| LETTERS | BRIEFLY SLATED | NOISE |

THE MONTHLY MAGAZINE FROM NEW AGE

January, 2007 @newagebd.com Main Page « Front Page « Metro « Business « International « Sports « National « Editorial « Op-Ed « Home « Timeout « Letters «

SOMEWHERE IN ENGLAND Clickety click Richard J Murphy I travelled to Mymensingh. Jasmin was taking her Open University exams in her home town; I went along to give support. In the course of my business, I use the roads a great deal, and it seemed to me to be a good idea to take the train. Big mistake.        Airport station, Jasmin and me    Off to Mymensinge, Friday’s free.    Let’s take the train, was my plea    Better than buses, very quick!    Hmm, Bad idea, as you’ll see.    Clickety click        Ever since I’ve been coming to Bangladesh, I’ve admired the guys sat or stood on top of buses and trains, flying like birds. At my advanced age, I’ve had notions of fixing an armchair to the roof of a carriage, and avoiding the need to stand all the way to Chittagong.        You seen those guys, on top of the vans,    Standing like birds, waving their hands?    I wanted to do it, but Jasmin said    “No, inside we’ll go, with me you’ll stick!    Outside like that, you’d lose your head!”    Clickety clickety clickety click.        I travel in Bangladesh a great deal, but always to the fleshpots, and on business. There’s little time to savour the joys of normal life, so this was to be a much anticipated pleasure. The company of Jasmin was one, the chance to sample the delights of Bangladesh railway travel another. I must say I was something of an oddity at the station, and a great diversion for the locals. Firstly because I as travelling with a Bangladeshi lady, and secondly because I was, well, different.        Train drew up, amidst the throng.    Pushing and shoving, didn’t take long.    Whistle blew, off we went    First stop Tongi, around the bend    Round the bend, across the bridge,    This train ain’t clean,    Clickety click        Cockroaches are man’s oldest friends. They’ve been around for, well, ever. That’s because they’re smart, and quick and have no special preferences for food, they eat anything. They’re the biggest customers of Bangladesh Railways, in fact I think they were left behind by the departing British, many generations of cockroaches ago. Maybe Mountbatten gave the rail system to them, as a farewell gift.        Gazipur, Gazipur,    Went straight through,    Didn’t stop, but the whistle blew.    Picking up speed, a fine old lick,    clickety clickety clickety click        In the west, trains don’t clickety click any more. We have welded rails, with no joints. I remember going to London with my grandmother many years ago by train. Clickety click was part of my life. Clickety click. Did you ever have a British Rail breakfast? Historic, and full of things you guys can’t eat. Their dinners aren’t bad either, usually with a good wine selection. In England I like to travel by rail, and dine whilst watching the hoi polloi. From Dhaka to Mymensingh we had first class seats, not far from the restaurant car.        Clickety clickety clickety click,    Restaurant car, gateway to hell,    dirt and grime, grease and smell.    Don’t eat the food, you won’t be well!    This train’s express, just the trick.    Cockroaches jumpin’    Clickety click        I was selfish. Most men are; it’s our birthright. It was my idea to go by    train. Jasmin just humoured me. She was worried also about my ability to stand the rigours of a Bangladeshi train ride. Basically we’re all just boys, we never grow up. Great isn’t it?        Jasmin’s anxious, afraid I’ll die,    “Hey this is great,” I reply.    She’s not happy, prefers the bus.    Typical woman, too much fuss.    I wonder if together we’ll stick?    Who knows, who knows?    The whistle blows.    Clickety clickety clickety click.        One of the great things about the subcontinent for us ghoras is the names of places. Chittagong, Trincomalee, Kathmandu, and so on. But Gaffergaw? Where did that come from?        Gaffergaw, Gaffergaw,    Why this name?    I catch a cockroach,    That’s the end of his game.    Clickety click!    Whistle blows, loud and thick,    Next stop Mymensinghe,    Clickety clickety clickety click.        All good things come to an end. It had been more than four hours, an epic journey. I’d made friends, had a cup of very dubious cha, killed a cockroach and missed many more, talked to the resident policeman (why was he there?) and snuggled up to Jasmin. A good trip.        Here we are, at Mymensinghe.    No lights to greet us, load shedding.    Step over bodies, in the dark,    Over the bridge, to the rickshaw park.    Our journey’s over, train whistle blows.    But not for us, to other places it goes.    So Jasmin asked me, “please tell me quick,    how shall we get back? Be nice to us,”    Darling Richard, let’s take the bus.    Go back by train? Don’t make me sick!”    