People seem happy for now: responsible people are in charge and for the time being they don’t seem to mind that their civil rights are being trampled on, left, right and center. Everyone, from the former politicians to the lowly street hawkers have been squeezed by the law in some way as the caretaker government, now floating in constitutional limbo, has made it its mandate to clean up the bureaucracy and the country before holding an election.

At the top end of the spectrum, they’ve reined in those who profited disgustingly at the expense of their own countrymen and jailed several prominent people, including former government ministers. At the bottom end, the government moved to destroy all illegal housing (ie, slums along waterways or business areas) and businesses, destroying the livelihoods of many at the same time often with very little warning as well.

I don’t know why the added suffering on the poorest is required exactly, other than the fact that the government here wants to send a clear message: they are in charge now and all those who break the law will be punished. In Bangladesh, the gavel of the law often takes the form of a sledgehammer on the street. “Justice” is delivered quickly and arbitrarily—notions like lawful arrest or due procedure are hard to find here. It is all part of Bangladesh’s rough edge: the society’s riches and failures are on display for all to see.

I’m back in Canada because of some family matters, and needless to say, the that everything I’ve read about “reverse culture shock” seems to ring true. Now, I don’t know if I can believe in the gross terms used to divide my parallel homes: “developed” Canada, “poverty-stricken” Bangladesh seem like clumsy, blunt ways to describe the richness of my experience.

No, I’m in a Toronto coffee shop around the corner from my grandparent’s place, and it’s a glorious Canadian morning: cold and sharp, but refreshing and crisp. If I close my eyes and imagine my flat in Dhaka, the words dusty and raw come to mind, all sound-tracked to the constant buzz of traffic and horns. Instead of having an incredibly loud mosque speaker 30 feet away from my window, where as my grandparents’ windows look on to a humble Catholic cathedral, which was only really busy yesterday, last Sunday. It seems weird to remember that religion takes a back seat to profiteering here, the most obvious thing I can see looking up at downtown Toronto.

I’ll be back in Bangladesh in early March. What will have changed in three weeks there will be more than what has changed in a lifetime in Canada.