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Dhaka Metro Review: A ‘Trippy’ Road Trip

Hoichoi’s first Bangladeshi original web series is a hallucinatory drive across the country and a wickedly funny comment on the absurdist world we inhabit

Director: Amitabh Reza Chowdhury

Cast: Neville Ferdous Hasan, Aupee Karim, Shariful Islam

Streaming on: Hoichoi

‘My feminist wife knows every little detail there is to know about the affair between Simone De Beauvoir and Jena-Paul Sartre … The Second Sex has her literally drooling. I have tried it a few times but could never make it beyond page 3 … 50 Shades is the most I can take … the extent of my knowledge limited to how many underwear I have in my closet – all branded.’

With that scintillating piece of confession, Abdul Kuddus leaves his plush Dhaka home in his station wagon and takes off on a journey, one that might offer him some sort of closure, a different perspective on life … and then again, maybe not, because there’s nothing predictable about Dhaka Metro. Over nine episodes, the series takes the viewer on a ride that employs the tropes of a road movie, yet consistently breaks the stereotypes associated with the genre. What makes it a fascinating viewing experience is the rich tapestry of characters and the incredible set pieces – often bordering on the absurdist – that the filmmakers conjure.

It begins with a young boy (Shariful Islam, the star act of the series) literally forcing himself into Kuddus’s car – a boy who admits to having many names: ‘my father calls me Jamal, my mother Tutul, my sister Tetul, some village elders address me as Salim’s son, others call me “harami”.’ He himself prefers Rahman, the ocean of compassion. A repository of philosophical insights that are as amusing, coming as they do from one so young, as they are simple yet profound, he offers just the right complement to Kuddus’s ‘life sucks’ point of view. Then there’s the woman (Aupee Karim), again multiple names – Jaba, Joygun – escaping after a hatchet job on her husband, or is it her second husband, or has she committed the gruesome killing at all?…Click here to read the full story