March 2012
a historical postage stamp of green
On my first trip to Bangladesh, I toured around Dhaka both with bestie AH and also with his crazy, "friend of a friend" Faruq who seemed to render even the most straightforward of experiences utterly confusing. I met Faruq in Cox's Bazar because AH had to get back to Dhaka to work and he didn't want me there on my own (probably a good idea). Faruq stepped in and was my guide in Cox's Bazar which turned out to be a very strange set of events. I flew back to Dhaka and Faruq took the bus. We later met one more time and he and I stopped by the locally famous Ahsan Monzil Palace in Old Dhaka.
Ahsan Manzil is one of the most significant architectural monuments of Bangladesh. The building structure was established on a raised platform of 1 meter, the two-storied palace measures 125.4m by 28.75m. The height of the ground floor is 5 meters and the height of the first floor is 5.8 meters. The thickness of the walls of the palace is about 0.78 meters. There are porticos of 5 meters height on the northern and southern sides of the palace. The building has a broad front-facing the Buriganga River. On the river side, an open spacious stairway leads right up to the second portal and on their stands the grand triple- arched portals. There was once a fountain in the garden in front of the stairs which does not exist today. All along the north and the south side of the building run spacious verandahs with an open terrace projected in the middle.
(Wikipedia)
The backstory on Ahsan Monzil is so convoluted. The land originally held a summer residence of a local prince along the then uncrowded Buriganga River. The land was later purchased by the French who were granted tax exempt status and became wealthy under the Mogul Emperor Aurangzeb. Enter the British and the French left for awhile only to reclaim their property later. Finally, they left and the building served multiple purposes under the British. Upon Bangladesh independence from Britain, and after that from Pakistan, the place fell into a state of disrepair and became a huge palace/slum. Finally, the government took it over as a heritage site and redeveloped it into a museum.
The palace grounds have held a variety of buildings, but what stands now is the expanded British restoration of the the SECOND French building on the site. "Restoration" because in 1888 a huge tornado (!!) hit Dhaka and heavily damaged the second French iteration of the building. The architecture is not particularly amazing compared to other colonial relics in Bangladesh, but in the "not a square inch to spare" confines of Old Dhaka, the palace and its grounds are something of an oasis. Old Dhaka is absolutely claustrophobic, so upon entering the Ahsan Monzil gardens, the gate surprisingly opens onto a pocket urban greenspace. Needless to say, the palace and grounds are extremely popular with the locals and are a popular spot for young couples to meet and take photos.
As with my visit to Chandrima Udyan [see: Chandrima Udyan] across from the Bangladesh Parliament, fellow visitors to the palace and park were very curious about me and asked Faruq a myriad of questions. I felt far less confident that Faruq was giving as acceptable of answers as AH had. Nevertheless, people were quite kind and my memory of the place is pleasant. For some reason, we didn't go inside - perhaps the museum was closed or maybe I was simply in another confused state with Faruq guiding me around, never sure what was going on.
Dhaka is an intense place with horrendous traffic that has only gotten worse since my first visit. Places like Chandrima Udyan and Ahsan Monzil are important so that people have some escape from the crowds and pressures of city life. Most unfortunately for Dhaka, there is not much open space left to create green spaces in the city and most new parks are being created on the city periphery. Chandrima Udyan has been closed down for political reasons. It puts even more pressure on little Ahsan Monzil to give a space to breathe for the millions of residents of Dhaka.