THE STORY OF THE HILARIOUS SHOVEL AND THE SAD VIDEOGAME (because fifty metres, two boys, one shovel and one videogame could explain how this city is insane)

"If you have diamonds, you will not get anything from them. If you have muck, you will get flowers" Fabrizio De André

The hilarious shovel - Walking on Kalamataturk Avenue (Banani), there are a man and a little boy (one metre and twenty), both of them with a shovel in the hands. They are working to collect the street rubbish (or better, something that looks like rubbish, it is a black and evil-smelling pulp that often is burning and you can recognize only the yellow of banana skins). They are putting this pulp inside a big container (an old-iron box, 6metresX2metres). There is the little boy in trouble with his shovel that seems not working properly, he tries and tries again, he stops and starts laughing. Also the man starts laughing and -swapping the shovels- he takes the shovel of the little boy. After the funny break, the little boy and the new shovel are now able to "work". It's sunday (for them, our monday), there should be the school for a one-metre-and-twenty boy, but there is a shovel for him.

The sad videogame - Still walking on Kalamataturk Avenue, fifty metres after the man, the boy, the good shovel and the bad one, there are a black Toyota SUV, parked half on the sidewalk, half on the road, and a family: dad, mom and son. The dad runs quickly to the DVD shop without waiting the wife, the mom gets out of the SUV slowly with her american jeans without waiting the son because -in the meantime- there is the driver who opens the door to the little boy (one metre and twenty). Also the boy wears american jeans, and also the boy doesn't care about the dad, the mom, the driver, the world, because he is busy with his new-metallic-handheld-game-console. Thus, following the line of the quickly dad and the slowly mom, the little boy enters in the shop without taking the eyes off the videogame. It's always sunday, there should be the school for a one-metre-and-twenty boy, but there is a videogame for him.

The moral of the story - If you are a one-metre-and-twenty boy, you should be at school in the morning but if you live in Dhaka, you have a good excuse. So, it is not important if you are working with a shovel or playing a videogame, the main thing is how you are working and how you are playing: old-iron and rubbish make you happy, metallic-case and jeans make you sad.

THE DARK SIDE OF THE GLASS (because -from a window- Dhaka is a cheap and dirty bitch)

Actually, there is a glass between me and Dhaka. Inside, it should be clean but the dust on the other side makes the glass foggy. There is always something between me and her. (Her, because Dhaka is a woman, or better a bitch, and one of the worst bitches, cheap and dirty. I have never tried bitches, but I definitely love cities cheap and dirty, thus if I have to chooce a bitch, I will definitely choose the cheap and dirty one.) There is always something between me and her. During the night there is a pink mosquito net that divides her and me, during the traffic jam there is the green cage of the CNG (auto-rickshawn) and during...everytime and everywhere there is my white skin, between her and me, my white skin that doesn’t allow me do everything comes on my mind. Anyway, I tried to sleep without the pink barrier and walking night and day without the green one, but my fucking white skin doesn’t lie.
Okkei, I am lucky than the other blonde&mozzarella guys: more than one asked me if I was half Bangladeshi, almost North-Indian or full Iraniani. Thus, I don’t care about my skin and try to life as a reverse-black-sheep.

Anyway...there is this glass between her and me: 01:19 pm, Banani, Road 11, Coffee World. In the clean side of the glass, there is my notebook, my notes and my books and there are five waiters for six clients, in theory one per each, in practice five waiters only for me, special guest star, once time per week here, where the coffee is good ("the best in town" according to Pieer, the waiter)and the wi-fi is free (only when it works). We have already switched from the formal way to say hello (“assalamalekum”) to pseudo-Italian ways like smiles, sketches and haggis. And in there dark side of the glass, there is her, the bitch, Dhaka. There is the bitch, dressed with her best clothes, but you can recognize if a woman is a bitch, because a beach with a Gucci dress is however a bitch. So, in the dark side there is Dhaka with her Banani dress, but it doesn’t make sense planning a model town with expensive glass buildings, western hot spots and private cars when the threes along the streets are killed by thousand black electricity wires, the rickshawn wallahs (drivers) run inside the traffing splitting and dressing lughi (long skirt for men) without underwear and dust-smog-bad smells invest you and your nose and your lips.

Now, the point is that -even if I have never tried a bitch- I definitely prefer the dark side of the glass. It is stronger than my self-control. I should study and write in the clean side of the glass, but I use to spend my time in the dark one and when I decide –as today- to jump into the clean one, I cannot stop this passion that pushes me to write about this cheap and dirty bitch Dhaka. The problem is that only if you are reading this post and you are in Dhaka, you can follow me. Thus,if you are in any other place in the world, try to imagine following the next list called "Things of the dark side of the glass that I can see from the clean side of the glass":
- a huge pile of dark electricity wires as long as the street, you can find these wires in every street. It looks like the dark hair of the bitch, a ruffled bitch who cannot fix it.
- a frenetic going and coming of people, car, CNG and rickshawn: clacson and smog, dangerous overtaking and mortal crossing, but also energy and adrenalin. It looks like going and coming of distracted clients interested only to pass through the bitch.
- one, two, three, ten, eleven men strewn around the street: close to the cha-shop, in front of the ATM and outside each gate of the buildings. Everyone is not doing apparently anything, but they are working: there is a job for everyone, here (even if you have only to open a door). All these men look like voyeurs of the bitch, too lazy to get in touch with her, too men to resist her erotic appeal.
- one hundred, two hundred, maybe four hundred guys (boys, men and old-men) completely mad and in love with the bitch. They have been in the line outside CityBank Banani for days. Everywhere in Dhaka you can see these men, mad and in love for the Cricket World Cup (CityBank is the only dealer in town, a single branch can sell only 480 tickets per day and only two tickets per person, I am looking for to get the tickets, but I am not ready to spend two three nights and days in the line to get them). They look like platonic lovers, in love with the bitch, with few money and many dreams, ready to all for the bitch but I guess that more than half of them -this evening- will come back home without love and without tickets.