If Dhaka ever commissioned an audio documentary of itself, the soundtrack wouldn't bother with birdsong or anything that implies urban maturity. No, it would open with a long, nasal, soul-stabbing cry: "Murgiiiiiiiiiiiiii!"
Yes, a sound so elastic and so shamelessly dramatic that it slinks through alleyways, somersaults around electric poles, and ricochets off your seventh-floor balcony like it's practising for an audition with a metal band that never got past your garage!
They say every city has its own music. New York gets the subway screech, Istanbul gets the call to prayer, Rome gets scooters humming like caffeinated mosquitoes. Dhaka? We get a man screaming "Murgiiiiii!!!" (just chicken) as if the entire capital is one giant chicken clearance sale.
Walk through any neighbourhood of Dhaka -- Dhanmondi, Shantinagar, Mirpur, take your pick, and you'll see them on the streets with baskets, trolleys, or buckets full of who-knows-what. Their voices are so loud and powerful, scientists could probably run the national grid with them. But Dhaka, being Dhaka, prefers its load-shedding. And yes, I'm only half-joking.
There's an art to the hawker's howl. It takes patience and practice!
First comes the warm-up: a small cough, a throat clear, and then a declaration to the universe that mattresses can, in fact, be fixed. Then the tempo rises, a melodic cry for old bottles, newspapers, and any other object that has ever existed in your home.
And who are the listeners of these soul-piercing cries?
Us, the half-awake, T-shirt-wearing Dhakaites who swear we're tired of the noise, but pause our Netflix episode to see if the daa-boti (large knife)sharpener guy is passing our building today. Of course, we complain and write about sound pollution while eagerly leaning over the balcony to negotiate the price of a quick umbrella fixation. Because we are nothing if not contradictory!
And it's not just umbrellas. There are hawkers who claim to fix literally anything and everything. "Puraton TV, radio, electronic shomogri thik kora hoy!" they shout with the confidence of surgeons announcing walk-in open-heart procedures. But the moment you take your year-old, obese television, the one rotting in the corner like a forgotten family member -- they will examine it with the solemnity of a judge, shake their head, and declare, "Ei ta aar thik hobe na. Bechhe din." (Translation: We fix everything… except the thing you actually need fixed.)
Then there's the famous murgi guy, strutting down the street with chickens hanging upside down. And watching those poor birds sway with each step can make even the most carnivorous Dhakaite feel a soft, guilty ache. For a fleeting second, you might even consider becoming vegetarian. But then you will remember morog polau exists.
However, the city planners are forever suspicious of these roaming entrepreneurs. Hawkers are like Dhaka's stray cats, impossible to regulate, permanently resourceful, and appearing exactly where you don't expect them. The authorities often try to "organise" them, a word Dhaka interprets somewhat like "make it worse." So, they remain!
And God forbid your flat is anywhere near a kacha bazar. Then you're doomed, not metaphorically, but acoustically. From dawn till dusk, your life becomes a live-action soundscape of men yelling "Jharuuuuuuu!" with the emotional intensity of someone offering life-saving medicine. They're just selling brooms. Regular, unremarkable, everyday brooms. But the way they scream it, you'd think civilisation itself depended on your purchase.
The closer you live to the bazar, the more chaotic the soundtrack. One guy is dragging a trolley full of ginger like he's hauling treasure; another is advertising coriander leaves as though they come with a free plot of land. There is constant shouting, constant movement, constant bargaining -- a relentless, unedited documentary of Dhaka life unfolding right beneath your balcony. It is maddening, yes. It may rattle the brain, of course! But it also anchors you. Because only Dhaka can turn such pure cacophony into something resembling comfort.
