Amar Sonar Bangla – real or not so much?

After a recent trip to Dhaka I am back in snowy Colorado. On a walk on snowshoes with my dogs, I was thinking about the changes I saw in Bangladesh. My mind was wondering to a faraway place, Dhaka to be exact. I saw or believe I saw dramatic shiftsin in the country's core values which I wrote in the earlier opinion page of bdnews24.com. I was also wondering about two very specific conversations.

Conversation 1 was with a friend of mine who would remain nameless because he is a somewhat well-known intellectual among the Bengali expats. The conversation went something along this line:

Me: "I just got back from Bangladesh and there are so many changes over there and most of them are so positive. I think Bangladesh is finally achieving a measure of success that has long eluded it".

My Sombre friend: "So what about crime? Isn't there crime everywhere?  Were you not afraid to go out on the street because of possible theft or robbery or some other crime"?

Me: "Well I did not see or feel any crime wave. I stayed in my village home in Sylhet, I stayed in Dhaka, I walked the streets of new and old Dhaka at night and at early in the morning, I went to seedy part of town to re-live the old days, I met friends near the dilapidated restaurant in Ramna Park at odd hours of late evening. But, I was never subjected to any such thing. Statistically, Bangladesh has one of the lowest major crime rates in the world. Yes, there are lots of petty economic crimes but that will probably abate as the economy improves".

My Sombre Friend: "How about the economy? All the poverty and backwardness?"

Me: "The economy has been growing on an average of six percent since 1996. That is quite a torrid pace for a country whose infrastructure still harkens back to the British Raj. Have faith and things will turn as long as we do not bring back the bad old days by simply refusing to let go of the memories of the bad old days".

My sombre friend: "What about traffic? I hear traffic is terrible in Dhaka and other places. I hear people are afraid to get out because of traffic. Is that true"?

Well, I was stumped for the first time. Yes traffic is terrible and roads are all clogged. One morning, I went to Dhaka Airport from Dhanmondi at 6:45 am and it took me 22 minutes by car. Another day the same car, the same driver and it took me over three hours. I happen to start at 8 am and that did it. I did not share this with my friend but some 20 years ago, I had similar traffic experiences in Bangkok! The country was growing much faster than the infrastructure allowed.

A business associate solved the traffic problem by setting up fax and a full blown office with a small kitchenette in a medium sized van. If you wanted to meet him you just went to the nearest street corner by any means and got in his van. Now traffic flows in Bangkok too!

I want to tell my friend that same will hold true for Dhaka and rest of Bangladesh. It is a matter of infrastructure and discipline catching up with the breakneck growth. Besides, Dhaka traffic is testimony to yet another Goldilocks scenario. Almost all of the three wheelers (baby taxis) and most of the vans and some long-haul trucks and vans have converted to CNG resulting in cheaper movement per kilometre. I saw little service stations along the Dhaka-Sylhet route doing CNG conversion. Well, it is tricky surgery and these folks are doing it with great aplomb. So, yes in this regard Bangladesh is moving on and the adaptable ones are inheriting the old country of ours. I say Mashallah!

Now onto another friend. He is not so much into patriotic talk and he does not even speak proper Bangla. At home the family speaks a mixture of Urdu and Bangla, a sort of Pidgin Bangla. Here is a guy who had all the chances of escaping the uncertainty and perceived lack of opportunities in Bangladesh. But he did not escape like me and thousands of others. He studied abroad, got himself an MBA and got right back to Bangladesh.

He worked various white collar jobs in banks, trading companies until he started doing his own thing some 13 years ago. Now he runs a thriving business. His sons graduated from the UK and the US. He tells me that as a condition of paying for their education he made the kids promise that they will go back and work and live in Bangladesh. The kids have done so dutifully.

These two dear friends got me thinking. All the patriotic stuff is probably talk and posturing; the guys that are true patriots in the Bengali sense are simply living life and trying to make the place a little better for themselves and the next guys! Talk, as they say, is cheap!! So, what gets us to the "Sonar Bangla"?

• Walking to "Shaeed Minar" barefoot on "Ekushey" probably does not make Bangladesh any stronger or better. It might make some people feel better, give a guy a chance to flirt with the girls and get some feet muddy! On the other hand Nirmalendu Goon  making a cultural centre complete with library and a "pukur" in his village so that the youth can congregate, talk, hang out is a step toward "Sonar Bangla".

• Lecturing in some Bengali restaurants in New York City or London, dressed up in ornate Kurta from Aarong, about the importance of Bangla while the aforementioned lecturer's kids are going to private schools with pre-determined career paths is not the way to "Sonar Bangla". Whereas refusing to pay bribe to some ministry bureaucrat for the right to invest one's own money in Bangladesh is a step towards Sonar Bangla.

• Turning up one's nose at the smelly masses of Bengali workers on a plane to Dubai or some such godforsaken place (like a friend of mine did the other day) is probably not doing much for a "Sonar Bangla". However, helping these masses to get productive work in any country will make giant leaps towards "Sonar Bangla".  We forget that foreign remittances form a big part of our national economy. These people make "Sonar Bangla" happen every day in the fields of Arabian Desert or in the kitchens of London and NYC.

Finally, believing, really believing that best days of Bangladesh are ahead of her and not behind her will go a long way towards a "Sonar Bangla".

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Kayes Ahmed lives in Boulder, Colorado, USA with his three dogs. He runs a small yet global apparel and design business based in Boulder.