"Dinghi" for recreation seekers

Thanks to debris from thousands of vendors and tourists, not to mention sewage defiantly discharged into the lake by "posh" condominiums, dead fish don't float around anymore in Dhanmondi Lake. The water is so polluted that it cannot support most fish. Like cockroaches, the ones that survive are too tough and resilient to even yield to a nuclear fall-out!

While the bodies of dead fish may not haunt the filthy waters of the lake, those of dead people do. Between January and February this year two bodies were recovered from the lake and reported in The Daily Star. One of the bodies was that of a suspected drug addict.

It is not only the day-glow of life-saving vests on Dinghi paddle-boats that clash with good taste; it is the whole concept of a "boat club" plunked right on to the middle of a residential area with the intention of luring hundreds of pleasure-seekers for whom throwing away Taka 150 is of no consequence.

Adding to the inherent tastelessness of the project is the fact that it forms part for a larger, misguided scheme to "develop" the Dhanmondi Lake. The result is that this once lovely area for homes resembles a garish mela that offers boat rides, an open air "theatre", hiking trails, outdoor restaurants, vending carts etc. all squeezed on to the head of a pin.

Finally, like the open air theatre, the concrete walkways, the restaurants etc., the boat club represents an undemocratic act of foisting "development" on a community without adequate consultation or any concern, on the part of the authorities, for due process. We, who live in Dhanmondi, feel violated by the circus-like conditions to which a place we call home has been reduced.