Dhaka basked resplendent under a blue sky as I emerged from the cavernous Zia International Airport. As a hardened Dilliwalah, I was preparing to fend off taxi drivers lunging for my bags but the entire vista was completely taxi-free. Even the CNGs, Dhaka's three-wheelers, had been forced into a three-day holiday.
Eventually a van from one of the accredited official hotels took pity on me, and soon I was sailing down what felt like a California freeway. There were still no people as we entered into Dhaka – only a blur of grassy verge, fresh paint, sets of seven freshly stitched flags, shuttered shops, and sharpshooters positioned on rooftops. We reached the media centre at the Sonargaon Hotel in record time, to be held virtually captive there for three days. The main roads remained closed much of the time to facilitate the 'movement' of the many VIPs who came to attend the thirteenth SAARC Summit. As an Indian, I could hardly complain – hadn't we cited the security situation as a reason for postponing the summit back in February?
Banners everywhere announced the Decade of Implementation – meaning, of course, the decade to come, which says a lot about the two decades already past. Offerings at the documents desk were pretty meagre, and there were no briefings from either the host government or the SAARC Secretariat. All of the action was apparently at the Sheraton Hotel, where the delegates were staying, but the young woman who gave me my ID card told me I would need a separate One Time Pass (OTP) card to get in there.
I got hold of the 14-page official programme, which was a nearly minute-by-minute logistical guide to all of the 'movements,' the sort of thing WTO agitators would have paid an arm and a leg for. The programme sheet was also a manual on the various protocols to be observed by and towards the "HoS/HoGs" – the heads of state and government, with valuable nuggets like the one asking that "the Hon'ble Prime Minister of Pakistan will kindly come in front of the leaders table for handing over the award…"