The city of Dhaka did not have many footpaths even in the 50's of the last millennium. Pedestrians used to walk along the dusty space adjacent to the main roads. But the majority of them were eager to use footpath, if there was any. In the 1960s, a common government notice-plate that one used to come across on the light posts read: 'Walk on footpath, keep safe'. City people took these words seriously.
There were roadside hawkers in those days too. But encroachment on footpaths, extortions by local hoodlums, palm-greasing of law enforcers and many other types of mischief were almost beyond the wildest thoughts of people. There were many vacant plots on both sides of an important road which were used as makeshift hawkers' markets. Dhaka at that time was a 'civilised' city. People nurtured a strong civic sense. They used to respect others' rights. Doing something that might cause trouble to others was alien to average people's character.
Fifty to sixty years later, Dhaka turned into a wild city, at least virtually. There is now an intricate network of footpaths. Pedestrians cannot use them. Those belong to roadside hawkers and squatters. At places, the extended part of an office building encroaches on them. There are beggars, tramps, tea-stalls, eateries, saloons and what not!
Perhaps, in the post-Independence Bangladesh the first urban infrastructural marvel came in the form of foot over-bridges. The first such bridge was built in the capital's Farmgate area. It was followed by others of its kind in quick succession. Many years later, the city dwellers witnessed the addition of another communication-related infrastructural novelty: the underpass.
It did not take much time for the roads and highways authorities to realise that foot over-bridges and underpasses alone would not solve the city's traffic problem. The way the perennial gridlock was getting entrenched in Dhaka's urban life, they needed something massive and time-befitting, one which would bring about a revolution of sorts in enabling vehicles in the city to move in the required speed. The solution came in the form of flyovers.
This writer does not want to deal with the shambolic condition that has been created in the construction phase of the flyovers. True, transformation in size and shape of infrastructure has been spectacular, so has it been in people's mental make-up. In the period from the fifties to the sixties, Dhaka was thinly populated, the number of motorised vehicles was negligible, and horse-drawn box carriages dominated the roads. In such a condition, the pedestrians could have safely walked along the space lying between a footpath and a road. But they did not do so normally. That it is only the footpath along which one has to walk in a city has never eluded them.
Despite the fact that in those days the Dhaka roads were not filled with vehicles, few people crossed roads at points where the drivers might feel endangered. Running across a road alone or with companions was beyond imagination. In fact, the notion of jaywalking never occurred to them.
These days we see pictures in newspapers or watch television footage showing people of all classes, ages -- both male and female, crossing busy roads winking at death. A foot over-bridge is seen not far away. But nobody bothers to use it. Road accidents occur frequently and death under the wheel is frequent. Then things are back to square one. Everything is business as usual.
To have a glimpse of the horrifying extent of the slide in people's civic sense, one needs not move around the city. A watchful stroll around the New Market-Gausia area is enough. There one can find the spectacles of people, including male youths and middle-class young women, crossing the fences of long iron spikes to go to the other side of the Mirpur Road. Two striking features stand out here: the devil-may-care desperation of the otherwise modestly clad women and the two foot over-bridges close by. Road accidents should not be indiscriminately blamed on the bus or car drivers. The city-dwellers should also have to bear a lion's share of the responsibility here.
Almost a similar spectacle is being enacted nowadays on the newly-constructed flyovers, which are supposed to be off-limits to pedestrians.
Like in the roads in the New Market area, here too our Amazons are quite often seen scaling over the high concrete road dividers along with their seemingly nervous male companions. We would have felt proud of our valiant citizens had they shown their feats at proper places. Unfortunately, the place and time are outright wrong. On top of all, these suicidal ventures lay bare our complete disregard for civic sense. These can be likened to spitting from a rickshaw on an elderly passer-by, or urinating on a wall near the gate of a school.
shihabskr@ymail.com
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