today?
Today hurts.
The Indian ‘Stopache’, over abused ‘Panadol’,the markini ‘Tylenol’ have all give up.
They don’t work in lands which play language games.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
the barometer of the bad
A very dear friend had suggested the other day that the jail areas may not be able to accommodate the number of criminals being arrested everyday. She suggested that only the Baridhara, Gulshan and Banani areas, if sealed off, would help towards this noble cause. Her recommendation was to cut off all kinds of supply chain to those areas and when asked how these people would survive this isolation, she had a sly smile on her face. She said: “Why? We would give them bananas every day and would give preference to the children and women during the distribution.” This amused me as soon as we both realized that she herself was a resident of Gulshan, while I was a Banan-ite. On top of that, we both had commercial name tags to our own selves.
The business community today…is shaken up. Almost all the finance advisors of all medium to large corporate entities are busy round the clock, looking to seal loopholes, re examining their internal audits and re justifying the source of income. Let’s assume to begin with that they are all guilty. Business when directed at profit shall always be guilty. In a country where we have hungry hands thrust at us through the windows of the cars that we ride in, we are all grabbers. No amount of once a year Zakat justifies what we do. We work, earn, put up more industrial units, buy up lands, pay the workers and still move on to the next level. The level is not one of altruism. The level is one of self promotion and survival. In a land where the nearest slum is only seconds away from our homes of comfort, we cannot free ourselves of our conscience that rocks us everyday and reminds us, rather harshly that we should have done better and that we should have done a lot more than what we have. With the print media being at its best pace currently, all of us are looking at multiple newspapers, trying to figure out who’s who and who’s next in the list. We also say a silent prayer when we see the nearest and dearest ones of those who hammered the business community the most are now being taken to task by the joint forces. While we were often faced with accusations of unethical trading and while rules were being set up to teach us ‘fair’ lessons, there were other people who were making the most of the administration, gobbling up lands, demanding “cuts” from every deal…be it food, art, construction, transport, manufacturing, packaging or whatever. These people made God look like an absentee landlord. They had taken over our lives with lies. Simulating democracy had almost become next to their nature.
I recall having traveled with an ex-minister’s son once who was clearly upset with Thai International making us board at the last gate in
Bangkok. He was violent with his words; he swore to teach Thai a lesson. That could have been an empty threat, but I know for sure that given half an opportunity, he would do it. There was another time when two social friends had fought bitterly over their AL/BNP affiliation and the latter had actually informed the ministry of Home and had arranged to have his opposing socialite harassed at the immigration counter. As I write this piece, I recall a very recent dinner where an ex minister’s offspring was still heard contemplating buying a car worth a crore. A crore?
Where would the money come from? Well, perhaps I should be gently reminding my rusty memory cells of the infinite number of times I have heard the child brag of the father’s clout. Money was no issue for the ruling elites and nuisance ran its own course with the opposition. The business community would only assume the position of negotiators and donors during pre-election period. Yet there was a higher-than-thou attitude of the politicians that never left the course. Generalizing is a vice. Professor Yunus has suffered the pangs of it. Therefore, yours truly should not risk it as well. But what is largely true is that our politicians royally raped us, our resources and have taken us all on a long ride. For those of us who have had friends in high positions, we have survived. Those of us who weren’t qualified to boast of such elevated association suffered during those wild times. There were ministers who had their families travel like royalties with them. State visits would mean their royal wives and children enriching the entourage. The wives would shop and ship the stuff back home with no regrets. Once, while returning from Hajj, I noticed the entire luggage belt having 134 pieces bearing the same name tag. The cartons were almost the same size, clearly indicative of their content. They were freezers, televisions, video recorders, etc. I quickly wondered whether the royal low-nesses had bought all of them from Mecca to last their families a couple of lifetimes. Whoever cared for mortality? After all, Mecca meant a dose of immortality or at times, even immunity from Crime. Strangely enough, I just heard the story of a high profile convict in jail praying till early hours in the morning, and taking his “tahajjud” prayers very seriously. Apparently he keeps his inmate awake the entire night as well telling him how important it was to “call” Allah at this hour of dire need. His inmate, almost undecided about his faith has a hard time keeping up with him. He has never prayed in his life. Therefore, while his believer friend’s nights are spent on meditations and zikr his, mornings are spent sleeping, the non believer misses out on his share of sleep altogether as he cannot sleep through the mornings. Not his style at all.
