Puran Dhaka

The history of a city tells you a story about why it is the way it is. Last week-end, our group of people took a tour of Old Dhaka in attempts to learn part of this. The tour is led by an NGO in Dhaka that fights for the preservation of historical landmarks; the government really doesn't seem to care and is continuing to tear down hundreds of these buildings to create high-rise apartment buildings. The NGO is advocating for the creation of "historical landmarks" on the basis of the locations role in the history and development of Dhaka and its architectural significance (with all the changes in rulers of the land, there is an amazing mix and blend of styles).

A little about Old Dhaka - Dhaka city is approximately 25-square miles of which Old Dhaka is about 8 percent of this. However, about 70% of the wholesale industry is conducted here. It's a mix of businesses and homes, but for some reasons many of the people who work here don't live here and vise versa. From where we live in Dhaka, it takes about 45 minutes to an hour and half (in traffic) to reach.

The walks change every week-end and so our three-hour tour (which began at 8am) covered the Armenian settlements of Old Dhaka, now in a sub-neighbourhood called Armanitola. The Armenians settled in the late 17th century and having just been leaving throughout the 20th century. The settlers were heavily involved in Bengali trade and commerce during the 17th and 18th centuries and propelled the export of jute and muslin. They also opened the first non-governmental school in Dhaka. During the time they flourished, the whole community was considered to be "locals" from the perspective of the previous inhabitants and from the perspective of the Armenians themselves. Some intermarriage existed between the Armenians and Bangladeshis (or what was to become Bangladesh) and many of them are buried in the area as well. The oldest grave found was a man buried in 1714 and we saw a very recent grave from 2005 of a 108-year-old woman!

Our first stop on this tour was the Church of the Hold Resurrection (locally known as 'khristan bari') and it's associated cemetery. The church was established in 1781, but no long has regular mass due to the lack of Christians in Dhaka. Apparently there are about three masses per year, but only for special occasions - and for the Australian Archbishop who comes twice a year ('Why does this Australian man come here', you may ask. No one can tell me and its frustrating...). The inside of the church fits just around a 100 people, so at some point there was definitely a sizeable community. The church itself is very simple - red, white, and blue paint with little ornamentation and most of the original furniture that was imported with the first settlements. Fun fact: the arch over the alter is the largest arch to have survived the massive earthquake of 1897 (?) that downed tons of the city.

We then visited a smattering of old, beautiful buildings that had been gutted and were being used as pharmaceutical warehouses or were dilapidated houses still being used for temporary housing. It was upsetting to see such gorgeous buildings completely unkept - dirty, broken, and just uncared for. Most of them are probably possible to fix, but would require lots of money and time and effort - something the government or the people who own the houses are willing to do. Our tour guide explained to us that when you own the building, there are restrictions on continuous building, e.g. adding more layers to the house, so it is a common practice to sell just the top floor of the building to a friend and then build on top of this (apparently the rule is per person, not per building - odd no?). 

Mosques are obviously popular in Bangladesh and we passed two along the way. The first, who's name I can't remember, was a mosque and an attached green shrine, depicting traditional Mughal architecture. 

The second, which is the mosque depicted on the 100 Taka note, is called the Sitara (Star) Mosque and dates from the early 18th century. Throughout the years, there has been lots of destruction and re-construction of it and so the existing mosque is not really what existed back in the day when it was one of the first mosques in Dhaka. Around 50 years ago, a local businessman financed its redecoration with Japanese and English china-tiles and so there are a whole bunch of tiles with Mt. Fuji on them. The mosque is built in the traditional Mughal style of having four corner towers and is decorated with a mosaic style called chini tikku...and of course, there are tons of stars all over the mosque in this style.

The last place we visited was a public school, which for some reason, I thought was the most beautiful building we saw. It had this quiet openness about it - a place where you know you could just read a book and be completely happy.

So that concludes tour 1 of Old Dhaka...we really only covered about 5 streets and there is tons more to be discovered!