Peace in the Midst of Chaos

Once in a while this city will give you a little break, so that you can go and find your peace among all the chaos.

To depart on that search for peace, sometimes it's just a matter of yes or no.

For now the weather is cool, there's a blessing of drizzle every day, and the streets are a bit calmer too. So I've been spending the past few days mostly at home, resting and charging myself up after a high heat and stressful week of surviving Dhaka.

Last week was just a streak of countless methods of merciless torture, from early morning office related paperwork, to the little errands, to paying off bills.

Now, it may all sound like the usual, very basic tasks, but when the temperatures are hovering around an average of 38 °C to 40 °C and above, with a real feel of 45 °C and above, then even such basic tasks become twice as hard. Of course, there's also the power outages, the average being 4 to 5 hours of no electricity a day. But this Wednesday was a bit too much, we had no electricity for 6 hours straight, and then another hour or two at night.

To me, that day was outright hell on earth, and I'm not even exaggerating.

---

---

Well, I'm glad it's all over and I'm finally getting the chance to cool down.

Yet, the weather surely is being a bit too kind and there has been no power outages either, not even for a single minute. So I believe there's some more torture waiting ahead, because this current situation is bit too good to be true.

I was planning to spend my Friday at home, no plans, no nothing, just sleep, eat and chill. But around 4PM I got a call from a close friend, he said he was heading my way for some urgent work, so he wanted me to join him afterwards.

Thus, I got ready in a jiffy, and from then and there my relaxing evening routine was "misspent", or was it?

---

---

Long story short, this fool had some issues with his phone so he brought it back to the vendor to inquire and identify the issue, and since he isn't too "technically knowledgeable", he wanted me to tag along.

After we were done with the technical stuff, it was time for some food.

The clock was closing in towards 6PM and we didn't even have lunch yet. So we headed towards the closest option available, which was Burger King. Now, a burger wouldn't really satiate our spicy South East Asian taste buds and appetite, so we went with their rice meal combo.

And on that day, I was the first one to know that my friend had secured a "permanent" position for Assistant Chef at one of the finest 5 Star Hotels in the city.

It didn't come easy, I saw it all myself. It took a lot of work, learning, and a year long internship at this hotel. After a lot of grinding and sleepless nights, he finally secured this position. I must say he deserves this position, because he's not just here for the fancy benefits, he really loves this line of work and is a natural.

After 30 minutes of chow-down and chit chat, he said that he would be heading towards Gulshan DCC market from there, and asked if I'd like to join him. I was tired at that point, I wanted to relax, and my house was close by too.

So, right then and there 50% of my mind and body was saying no, while the other half really was interested.

---

ᴵᵐᵃᵍᵉˢ ᵃⁿᵈ ᵒᵛᵉʳᵃˡˡ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵉⁿᵗ ᵃʳᵉ ᵐʸ ᵒʷⁿ ᵘⁿˡᵉˢˢ ᶦᵗ'ˢ ᵐᵉⁿᵗᶦᵒⁿᵉᵈ

---

In the end my adventurous side won, and we were off.

I haven't visited this part of the city for a while now, whereas just a few years ago I used to come here every day. I spent my high school years over here too, because our senior campus was in this exact area. I guess that's really why I ended up saying yes, I really wanted to check up on this area.

The roads were fairly free as well, which is quite rare for this part of town. So, why waste such an opportunity?

After a short rickshaw ride we came to a stop, the street ahead was clogged up. So we decided to walk, and as we kept walking we found this guy, the bhel-puri-man. Every area has at least one haha.

Bhel puri is one of the classic food items that falls under the Dangerously Good category.

Why dangerously good? Dangerous because for some it's just too much masala and spice to digest, and good because it's just that damn good. Duh!

I myself have never had any issues, because I believe there's a little black hole somewhere in my stomach. Which is why those spicy 2x/3x Korean ramens and naga chilis were never much of threat to me.

Some people don't know how I do it, but I just can. And from the many people I know, there's only one guy who could go head to head with me when it came to eating really spicy food.

Alas, for many years that little m*therfucker is nowhere to be found, I know that he's alive and well, but he is now busy and occupied with life. Back in our school days he was the one beside me on these streets, we were just two teenage vagabonds treading through this city every day after school lol. Any type of street food or restaurant, if they served spicy food, then we were hooked. We left no challenge untouched.

This little "journey" reminded me of those days, when I was quite adventurous. Back then I'd explore the city a lot, sometimes alone ad sometimes with my buddies. It was a time when there was a fair bit of peace, and surely not as much chaos in the world around me.

A time when there was chaos on my mind, but my peace in my soul...

---

---

---