The days after Eid in Dhaka have a strange resonance, a touch of melancholy too if you will. Just like a hall room where an orchestra was playing cheerful music and like all music sessions, it comes to an end and the audience cheers and then leaves the hall both thankful and grateful, their time and money well spent.

But the fact remains that it's over and after an evening of joy and pleasure, the revelers make a way for the exit leaving the debris of pleasure behind rolling on the floor. That's how the days after Eid seems to me as I walk around the city I have called home since birth many moons ago.

The merry noises of Eid

The cheer of Eid is obvious as the days loom large. With Roja Eid it's actually one long season /month of festivities peaking with the final dhamaka of Eid. Ramadan is no longer about sacrifice and abstinence but eating to fill all the regular delicacies and many only seasonal servings like halim.

The month is not really about the fasting but the feast after the fast. Let's say over time it has evolved. The kind of lamentations over the prices of fancy foods and the rage of the unsatisfied gourmand is a new description of the shape of things that have arrived.

As the fifteenth of roja is completed and palates are just feeling kinder, other longings arrive. What to wear, what to buy for eating later, where to buy, how to plan for the holidays etc. The list goes on and on and to which are added fanciful items as FB broadcasts many new clothes, food, savories that are to be relished when the big day arrives.

The merry noises of Eid begin long before the day actually knocks on the door and enters our homes.

And where is home?

Two three days before Eid arrives the rush to "home" begins. Media covers the "Journey home" as a special topic as thousands throng home undertaking much trouble to make it "home" on time. It's a special moment, this arrival at home from what is the city they have to live in because it provides them with a livelihood but not comforts or identity. No matter what, the city never belongs to them. Their relationship is mostly economic while their heart is parked distant miles away in some town, peri-urban space, even villages. It's not a journey; it's something akin to a pilgrimage.

As Eid descends on the city, it's suddenly, within a matter of a very few days, shorn of people as homebound people disappear happily leaving the city to those who can't, don't want to or belong to the city. The city after the festive day wears a strange deserted look as if it's a festival but without a thronging crowd anywhere except the zoo maybe.

Eid: From a FB dairy....

"Eid day food was already cooked yesterday, We also bought some stuff from the shops so there was no pressure on getting the meals done. Let the Eid begin."

"I went out for a walk at about 6 in the evening. I have rarely seen such a desolate looking city. There were less cars and horses on the road. Almost all the shops were closed. On the way, I went to a drug store in Gulshan to get some meds. I bought a bottle of coke from the neighborhood shop close to home because the super shops are also shut."

"Eid seemed quite grey as I returned from my walk. I called my junior researchers and a couple of colleagues. Roksana apa informed me that journalist N.M. Harun Bhai was unwell. My Teaching Assistant Rezwana told me that after postponing the exam date my popularity is at its peak, a nice Eid gift for my students. It's a day like any other day for someone like me. I am good, stay good everyone."

A walk in a city without traffic jams

"While walking inside Niketan yesterday, I saw that the neighborhood is quiet, there are almost no cars on the streets, many/most flats are dark, shops are closed. Actually, Dhaka is a place of livelihood; people live in villages, go home and go on vacation. It's not a place to live but just a place to park the cart of income."

"Onassis, the Greek rich man had said, "If you grow up in a village, what the world thinks will not matter, what the village leader says will. Dhaka is not a proper urban space or city for many if not most residents, it's a village's extension. Most live here to go home. There are no cars, buses , nothing now. No traffic jams either. In the deserted neighborhood a lonely biker asks with a sad look, "Hello. Do you want a ride?"

"Traffic jams are Dhaka's ID card. Not just people missing but offices too. No rush hour. Right now Dhaka and its ID card are missing.

Hello and goodbye.