Illustration: Ashif Ahmed Rudro; Photo: Firoz Ahmed and “Designed by Freepik”

Old Dhaka's Gandaria is a locality everyone knows about, but it is hard to imagine nowadays that it once used to be a hub for sugarcane cultivation!

The hint of this past is in its very name — "gandari" means sugarcane, and it is widely believed that the etymology is based on all the sugarcane cultivation that took place there.

Azimusshan Haider, in his book, 'Dacca: History and Romance in Place Names,' also agreed with this theory, further stating that it was around 1885 that the place started to develop into a residential area.

Having said that, another theory is that the name Gandaria is a merger of "grand area."