Being the flinty city it is, Dhaka remains the same on all busy working days.
I set out from my home in New Eskaton to walk the familiar route to my office in Banglamotor - a mere 15 minutes on foot, the journey often stretches to an exasperating 30 to 45 minutes by car due to the infamous traffic that grips the city's veins.
Today was no different. The streets were overcrowded with the usual medley of sounds—impatient horns, the hum of engines, and the sighs of pedestrians weaving through the congestion.
Halfway through my walk, a commotion erupted from the Banglamotor intersection, the city's notorious choke point - a woman, her face etched with desperation, ran through the traffic, weaving between cars and bellowing pleas.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, a stark contrast to the grime that clung to her clothes. Her voice, hoarse from raw emotion, tried to pierce the cacophony of honking horns.
"Ambulance! Please, let the ambulance pass!" she screamed as her words were swallowed by the caterwaul of the cruel city.
With her face etched with panic and desperation, the woman was running along the road with a bag full of medical reports in her hand. But her cries failed to pierce through the urban clamour.
"Please, let the ambulance pass! The patient inside will die if we don’t reach the hospital soon!" her voice broke with each word.
Vehicles, mere inches away, seemed oblivious to her plight.
People looked on expressionlessly, caught in the gridlock's merciless grip.
She darted between cars, beseeching drivers and traffic police alike, but the gridlock seemed impenetrable, an unyielding wall of metal and indifference.
The ambulance, its siren a desperate wail, was trapped in the quagmire of traffic. The woman's anguish was palpable; she was fighting against an immovable force, a city so entangled in its own chaos that it seemed blind to her suffering.
Her anguish was a physical presence, a weight pressing down on the already heavy air. The blaring horns, the choked fumes, the endless wait - all of it became a backdrop to a single, desperate plea for life.
One of the rickshaw-pullers, in a rant of sarcasm over the collective indifference and individual helplessness of all, said, “Maut Aileo Signale Atka Porbo” (Even if death comes, it will have to wait at the signal).
A sliver of space opened in the traffic, and the ambulance, its siren wailing, lurched forward, carrying an unseen burden. The woman, her face a mask of both relief and terror, ran alongside it.
Her tears, a stark reminder of the human cost of Dhaka's gridlock - a poignant reminder that sometimes, the most important journeys aren't measured in miles, but in the desperate hope that flickers in the face of urban chaos.
Tension-infused tears mingled with the dust and exhaust of the city, as she waved her arms, urging the sea of vehicles to part. The sight was heart-wrenching.
She ran to a traffic police officer, her hands clutching at his uniform as she begged for assistance. The officer, though sympathetic, was helpless in the face of such overwhelming congestion. His gestures to drivers were futile; the traffic was a beast not easily tamed.
The woman’s struggle was not just a personal tragedy but a poignant reminder of the human cost of our city's inefficiencies.
Her cries were a stark indictment of a system that had failed in the most critical hour - a haunting reminder of the fragility of existence and the urgent need for empathy and action in the face of urban chaos.
Meanwhile, like many, I had to make it to the office on time, and I did. The sight of the woman’s plight disappeared into the distance, leaving behind a strange silence that is loud in its stillness, and repeated a question.
That juxtaposition of people’s daily, mundane struggles against the backdrop of her urgent plea highlighted a stark reality: How many cries go unheard amidst the din of routines?