Watched a program on television a few days back where there were two women badgering an entrepreneur on inadequate minimum wage ceiling. A jump from Taka 930 to a current 1600+ was not enough, they complained. I couldn’t agree more with them. True, the garments community should have done better with their assessment and decision and perhaps while negotiating with the salaries of the workers, the negotiators could have done a little better with their hearts, but that particular debate paled in comparison when the next news item came in. The news was not about the labor uprising in last May; it was not even about the building that collapsed and killed 20 workers. The news was about our leaders who have led us for so long, and whose crimes have surfaced one by one putting the other ones to shame. Consider Shylock wearing the darkest shade of grey. Should the Jew’s persecution also be taken into account?
Today, Bangladesh has chosen her track to tread on. The administration rests in the hands of very capable group. The alliance of bureaucracy and the military is appreciated. But let it also be known that there have been consistent rise in the barometers of trade and human indicators. The people, the entrepreneurs, the civil society have all made substantial progress towards a better horizon.
Though Dhaka looks simpler now with the absence of rich looking, well fed vehicles, I cannot side with the frantic RAB search in the neighborhood for a Hummer parked in the common parking lot of a luxury apartment that drove the residents to the brink of insanity. “Does your guest drive a Hummer?” was a question that echoed through out the apartment buildings. The threat of a panoptican gaze, after all, may not be very healthy for an aspiring democracy.
Saturday, March 17, 2007
taking off, are we?
i’d like to believe that we are making progress. we all would like to think so. the hartals have ceased. the massive unrests have been cut down. the gdp may not be doing all that well, but atleast major scams in the power sector, real estate, banking, trade have been unearthed.
who has initiated the process, or who’s carrying it through does not seem to be that important anymore.we aren’t asking questions. we aren’t supposed to. under emergency, one can’t. i often forget that,though. while helping a member of the family to jot suggestions down for the caretaker government, i thought i’d add to the list : the referendum requirement of the mass to validate/invalidate the caretakers and Rapid Action Batallion. the height of my naivete did not stop there. i thought i’d also hint at a ‘help desk’ which would answer all the calls from all the distressed callers who may be harassed by ‘mistake’ by the Joint forces. i must have been stark crazy or i must have been hallucinating about my roots. ofcourse.. there couldn’t be any wrong doings by the forces. how could there be? how can reports coming in from Sylhet about the joint forces abusing their powers be true? no way, jose. the country was running at a perfect pace, cleaning clots and breeding transparency. in the process if some of us were hiding our beamers and hummers in the garage, it was okay, wasn’t it? after all, we had bought them with their money, didn’t we? and…after all , they are our caretaking fathers who have taken it on their shoulders to make us go through the khaki method of unlearning and re learning what we have learnt for so long?
with one begum down and another leaving town after her parting words which blessed the current administration, where do we stand today? where are those conniving, hungry hundreds who had soared to the top and had mucked the stairs up with their own filth? where are we do?
well, exactly where we were, with a slight change ofcourse: speechless, stunned, and unfree.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
nistabdha, thunderstruck by nishabd…
Watched ‘Nishabd’. I shuddered in disgust. My excitement about going into the movie theatre was all about having the single (hey it’s only singleJ) scoop of 96% fat free butterscotch. Well, added to that was the fact the big B was portrayed as a 60 year old man in love with an 18 year old, Jia(could be completely mistaken about the spelling) Khan. Was it an encore of Lolita that I was expecting on screen? All I know is that I thanked the
American School for having taught our kids not to be touched by anyone. Tanisha shies away every time someone tries to kiss her or even hug her. I will certainly never correct her ever again.
The movie has B’s daughter’s friend trying to seduce him and finally succeeding at that.
The family is shattered. The man gives her up at the end. But neither sanity nor health returns to the family. And the girl too, ends up hugging the young man, Krishna, so in love her with his sensual Radha. Great for the Hindi wet scenes done with the help of hose pipes in the lawn, promising the gardener a long holiday as she had done watered the lawn well enough to last for the next sexless hundred years for the big B.
