I go to Merul Badda twice a week to take classes at the BRAC University. It used to be located at Mahakhali for long at a slightly crumbly but affectionate building where I had been an adjunct Faculty for years. Since then, things have changed.

I was laid off during the corona days like all adjuncts and the university campus shifted to where I now "adjunct" commute, twice a week. Going to Badda and being there is a whole new experience for me. It's almost like exiting the crowded traffic jammed main city roads into a world where alleys still reign. And to be honest, I love it. Alleys that is.

The new campus and OMG

The campus or the new building is something worth seeing. It's huge, possibly humongous dwarfing everything all around it. Its sits if you don't mind a huge hippo in a small puddle and taking that simile to scale, an elephant in a tinyish swamp. Just about everything around is made tiny and insignificant. Nothing matters in the built environment of the area when you have something as awesome as this incredible hulk.

It's squat positioning displays power, size and the rest of it. It very boldly says, "I am here and I can't be ignored." It's a fireworks show of presence. However, it's so huge that no one can get to see its total size except from a bit far away. Unfortunately, no such open space exists and metaphorically speaking, saying what it looks like is a bit like a bunch of blind people describing an elephant. We get only bits of here and there, not the whole hog. Yep, it's that big.

Badda itself is a whole different ball game though from the looks of it, more like a street ekka -dokka match or maybe ludo and snakes and ladders, a much humbler variety of fish.

The road -sort of- to Badda

As a regular walker I always measure time and distance and this habit stretches to other rides as well. I know how long it took to the earlier Mahakhali campus, by walking or rickshaw or car and mixing the combo too. When I visited the new campus the first day, I took a cng and the fare was similar to the ride to Mahakhali. I was surprised. Merul seemed so far away.

What was even more surprising is that the ride time was less. I couldn't figure it out. But I was helped out by others who even informed that a rickshaw takes even lesser time though there is no direct ride to Merul. A week after my first visit I picked up enough courage and tried the steeple chase of ride, walk and ride.

This is how it goes. A rickshaw ride from my Niketon residence by rickshaw to the main Gulshan Avenue opposite Shaeed Dr. Fazle Rabbi Park takes 3-4 minutes maximum. One gets off the rickshaw and then crosses the main road which is the most stressful part of the journey as cars rush by following no traffic rules and no concern for pedestrians and zebra crossings.

One just has to take the risk, hold younger hands if needed and look very mournful while trying to cross. One reaches the traffic island pass and repeats the crossing while praying as devoutly as possible to complete round two on the race. Once you have reached the pavement leading to the Police Plaza one is safe. That takes 2 minutes. And then comes the fun part.

Into the entrails of the city

The rickshaws that ply here are mostly motor powered moving at a pace which would embarrass Superman. But even to go to BRAC U, you have two options. Main gate = 50 takas and Pocket gate =30 takas. Main gate is through the wider roads - if there is such a thing in Badda while the Pocket gate runs through the alleys and by-lanes of Badda of the mostly Merul variety.

I take the Pocket gate because that's where the fun is. Once, one enters the Baddda part leaving the Gulshan Lake area behind - much less posh than Gulshan but still poshish - one is into alley land. The way fares are narrow and the roads if one wishes to call them that are cruel punishments on the body as it jerks, jolts and bucks in an attempt to throw the passenger off. One just has to hang on somehow and scream at the rickshaw to go slow which he not very politely ignores. The ride to BU takes no more than 8 minutes.

I am not going to describe what is around but the small, tall, crooked, mis-built, dishevelled, human hives called buildings look down on the road offering glimpses of Dhaka life with all its variety, absurdity and plain insanity even. This city has no land to spare and every inch is a coveted piece of earth where something can be and is built from shops to madrassahs to coaching joints to snackeries to just plain simple homes.

The enormous cycle of birth, existence and death is being played out here and the alleys like the only mother Dhaka can spare refuses none and hugs everyone to the breast. This mad city has the widest welcoming embrace in the world.