I will miss Basila.....

01 May 2011
Basila & Char Washpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

I've gone there so many times and now I have to let go.... how?.... I know its not a pleasant thing to do, but I have to.... Basila had been my quickest getaway place for years.... one of the few places in Dhaka where you can watch a nice sunset..... whenever I got bored with hectic life, but didn't have enough time to manage on weekends, Basila was the place to go.... TTL's first photowalk was there.... that was back on 5th September 2008.... the Third Buriganga Bridge was still under construction.... lots of memories.... Gazi Bhai, Rumi Bhai and me went there too many times.... also went there regularly with others....

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

Ail Hossain is one of the handfull of boatmen still operating with their rowing boats.... he's been doing this for more than 40 years, and doesn't find any other alternative.... most of others have already changed profession

I've seen the change of life around that bridge.... the boatmen of Basila had been my subject for some time..... but with time, their numbers dwindled; so did my photography around them... the Buriganga had never presented itself as a romantic place for photography.... but thats the only place where you could see the sun going down.... with all that concrete hiding the horizon, there was no other place to go... the afternoon sun illuminating the Buriganga Bridge had always been a lovely sight... it reminded us that there still was hope if we wanted to do something....

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

the maze of pipes and bamboo pillars now dwarf the River Buriganga....


the place on the other side of the bridge at Char Washpur was a great place to do some photography.... at least, we did find some photos during the last couple of years.... there are quite a few brick-fields around that place.... they presented a gloomy backdrop for some environment-theme photography.... there were landfill projects going on over there while we did photography.... now the landfill finally caught up with us and as it seems, thats probably the end of photography for us at that place.... there would be no way to snap the Buriganga Bridge illuminated by the afternoon sun.... the landfill is now owned by some industrial unit, probably a power plant...

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

it was May Day.... but that didn't stop work on the embankment for the landfill... it probably is the site for a power plant...

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

some idle moments for the workers.....


when we reached the other side of the Buriganga, we found some embankment being constructed over there..... we snapped a few shots over there with the workers.... it was May Day, which is why there were lesser number of people working, but work certainly didn't stop.... there were marks of caterpillars everywhere, making the landscape look scarred... the landfill made the river look even smaller.... and with the sand-bearing vessels unloading their sands through long pipes, the river was hard to find.....

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

there were caterpillar marks everywhere..... a symbol of a mechanical world devouring the Nature....

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

workers at the landfill are witness to this monster.... a monster of our own creation....

From Basila & Char Washpur, May Day 2011

it was really hard to find the actual course of the river.... most of the river has dried up..... and this is the driest part of the year, aggravating the situation even more.... we were staring at a dead river....


we were evicted.... yes, we were.... all on a sudden a manager with a tough face came up and told us to leave.... he even rebuked the worker who featured in one of our shots.... we probably didn't miss a lot of photography on that day, but the very fact that we got evicted from there was a bad memory for us.... but that bad memory is not even close to the missing opportunities in the coming days.... the snaps we got there until that day would remain as memory..... these are history.... history of Basila and Char Washpur.....

how green my valley could've been........

06 August 2010
Char Washpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh

went to the other bank of the Buriganga for two weekends in a row.... this place never becomes too old for me..... and the other weekend I discovered the beauty of the lit-up bridge at dusk... had the plan to go there during the weekdays, but as like any other day-dream of mine, this one was assassinated at the door of my office.....

anyway, was able to capture some eye-catching moments of Nature that reminded me how the River Buriganga could've been if we considered it our river.... now the struggle is on to retrieve what we can.... but the damage is already done......


only if colours could tell the story.......


the chimneys jumping out of the brick-fields are the symbol of air pollution for Dhaka..... they can't possibly make a beautiful backdrop however colourful the sunset is..... and the mirror produced by the water from the River Buriganga has been in the news for all the wrong reasons...... we just wish the reality was as rosy as the sky.....

Taken at on the bank of the River Buriganga, Char Washpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh; 06 August 2010


a beautiful reminder..........


the Second Buriganga Bridge looks beautiful under the monsoon clouds, facing warm afternoon lights..... this is just a reminder what we are missing by polluting this beautiful river...... there is still time for us to bring the River Buriganga back to life......

Taken on the bank of the River Buriganga, Char Washpur, Basila, Dhaka; 31 July 2010

Just to breathe under the open skies......

Basila, Dhaka, Bangladesh
06 July 2010

just wanted to have a glance at the open skies...... got tired of seeing concretes all the time.... I still remember the day when I had to sneak a peek at that massive rainbow from my office window..... sometimes I do ask myself whether I am doing what I should be..... anyway, I was trying to look for the closest open sky available to me, Basila....

while on the way, I was thinking whether I would be missing even the sunset..... sunsets this rainy season had been fascinating for most of the days.... so, I was hoping that city traffic would allow me to be there on time.... it took me more than 40 minutes to Basila, whereas it shouldn't take more than 20...... anyway, I reached there just in time to watch those spectacular rays.....

The boatmen of Basila still look for passengers....

09 April 2010
Basila, Dhaka, Bangladesh

its been almost four months since the inauguration of the Third Buriganga Bridge.... I had been there several times during this period..... I've seen the number of boatmen getting reduced..... just as most of the farmers of this country are dependent on Nature, these boatmen also put their faith on their fate..... the bridge took quite a while to go up..... but these boatmen had little idea that they would lose their only source of income soon...... and there was none to advise them either....

now, some of these uneducated boatmen still spend time on the banks of the river with their row-boats looking for an ever dwindling number of passengers....

From Basila, 09 April 2010

still staring at that hope, which is fading away everyday.....

From Basila, 09 April 2010

waiting for those rare passengers.......

From Basila, 09 April 2010

the engine boats take a different route, which keeps their business running......

From Basila, 09 April 2010

this is life on the edge.......