“I'd die of loneliness,” sighed my Bangla teacher as she surveyed my one bedroom rooftop flat in Mohammadpur - an area located far south of Dhaka's expat hotpot of Gulshan. There followed an awkward silence: I was overjoyed by the very surroundings that so repelled her, but feared she'd write me off as an eccentric if I listed the benefits - chiefly, solitude.