Tanvir met me at my hotel in the morning and we got in an autorickshaw. He talked about everything we passed detailing what happens in which neighborhood and the sort of development which happens in Dhaka. He proposed his own alternative urban planning schemes including the destruction and rebuilding of entire neighborhoods and and minor things like reforming organization of the cycle rickshaw workers’ community with new technology in their rickshaws and a sort of workers union. Transportation was a major concern of his, as it may well be a popular topic for discussion among many in the city, but I was thrilled to get his insight on the subject because I understood him so readily.
Tanvir took me to a nearby mall, the largest in the country and purported to be the largest in the region, and we went to the roof to find a coffeehouse he liked and said that he visited several times a week. I was thrilled that he drank coffee, and was happy to hear that Dhaka is nurturing a growing coffeehouse culture. After talking we went to Dhaka University and saw part of a city-wide photography exhibition called Chobi Mela. Also at the university there was a mausoleum wherein the poet Kazi Nazrul Islam and other people associated with the university were memorialized. Adjacent to this place was a mosque. Students were hanging out and studying in the mosque, and I asked Tanvir if this was common. He told me that mosques were a place for study, which I did not realize. Elsewhere in the university there were a lot of happy students including couples in love. I knew that Bangladesh was a Muslim country, but I had never visited a Muslim country before and did not know what to expect. I had no idea that Bangladesh was so secular or that the people in Dhaka would be so fashionable, but I saw this repeatedly. From there went to this nearby university restaurant where his friend Shabab was to meet us.
Upon arriving Shabab started talking as if we were not introduced, but rather as if we were already in the middle of a conversation somehow despite his just having joined the table. He has a casual way about him that made me feel not only that his attention was only on my interests, but also that we could collaborate on anything and achieve it were we only to take the time. He was telling me about his work in software development, and again he rejoined with Tanvir in talking about reform politics for Bangladesh, and he told me what I should see and do in Dhaka and who I would like to meet as if he anticipated such things by knowing something about me. We ordered food that was supposed to be representative of Dhaka and they told me that they trusted the restaurant, and we were delivered an enormous pot of rice and goat. I thought it looked great, smelled great, and was great. It seemed spiced in a way totally foreign to me and the rush of smelling it as the lid opened and steam came out was just something done in a way that was not familiar to me at all. I thought the food was wonderful and new; Tanvir and Shabab said that it was terrible and that the restaurant staff changed it because of the color of my skin and their expectations that I could not eat food in its normal preparation. I did not know what to think of this but I thought it was absurd for several reasons, and I laughed about it even though I did feel bad that they were not enjoying the food at all despite it being fascinating to me. I was to see Tanvir and Shabab in much of what I did in Dhaka.