 14 after she completed sixth grade and could not study further. She even had cholera vaccination registration cards given to her by icddr,b for her children, but quietly slipped away when the health workers came to her block because of her misconception about vaccination.

An additional fact to be concerned about is that the children studied in the research were being given stronger antibiotics from the get-go. Experts agree that this contributes to antibiotic resistance in the future. "The infants of Dhaka were more likely to be given highly potent antibiotics like macrolides (generic name being Azithromycin) for diarrhoea, as opposed to anti-protozoal drugs like Flagyl," says Dr Tahmeed Ahmed.

Children from the slums invariably get less of a shot at life than the rest of the kids in the city—they go to worse schools, end up in lower-paying jobs. Must their bodies fail them too because of man-made factors?