VICTORY ON THE STREETS

Photo: Kazi Tahsin Agaz Apurbo

A government holiday in the middle of the week is, I believe, a gift from the heavens! It gives us the rare opportunity to be lazy and enjoy an extra (and much-needed) day of downtime. It also provides the even rarer opportunity of driving through the streets of Dhaka without irritably fighting through the maddening traffic.

So, on this Victory Day, I thought about going for a drive.

As soon as I fired up the car, the radio started playing patriotic songs. It was perhaps the best prelude to my journey I could wish for, as it perfectly set the mood for the experience I was about to have.

I say this because the aura of victory was in the air. Apart from the various events held across Dhaka to mark the occasion, the very spirit of victory was to be found everywhere - omnipresent.

As the roads of my neighbourhood were relatively empty, they served as cricket pitches and badminton courts. Shouts and cheers were all around.

Signs of festivity were everywhere I looked. As I sped through alleys and got onto the main road, my radio was subdued with loud speakers playing songs of the liberation war. These songs had an immense influence on the valiant freedom fighters; when the going got tough, the powerful lyrics helped them carry forward towards victory. Till today, they don't fail to uplift your mood or motivate you. They are, therefore, timeless.

The main roads were not as empty as I thought they would be, though. Everybody was out, it seemed; and everybody, unlike me, had somewhere to go! I, the other hand, made no plans, except for being the silent spectator of things around me.

Reds and greens were all over the place. The splash of colours, borrowed from our flag, was on the attires of men and women, from tops to saris to the 'teep' on the forehead. Many were also wearing jerseys.

And there were the flags themselves. Street vendors walked around carrying flags of all sizes, displaying them in a long bamboo.

It reminded me of my childhood days in Old Dhaka, where, I remember, the streets were decorated with countless small paper flags glued on strings which were tied on series of opposite houses on either side of the alleys. Entire roads, therefore, became a carnival of flags.

People celebrate occasions like Independence Day and Victory Day in their own, unique ways. No matter how a person celebrates, joys and cheers and laughers are ubiquitous - after all, isn't that how victorious and independent people are supposed to be? Celebration, in some form or other - from cricket matches on neighbourhoods to concerts on fields to the attires worn - runs far and wide.  

There are a hundred different ways you could have fun on Victory Day. Simply driving through the streets of Dhaka, for me, happens to be one of them.