It was supposed to be a symbol of our pride, the Bengal Tiger. But what is it on the southern side of the Sonargaon intersection? Is it a buffalo? Or a bear in yellow and black stripes perhaps? The cub next to it lying on the ground can never be a tiger cub. What is it then?
“It looks like a cross between a horse and a camel,” says businessman Babul Hossain, laughing at the statue.
The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) undertook the project to beautify the intersection as well as boost the spirit of the Bangladesh cricket team ahead of the 2010 South Asian Games and the 2011 ICC Cricket World Cup in Dhaka.
But the end product is unrecognisable to everyone this correspondent talked to. To many, it is simply ridiculous.
“Its back resembles a zebra’s and its front a giraffe’s. Only those stripes remind me of a tiger,” said Nazmul Islam Nirob, a passerby.
The authorities of Publicity Bangladesh, financier of the project, said there might be some flaws as they had completed the work hurriedly. “We’re planning to replace that sculpture,” Mizanur Rahman, owner of the organisation, told The Daily Star recently.
He, however, could not “remember” the name of the sculptor.
Think about the sculpture of two elephants, presumably a mother and her baby, at New Elephant Road in the capital. Strangely, like the mother elephant, the baby too has tusks (only grown-up elephants have tusks).
“It looks like a calf, and the tail of the bigger one does not look like a tail; it’s too fat. And their tusks are disproportionate,” said Rakibul Hassan Rocky, a college student.
Abdus Sattar Towfiq, a teacher at Fine Arts Institute of Dhaka University, said the sculpture did not have any touch of art. “It’s a very bad piece of work.”
Confusing too is the sculpture of horses near Ruposhi Bangla Hotel (formerly Hotel Sheraton). Two small horses are seen in this “art work” carrying six people in a chariot, with an armed guard sitting at the back of the couch.
Asaduzzaman, a DCC official, said, “Publicity Bangladesh has asked us to remove the sculptures of the tiger and the elephant.”
-With The Daily Star input