Know what? B wasn’t even salivating.
to the best woman in my world: on the intl women’s day
I am sitting in a room full of women who are searching their mommies at a wrong time. Mums are mum till we are 25. After that they become life threatening robots who attempt to take over our kids, our home, our kitchen and frame a network of anti sons-out-law-ers and start maintaining scrap books of failed evenings, overlooked gestures and disaster prone relationships of their offsprings. They are the first ones to offer a better place when their daughters wage wars at their own homes. They are also the first ones to rush to their sons-in-law and attempt a truce. What are mothers? Who the hell are they?While we are doing one of our ‘don’t-have-time-todays’ on them, they are relentlessly making halwas, parcelling them to our homes, paying no attention to our oversized bodies that can almost afford our own zipcode.But they also slip away too quickly for comfort. There’s never a right time to lose a mum.My one tricked me, puzzled me, and passed through the arch 2 years, 5 months and 10 days back. My life with her had lasted for about a couple of lifetimes as she was the one who could juggle between identities, and swiftly fit any mould that she had to, as and when required by me. She was a ma in a rickshaw chasing her daughter around all over the circle of Viquarunnisa; she was a mum in a car passionately protective about her teenager in the vicinity of Holy Cross College ; she was a mamoni who was insanely jealous about any other angels doing well apart from her own; she was a mumbaby when it came to her daugther’s friends. In no time, she would be the first one to know all their secrets; in no time would she win hearts over, like a hyper smooth operator. There we were…forty hearts in total saying goodbye to her. Ranga mami to some, Ranga chachi to others, Phupu to many, Bhabi to hundreds, Amma to a couple of thousands, she was one woman who once fought with a hijacker and refused to let go of a gold chain that I had bought her with my first tution money. She wouldn’t let go of any part of me, ever. I knew that well enough. She was as bad as I am today. I too haven’t let her go. I continue referring to her in the present continuous tense as I do feel that all that happened on the 27th of Oct was merely a crossing. She simply crossed the arch and stepped into a new vista. I was simply lacking sight and couldn’t see beyond the respirator shut down. In a coma for over almost 22 days, she completed the cycle of shutting organs down one by one, phase by phase and hour by hour. I watched and held on to Sura Yasin. It was recited 80 times, doubly fulfilling the mullah’s requirement. The CCU had turned out to be farewell party and we had all sung our strings of au revoir in different scales. Some in B sharp, some in C minor. But all were nevertheless celebrating that 74 year old woman whose brain cells bragged of instant alarms set to go off on birthdays and special events,celebrating that woman who had never missed an opportunity to feed the guests at the cost of sacrificing our main course,our chicken curry being whisked off from the dining table to be added to her fried luchis and being served to a total stranger who would possibly not see her in the next one year or so. But I was wrong. All remembered her. That she suffered a stroke is history to all as she disallowed pity in her life, and she had made ample space for occasions in her life She’s still missed most on birthdays and anniversaries as she would always make the first call… On one of my birthdays,I found fresh dolonchapas placed right outside my bedroom door . Those were from her, I was instantly told. By the end of the evening she found out that all, except my shashuri ammajan, my mother in law had wished me. She almost marathoned to victory at that point. I was called and told: Ki Bhabey uni tomar birthday bhuley jan? How can she forget YOUR birthday? Tumi ato koro onader jonno…you do so much for them?? I sensed Kiyamat that minute as I saw the accused, my mother in law, standing right opposite where we were and pleading defence with sufficient traces of hurt. The warring sides resumed their cases with full vigour while I, the center of difference gaped in awe and hapless helplessness. I called the contractors in and asked them to erect a fresh wall between two of their interconnected apartments.I had done my duty. I had punished them both…only to witness both the parties howling their lives away, telling me, in less than 72 hours, that the separation was intolerable and could even lead to further strokes! Needless to say I broke the wall down within hours and both ‘kutnis’, the conniving duo had learnt their lessons. Friends they remained for the rest of their days on earth.Her room today has become the walk in closet for a member of the family; all her saris, but one, have been given away; her photographs have been carefully stored at a distance .But little do they know that while she has gone to the room next door, I wait my turn to join her spirit. A constant interplay of her memories and my survival help me tolerate the loss of her flesh. Hadia, my precious one, has never been out of my senses, even for a nano second and neither.. I bet, have I been out of hers.
