Coming Home........
Prime Ministers Have Right of Way
The stillness of the multitude around me is ominous. It is almost surreal. Like animals sensing an oncoming storm, they appear to have a sixth sense which has told them that this gridlock will not unlock. They are remarkably silent. No one blows their horn; no one gesticulates or waves their fists in anger. Rickshaw-wallas slump forward and wait. Lorry drivers doze off. Private car drivers look bored with life. Even pedestrians stop weaving in and out of traffic.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. All I am saying is that prime ministers are entitled to first-hand experiences - just like the rest of us.
Let me explain.
I think it is wonderful that Dhaka played host to the first ever Business Summit between the prime ministers of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. It was a bold, innovative and well-conceived step, an event whose time has come. That the entire project was created and executed by Bangladesh makes it doubly exciting, and a great source of pride for us in this country.
So what do I appear to be cribbing about? Okay, I'll tell you about it. But in order to understand my point of view, you must first visualise my particular circumstances.
It is Thursday morning; I have just come back from a three-week holiday and I am happy to be back. Life is exciting in this city. Sure, it gets a little crazy at times. This is a tiny, crowded city, unbelievably polluted and noisy to boot. But Dhaka beckons like no other city I know.
It is possible that I was too happy. Perhaps that is why it bothered me so much when it happened. There is little warning, you see.
One moment my driver is scooting along towards downtown Dhaka, dodging old ladies and lorry drivers, and the next moment, he cannot move. At first I don't pay attention. When a handicapped old man with a young child holding his hand knocks hard on the car window, I wake up from my stupor, as it were, and it begins to dawn on me that we aren't moving. We haven't been moving for some time. I look at my watch. We must have been standing still for about 10 minutes. We are in a traffic jam.
You know what terrifies me at this point? It is a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that tells me that things are highly unlikely to change in the near future. This here is the mother of traffic jams.
Our car is wedged between carts, rickshaws, lorries, other cars and people - which is not unusual in rush-hour Dhaka traffic. But this morning, the stillness of the multitude around me is ominous. It is almost surreal. Like animals sensing an oncoming storm, they appear to have a sixth sense which has told them that this gridlock will not unlock. They are remarkably silent. No one blows their horn; no one gesticulates or waves their fists in anger. Rickshaw-wallas slump forward and wait. Lorry drivers doze off. Private car drivers look bored with life. Even pedestrians stop weaving in and out of traffic.
I am very, very late. The man I am supposed to meet has a plane to catch in a couple of hours. Nothing happens. I start sweating.
I roll down the car window and ask the lorry driver next to us what's up. Does he know why we're not moving. The lorry driver stares at me, saying nothing.
"It's those prime ministers, they've snarled up traffic, what do they care what happens to us," a passenger on a nearby rickshaw mutters under his breath.
"They're big people," says a rickshaw-walla. He shrugs. He does not say any more, but I can guess what he is thinking. Big people can do anything they want. Stop traffic, make ordinary people miss important appointments, keep entire cities waiting patiently until they have completed their business.
"It's going to be like this all day," my driver says, flatly.
I roll up my car window. I am terrified as the thought occurs to me. Good grief. How long will this traffic mess last? Don't tell me I won't make my appointment? I can feel the sweat glands expand inside my forehead, the adrenaline begin to slither into my stomach, the heart muscles tense up. Anxiety attack, here it comes.
If you were anywhere in downtown Dhaka on Thursday, you know how bad it was. You also know that when conferences like the Business Summit take place, traffic stays snarled up, chaotically, until hours later. And if prime ministers head towards dinner parties and banquets as well in the evening, life for ordinary people gets even more complicated.
This is what bothers me. This is what I am cribbing about.
I know the three leaders who met in our capital on Thursday morning came here to make things better for us, to improve the standard of living, the quality of life, the economic situation, trade, commerce, communication - for us, the ordinary people of the region. For which we are all extremely grateful.
The problem is, I don't think it has occurred to them that the ordinary people of Dhaka have been subjected to grave inconvenience because of their high-powered gathering. Indeed, what bothers me is that I don't think it has ever occurred to anyone in a position of power that perhaps, just perhaps, it is not their right to always have right of way. That even though they are prime ministers, they might wait for their turn like the ordinary citizens of the land.
It could happen, you know. They might even learn something from the experience. Imagine driving along in your car and who should come alongside you but Mr Nawaz Sharif, and in the next car, Mr I. K. Gujral, and in the next car, Ms Sheikh Hasina and yes, each is all hot and bothered under the collar, quite distressed because the ride is taking far too much time.
I can actually see it happen.
"Why aren't we moving?" Mr Gujral might ask, rolling down his car window.
"It's something called a Business Summit," Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina might reply, rolling down her car window.
"Surely, they ought to be more considerate, I mean, why disrupt ordinary people's lives, for a meeting?" Mr Sharif might exclaim, rolling down his car window.
(Okay, so one's mind sometimes plays tricks).
But seriously, just suppose that for some unexpected reason, our three leaders did decide they wanted to experience first-hand what it was like to be an ordinary person, and they did get stuck in a traffic jam and they did show up an hour late for the Business Summit, what would happen as a result?
First possibility: The Summit could start an hour late. (Fine by me). Second possibility: The prime ministers could decide to sack all the traffic cops in Dhaka city. (Fine by me too). Third and most challenging possibility: After having been stuck in traffic for the first time in recent memory, the three prime ministers could decide that before they dreamt of grand schemes like linking up with central Asia and the Trans-Asian Transport Network, they would first try to resolve the traffic problems of an ordinary city like Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. Followed, hopefully, by every other city in the region.
Is it possible. Is it too much to expect that prime ministers might find out what it's like to be an ordinary person. Or do prime ministers always have right of way.
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