Hero image: Aerial drone photo taken on Sept. 5, 2025, showing a city view along the Buriganga River in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo by Habibur Rahman/Xinhua.
Look at this view properly.
This is not a city without potential. This is a city betrayed by the people who were supposed to build it.
A river like this should have changed the fate of Dhaka. This should have been one of the most beautiful urban corridors in South Asia. Clean water. Planned expansion. Proper roads. Walkable waterfronts. Public spaces. Transport logic. Civic pride. A real capital city.
Instead, we got chaos, decay, greed, syndicates, broken rules, and people in power who knew how to take from the city but not build for it.
That is what hurts.
Because Dhaka did not lack land.
It did not lack people.
It did not lack energy.
It did not lack opportunity.
It lacked stewardship.
Other nations had problems too. Some were poor. Some were broken by crisis. Some were rebuilding after war, instability, or collapse. But they still made hard decisions. Singapore cleaned its river and built a system. Malaysia grew through discipline and direction. Vietnam kept moving. Rwanda rose from horror and still pushed urban order and national rebuilding. Even countries that suffered deeply found ways to stand back up and create cities that feel like they belong to people who care.
And then there is us.
A city like this could have expanded properly across the river. It could have become a source of pride. It could have been our own version of a world-class waterfront capital. Not a copy of London, but a Dhaka that made people feel something other than exhaustion.
Concept image: Created by Mohammad Ismail using ChatGPT, showing what this riverfront could have been with proper vision, planning, and civic stewardship.
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Instead, this city feels like a place everyone uses and nobody truly loves.
People want to make their next buck.
Leaders want to fill their pockets.
Rules are optional.
Public space gets stolen.
Footpaths disappear.
Traffic steals years from people’s lives.
The river gets treated like a dump.
And everything turns into a syndicate.
Then we call it normal.
It is not normal.
It is failure.
And yes, what we have built is a failed version of democracy too. Because democracy without education, without civic culture, without rule enforcement, without consequences, becomes manipulation. It becomes noise. It becomes a system where the public is managed, not served.
That is where Dhaka stands today.
Not as a city without promise.
But as a city with enormous promise that was squandered by greed, weak institutions, no discipline, and a complete lack of long-term thinking.
That is why this view is heartbreaking.
Because you can still see the possibility.
You can still see what this city could have been.
You can still imagine the roads, the waterfront, the skyline, the order, the dignity.
You can still imagine a Dhaka that was built with love instead of exploited for profit.
But imagination is all we have had for too long.
And that is not enough anymore.
From now on, I am going to speak more about the things we are lacking, the things we keep normalizing, and the things that are silently destroying this country.
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