Dhaka drivers are heroes

Dhaka drivers are heroes. What I mean by that is that they are heroes as drivers, and it is particularly their driving which is heroic. I hasten to say here, it is as a visitor to Dhaka that I was introduced to this fascinating fact. I did not drive in Dhaka. I would not, and probably could not drive in Dhaka. I do drive elsewhere, particularly in Canada, and most specifically, in my home city of Toronto. Do I feel heroic at all while driving in Toronto? Not a bit. Dhaka is a city that makes heroes out of its drivers, of that I am certain.

In North America, we think we know and understand the urban. Outside of New York City, and particularly Manhattan, we do not. What we do know is the suburban, the drivers’ paradise we have meticulously and methodically created over the past seven decades, where close to three quarters of us now live. Dhaka is urban. Its urbanity is absolute and resolute, like a force of nature. And one of the more astonishing examples of this is its traffic.

Like many cities, Dhaka produces traffic jams, congestion, and mayhem on the roads, streets, highways and byways. But this is where the resemblance to North American cities ends. I believe if the experience of commuting around Dhaka were virtually and digitally transformed into a video game, that game would become a global bestseller overnight. Thrills, chills and no end of excitement. Heart in the throat high drama and danger. Words can so easily fail to capture the reality of this. One must experience it to believe it. I did. I’m a believer.

On any typical busy day Dhaka is a city in constant motion. This motion pulses and throbs like a live thing, a thing inexorable and intense, a thing pounding like an African stampede, a tsunami of action and reaction, an unforgiving push and pull. Thronging together are pedestrians in great number, bicycles, motorcycles, rickshaws, three-wheelers, various types of trucks, immense buses, a rather small sampling of taxis, and an enormous number of cars. They all move about upon command, as if choreographed like a Russian ballet. I’m told collisions do happen. During a three-week visit I didn’t see any. Not one -- the reason why Dhaka traffic became a constant source of fascination.

Canada is a strange country. It ranks number two in the world considering total land area, but has a minuscule population, considering its immense size. The vast majority of its people crowd themselves into a handful of cities, none of them anywhere near the size of Dhaka. Because Canada has so bountiful an amount of land, it doesn’t need much of anything. This has produced a curious national identity. We’re all determined to enjoy at all times (except when crammed into mass transit vehicles during rush hour) our birthright of four square feet of personal space. This becomes intensely important for peace of mind and is especially necessary to our mental wellbeing while driving.

Which is why we tend to get nervous when any other vehicle or pedestrian comes too close. We can get downright upset about it. We often tend to overreact. Occasionally, we will give vent to vocal remonstration, and even be guilty of raging profanity. Which of course, does our health not a bit of good. The best of us must readily admit that we also tend to drive too fast, sometimes recklessly, and with great impatience. This has all come about because of the design of our driving infrastructure, which has been almost religiously constructed with the holiness of the drive in mind.

Alien creatures observing North America would no doubt, assume that the intelligent creature on earth (or at least this part of the world) is the private automobile. The humans are no more than its slaves and servants. But I digress.

This happens to be why the average Canadian driver would not survive one city block in Dhaka. The reason for that is what’s so fascinating. We are babied and mollycoddled by our roads. Dhaka drivers are most certainly not. Especially the Dhaka drivers whose livelihood is to drive around the families who employ them. I am pretty certain that this is because the families do not wish to drive themselves. I don’t blame them. Imagine, that in the course of driving just a few city blocks, dozens, if not hundreds of near collisions have been barely avoided (which undoubtedly would make a complete nervous wreck out of an average North American driver). It is a dance with everything that moves. It is literally a game of inches.

Canadian drivers, on the other hand, have been pampered by traffic lights that have sprung up at a rate that is liable to surpass the national birth rate. This is only a small exaggeration. They are everywhere. Everyone obeys them. Everybody stops. Add to these the stop signs, yield signs, traffic calming devices and inventions, and it all becomes mere child’s play. But in spite of all this, Toronto drivers do not stay calm. Far from it. Dhaka drivers do. It is compelling to behold. They do not wince. They do not grimace. They do not shake fists. They do not yell and shout and turn the air blue with their outrage. They just calmly and serenely go about their business, avoiding this rickshaw by two inches, that bus by a generous four inches, this pedestrian’s knee-cap by no more than a whisker, that CNG-run autorickshaw by half that much, while budging ever so slightly sideways to allow a motorcycle to pass by -- and all of it with such an adept glad good grace as to invite the most devout prayers of thanks.

And often they do all this and more, constantly, without ever being in possession of a clearly defined lane in which to proceed. Something vaguely resembling a lane can suddenly open up, and then close down again in the wink of an eye. Deft precision employs this ever-shifting game of chance. And it is this that produces that wonderful Dhaka symphony. Every manner of horn, hooter, bell, all beeping, honking, ringing and singing in perfect harmonious rhythm. All drivers and riders join in on this constant chorus -- except pedestrians. They are mostly silent, preferring to employ sign language.

So, I am left to ponder both the psychology and philosophy of it -- this daily dance. How is it that Dhaka drivers remain so calm and serene, infallible and at peace in the face of what would make a North American driver go mad after a five minute drive, and become all at once homicidal, suicidal, psychopathic and otherwise a threat to humanity altogether?

Do the shiny chrome bumpers at fore and aft help? Their utility is astute. But it is the zen of the drive, I think, that does the trick. To relax, and join in the dance, rather than to be at odds with it. Thousands, tens of thousands of moving objects, all constantly shifting about, except when congestion brings it all to a standstill, and once one acquires this zen and becomes adept, they are then capable of driving people around as they do. It sounds simple. But what I witnessed requires nerves of steel, the patience of a saint, the power of faith -- the wheelish wisdom of the ages.

So, drivers of Dhaka, I salute you and your intrepid good humour, good sense, fortitude and tenacity. Without you, the city would not function as it does. Many would not move at all. May your wheels ever roll.

The writer is a Canadian musician who visited Dhaka recently.