All roads lead to shopping malls

| by Swadesh Roy

( August 06, 2012, Dhaka, Sri Lanka Guardian ) Half of the Ramadan has passed so the mood of the women and the young generation of Dhaka city have now changed. They are fasting, doing prayer regularly but they are also busy with shopping. From morning eleven to ten at night, they are moving from shopping mall to shopping mall. They are watching and purchasing goods; basically various types of garments, necessary household commodities and gift items.

File Photo

Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh was once the city of mosques, but now it has become the city of shopping malls. Thousands of shopping malls are now in this city. Moreover, of these-hundreds are so much modern and gorgeous that people can pass their time by reluctantly moving around. There are many facilities in the shopping malls. People can get facilities like cyber café and in many of the shopping malls, they provide WiFi internet. Besides that, every shopping mall and big shop has arranged raffle draw to attract the customers, in addition, they are also giving extra facilities to the customers.

At the end of the Ramadan, Muslims observe Eid-UL-fitar, it is the biggest festival of the Muslims. However, Bangladesh is a secular country, still majority of its population is Muslim, and are more than ninety percent of the total population; so Eid-UL-fitar is the biggest festival of Bangladesh. Government holidays are three days for this festival; but this year the country has fallen into a holiday trap. Peoples will get more than ten days of holiday, so most of the people will go to the villages.

Dhaka is an old city, it was established more than four hundred years ago, but for the last three hundred and fifty years, it was a small city. It has turned in to a mega city in last twenty to thirty years. Now the population of Dhaka city is near to about 20 million; most of the people coming from villages. That is why ninety percent people of Dhaka city still have a root with villages. Therefore, a large number of the citizens of Dhaka want to enjoy the festival with their other family members, who are living in villages. So, they have already started to buy tickets for transportation to go to their villages. A huge number of the people will go, that is why the government has to arrange extra transportation at that time. Some women and children have already started to go to their villages. According to demand and supply rule of the economy, transport fees have already been increased, though the government is trying to stop it.

A large number of the citizen of Dhaka will go to village to enjoy Eid festival with their relatives. However, the upper middle class and the upper class citizens of Dhaka city will go abroad to enjoy Eid Festival and they will also be shopping there. They will go to Bangkok and other cities in Thailand. They will go to Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad in India; and will go to Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, Bhutan, Malaysia, and China. In addition, some people will go to USA and UK, and will be shopping there for the festival. So now, it has become true that, all roads of Dhaka lead to shopping malls.

Swadesh Roy, Executive Editor, The Daily Janakantha, Dhaka, Bangladesh, he can be reached at swadeshroy@gmail.com