Dhaka bhromon

December 16, 2005

It was the Victory Day, bijoy dibosh. Thankfully ma was busy with something so I got the day off. I called up my Dudh bhai (I will call him DB from now on) and asked him to show around Dhaka on rickshaw. So he came and off we went on rickshaw, without the hood on. We went to a fast food shop in Baily road. It was beautiful, very much western in its style and service and... price. We didn't eat much but they scabbed off a pretty 770 tk from us! I did some quick calculation and found out I had to pay around the same price in Sydney. However I would not have gotten the nice surprice I got there. As I was busy talking with DB I hear someone say from the back, "excuse me, eta HP na?" It was a classmate of mine from Viqarunnisa. Yes, the Earth is round.
Then DB and me went to Katabon mosque for Juma prayer. They got really nice arrangement for women now. After Juma we got on a rickshaw and told him to go through and around Dhaka University campus until we tell him to stop and we will pay as he wants. We were on the rickshaw for 2 hours. We talked non-stop the whole time. We had 4 years to catch up on! Our stock hasn't finished yet though, nor did it then. Still we got off the rickshaw and started walking through DU. At one instance DB gave me a mischievous smile and asked, "cha khabi?" I looked around to find the small street side tea stalls where the rickshaw-walas sit for a 2 takas worth hot drink. We had our drink. Sitting on the bench just like everyone else. The flying flies couldn't intimidate me. Not even when one fly felt like killing himself and jumped in the hot tea of DB (he bought a new cuppa). We started walking and talking again. Through the familiar streets of DU. Nothing seems to have changed! It didn't even feel like I haven't seen all these for years. It felt like everything was exactly the way I left them. We had jhal-muri despite for warnings from DB about germs and all. I went through SM Hall. Huh, the place I spent 8 years of life! We didn't get on rickshaw again, we just walked to Katabon mosque and prayed asr and started from home. We had to walk a little more for rickshaw/CNG, thats when we had our second cuppa, moshla-flavoured tea from the road-side.
Just as we got off from the CNG, the Maghrib adhan started.