Dreams destroyed, people reduced to numbers

The Orwellian dystopia is being staged in the capital of Bangladesh with ruthless intensity and much too often. Human beings have been reduced to mere numbers and turned lives as insignificant as they can be. At a time when the inhabitants of the city are still struggling to overcome the shock from the loss of 70 lives and burn wounds to a few scores more in the Churihatta inferno, they became a witness to yet another devastating fire at Banani's FR Tower. This time the blaze claimed 25 lives, of which the majority's bodies were charred. The 100 or so people who survived the bellowing fire in the 22-storey high-rise sustained different degrees of burn and fatality among them cannot be ruled out.

Quoting the Wikipedia, this paper now reports that Bangladesh tops the list of casualties in major structure fires meaning accidental building or high-rise fires -- no matter if residential or commercial. The Thursday's fire has its correspondence to the Kawran Bazar's TK Bhaban with both skyscrapers housing private offices. Now that the fire in the building located in a posh area has taken so many lives, there are complaints galore -- ranging from illegal extension to no provision for emergency exit -- against it. Why no one cared to look into it before is likely to remain unanswered.

When irregularities in design, construction and post-construction manipulation render a building of this order more like a death trap during an exigency in a select area of the city, inhabitants of this megalopolis cannot but be scared. Commercial consideration is fine but only as long as it does not compromise on the safety issues. On that count, the avarice and callousness of those responsible for preparing unsafe office or family accommodations are the cause of such tragedies. In short the disasters of Nimtoli, Tazreen Fashion, Churihatta of Chawkbazar and the latest at Banani are man-made and mostly avoidable. These are killings, maybe, only by default.

When people die en masse in such man-made disasters and with increasing frequencies, the message that gets across is highly pessimistic. It kills the positive vibe in people. They tend to be fatalistic and consider themselves a plaything in the hands of some unavoidably mysterious forces. Pessimism and hopelessness get the better of positive thoughts and follow-up actions. That is the indirect loss.

The direct loss is more telling particularly for those who see their near and dear ones perish helplessly in the most painful situation imaginable. An intimate knowledge of the brief history of the common mortals is good enough to drive one crazy and insane. When a young bachelor and an unmarried girl serving in a travel agency fall in love, marry and then save together to move to their own flat, the dream unfolds in many colours. One such couple was only three months away from moving to the flat they bought with their joint savings but the Thursday's fire destroyed their dream. Another young woman expecting her first baby sent poignant text messages to all her loved ones before being consumed by the fire.

Many such dreams were shattered on that day. Anguish assails souls of those left behind. For the rest of their life, members of families of those who have perished in the many infernos in the city will fail to come to term with their lives. Those who experienced the tragedy first hand will also be haunted by the grisly sight, the terror-stricken faces of those appealing for help and others jumping out of the window.

What is missing is an intense feeling for human life. The 'me' and 'other' consideration has destroyed humanism so much that now people have become accustomed to reducing human lives into mere numbers and nothing more. Insane acquisition of wealth has turned human hearts into stones. People must come out of this morbid mentality of wealth rush or this civilisation will only dig its own grave -- sooner than later.