#dhakaiya

I think of you as if you’re a forgotten religion. But it’s made you more sacred in my eyes. I revere your piss-stained, graffitied walls. I worship the writhing masses of thick black wires that hang from electricity poles in every one of your street. I pray to the roaring hymns of buses and lorries that spew acrid black smoke. 

Dilijan smokes like you do. Sometimes, when I’m out, treading loose gravel, I close my eyes and breathe in deeply. It smells like you. Like blackened lungs and grey ash spraying in the wind. I pretend that in front of my closed eyes are people with skin the colour of rich earth. I pretend for a moment, that if I opened them, right here, right now, I’d see you in all your triumphant glory. 

I’m not used to the cold. I’m used to your heat beating upon my back. I’m used to sweat dripping down the nape of my neck and down my spine. I don’t think I like this. I don’t like the way the cold air stabs through my throat like a sharp knife. Fog comes out of my mouth in puffs when I talk at night, when it’s cold. I remember cursing your name when that didn’t happen during the winters I spent with you. I remember praying for snow like I pray for your warmth now. The rain doesn’t smell right either. It doesn’t smell like earth. It doesn’t sound like a thousand trees heaving a relieved sigh. It’s wrong. It’s not home. It’s not you.

Stay well, my love. Don’t ever quieten. Don’t ever become pretty. Wait for me to come back to you. 

Until I can taste the rancid garbage in your air again,

Note: I'm not a linguist, I can only speak through my experience with people from these regions. And I'm talking about the accent not dialect. Alsoooo accents can vary from individual to individual.

Standard Bangla/how I think it should be pronounced: আমার তোমার উপর বিশ্বাস শেষ হয়ে গেছে (Āmār tomār upor biśśās śeṣ ho'e gæche)

Medinipuria: আমার তোমার উপর বিস্সাস সেস হয়ে গেছে (āmār tomār upor bissās ses ho'e gæche).

Kolkatan: আমার তোমার উপর বিশ্বাশ শেশ হয়ে গেছে (āmār tomār upor biśśāś śeś ho'e gæche)

Dhakaiya: আমার তোমার উপর বিশ্বাশ শেশ হয়ে গেসে (āmār tomār upor biśśāś śeś ho'e gæse)

Some general trends:

Speakers from Medinipur region will tend to double the consonants if there is a half 'r' or reph after it. পরতে becomes পত্তে, করতে becomes কত্তে, কর্তা becomes কত্তা. All 's' sounds are pronounced s. No sh, i.e স শ and ষ are all pronounced like স (s). More usage of ô sound than o.

Speakers from Kolkata too sometimes tend to double consonants. All s sounds are pronounced sh. স শ and ষ are pronounced শ (ś).

Speakers from Eastern and East-Central part of Bengal/Bangladesh and adjoining regions tend to pronounce ছ (ch) as স (s). করছে becomes করসে. Also ও (o) is sometimes pronounced like উ (u). The s sounds are all generally pronounced like শ (ś), much like Kolkatans. I've also noticed জ (j) being pronounced as জ় (z).

There are some spotify curated Bengali playlists still but... Most of the songs in them are Bangladeshi and again most of either by expatriates with a mix of English in them or in Dhakaiya and Sylheti Bangla...

Thanks to social media and a wide range of friends and acquaintances in conjunction with my increasing curiosity to explore Bangladesh through my strolls in virtual sphere, I happened to notice a group of Bangladeshis who seems like living in a bubble – a bubble that well-preserve the ‘fantasy-land’ they live in. The life they perform do not feel like staged in the Bangladesh I know, I lived and most importantly, it does not fit into the portrait of Bangladesh that the mass media projects!

I caught myself being interested in trying to figure-out the puzzle of the highly contrasted ways of life between the elites of Bangladesh and the average citizens. And measure the distant in between these two groups. It feels like the elites have built a well-secure shield which protects them from all sorts of negative social sanctions, and the tinted glass of their cars seems to block the view of harsh reality lived by average citizens for their daily survival. It seems like these elites do not breathe the polluted air of Dhaka; their nostrils are not filled with black segments from air pollution when they step out of their house. The cries of hundreds of thousands of fellow Bangladeshis tormented by widespread violence and grilled by poverty cannot beat the elites’ eardrums or make their hearts ache. All these miseries, all these agonies, cries, shouts cannot simply penetrate the walls of the bubble they live in. The elites seem to be quite preoccupied by the nouveau riche syndrome they are suffering from and are too busy competing with their peers in the exhibition of wealth.

What is even more interesting is that the social norms applied in the lives of these elites look very different from those of average citizens. Even the merciless rules that shackle one ruthlessly seem quite relaxed for these elites. Everything we knew about Bangladeshi society and every social barrier an average citizen faces, and every taboo one lives through, feel almost non-existent in this elite portion of the Bangladeshi society. I am fascinated by how one’s wealth can facilitate such a ‘liberal’ living and let one purchase privileges that deactivate the austere social sanctions. Even the strict religious rules that imposed on most people’s lives, are somewhat compromised for the elites.

It will be quite interesting to dig out how this Bangladeshi elite community built such a well-protected life where they can do whatever they wish to. They can trade anything they fancies and can live without the negative experiences the general public face in their everyday living. How well-sealed their social environment is that nothing penetrates through and the harsh reality does not dare to slap on their faces? Do they have to negotiate with the broader social rules at all? Why their way of submission to Islam (interestingly, most of the elites appeared to be muslim and they publicly exhibit their obedience to Allah) is much different than that of others? The acts that could be swiftly labeled as un-islamic by the wider Bangladeshi society is acceptable or at least tolerable when it comes to elites.