Clickety clickety clickety click. GREY MATTER The rise of the busicians Tanim Ahmed The business of politics has blossomed in Bangladesh as a rewarding and prosperous vocation, with its practitioners finally realising that the exercise of statecraft is entirely about the profitable enterprise. Politics only happens to be the immediate vehicle to that most lucrative of commercial endeavours—a parliament membership. The only impediment, that too an entirely psychological one, that politics is supposed to improve the lives of the masses has been summarily been done away with, thanks to the efforts of successive governments. They have ably demonstrated that the state exists solely to necessitate a parliament, which in turn exists only to bring about a measure of discipline in wealth accumulation by its members. So they are made to take turns in what sections of the civil society naïvely term as ‘plundering’ and ‘exploitation’. To the saner, and decidedly the more rational quarters, it is merely maximisation of profits and efficient allocation of resources.    There is of course the matter of winning the elections. But such trivial and unpredictable parameters as popularity, commitment or electoral pledges that used to have currency, have also been successfully done away with. Participation in elections has become a capital intensive exercise and for all the right reasons too.    The evolved hybrid species of politicians and businessmen, the busicians must secure their nomination satisfying the right quarters within political parties. Then they must also engage the services of facilitators to encourage voters and election officials through vigorous campaigns. This noble group of people playing the crucial role of catalysts furthering democracy are termed as ‘musclemen’ by the same irrational sections of the civil society.    Democracy is an inclusive process. There is no reason to leave out war criminals, religious bigots, depraved socialists, evolved capitalists, former despots or clown princes. But such times, as is the present one, are fraught with much tension and there is apparently a need to level the playing field between the time that an incumbent resigns from office and another assumes it. In comes the caretaker government.    Although the exercise is completely a cosmetic one, caretaker regimes have been blemished with much openness as key office bearers unreasonably felt they were accountable to the public much more than they actually were. This year however, with the appointment of a refreshingly radical group people, completely without the disturbing presence of spines and possessing none of the debilitating qualities such as self-esteem or integrity, the offices of the president, chief adviser and chief election commissioner, the upcoming elections may be expected to be the true transition from one parliament of busicians to the next.    This year, like most other years, there are two main parties pitted against one another with their respective alliances. Since the Awami League has not had much of an opportunity to prove their business expertise, they have put together a varied alliance catering to all the niche markets. Although, it had rightly chosen to concentrate its efforts of wealth accumulation in the real estate sector, mostly by acquiring apartments, buildings and land, the general public had not taken it well. It tried its best to present an alternative model to the age-old obscurantist subsistence farming in the form of individual and small scale enterprise of aggressive wealth acquisition. But the pesky civil society groups kept up their propaganda to taint their image claiming that ‘mugging’ and ‘murder’ had increased. No one bothered to point out that it was survival of the fittest in a dog eat dog world and that the Awami League was only trying to make that plain.    Learning from the Awami League’s debacle in the elections of 2001, the next government led by the BNP-led alliance presented a much more organised form of enterprise. Instead of hostile takeovers the busicians concentrated on utilising their good offices in complete faith and secured profits by merely facilitating other enterprises. It was a much more inclusive process. Rather unlike the previous government of Awami League, the BNP-led government created a compulsion to engage in such enterprises by facilitating and actively participating in syndicates that made living more expensive. It was only trying to demonstrate that the traditional, and quite naturally the more inefficient, vocations were unworthy for a respectable standard of living. Whoever said public enterprise was out of fashion?    It is perhaps for the first time that the public would be at a quandary over who to vote for. On one side there is the BNP and Jamaat-e-Islami alliance, catering to all sections sympathetic to the plight of war criminals and their organised enterprise. On the other hand there is the Awami League with its leftist allies along with the Jatiya Party, catering to those interested in the small and medium enterprise. But lest they may be perceived as Godless, the AL-led alliance also pledges to uphold the supremacy of man over his fairer counterpart upholding rule of Sharia’h and the authority of fatwa.    Now only if the civil society kept its silly mouth shut and let the people decide for themselves, everyone could go about their business and live in peace.