Bangladesh June 2008
We learn in elementary school that white light is the convergence of all the colors in a prism, and black is the absence of color. Though when mixing paint in art class, this lesson does not apply. The principle does hold true however, in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh.
Dhaka is a white city. A skyline of whitewashed concrete buildings with white mosques. That white is not an absence of color, but a convergence of all colors.
Inside the walls of the white concrete buildings built with bamboo scaffolding, you will find a whirlwind of brightly colored textiles sewn by the hands of young women in the sweatshops whose babies are taken at the door and used to beg at the traffic circles.
Colors. The things that make life real, and lovely and painful, and human.
The purple of dignity and royalty and abuse.
The red of pain and suffering and school uniforms and romance.
The yellow of sickness and celebration and curries and graduation tassels.
The green of life and health and agriculture and rickshaw covers and envy.
The blue of loyalty and water and it’s a boy and political campaign signs.
The orange of jumping in damp autumn leaves and beetle nut juice that stains the sidewalks, and women riding in rickshaws with jewel-studded shawls, and the pounding relentless heat.
I travel in black.
We drive through the streets of Dhaka in a leather-seated black SUV: Air conditioned protection from the heinous heat index, and isolation from the noise except for the tap-tap-tap on the window by the woman yelling for food with only her skin and bones and infant.
Black. The absence of the colors that make life real, and lovely and painful, and human.
No touching, and no personal questions, please. No laughter at the wrong times, and for heaven’s sake, have some diplomacy—this honesty is not welcome. Black pants and black suits and briefcases and laptops and black Mont Blanc pens. Most importantly, a neatly organized black file cabinet in which to store all items of color—out of sight, door closed—not to be removed between the hours of nine and five.
Though describing something as “black and white” is typically an indicator of clarity, there is nothing clear about being a have in the have-not black and white city of Dhaka.
May we be mechanisms of grey.
