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"OOH …What does this button do?"

Shayera Moula

Remember that very first episode of Dexter's Laboratory when Dee Dee and Dexter transformed each other into all kinds of animals using a remote control like device created by Dexter? It all started when she asked “OOhhh what does this button do?”

Now sometimes, and by sometimes I mean when one becomes too sure of what their toe nails really look like stretched out just like their free time, one tends to switch channels from Bollywood Buzz to desher shironam (national news) and see exactly why they are at home to start off with. Now if you are a wannabe Dexter (like most of our politics-enthusiasts) you probably can't be more proud of your apparent power over your creation otherwise known as Bangladesh! Amazed at how energetic these other people are at supporting your loving party and bashing their opponents, you dream of owning four more cell phones to press more buttons and call in a meeting where you can easily talk nonsense! If you are on the losing end of the political fight, then it suddenly hits you that politics to these people are like a piñata attack and everyone in the other party is a paper donkey.

If you are a duck brain like Dee Dee, you continue to switch channels at the rate of a speeding bullet. You ask yourself unconsciously “what does this button do?” Okay, yes it goes to the next channel but what will be at the next channel? Oh how you wish it were another old time favorite movie, songs, drama series, talk shows but then it's nothing on your list, so you press again. Don't you just love controlling whatever you desire? Don't you just love how the click of a button changes the tragic beating of poor people into a music video with a lot of skin on? It's not your fault; it just feels nicer to watch something that doesn't make you feel guilty. Yet when you find nothing interesting, with a sigh you go back to looking at the broken end of that careless toe.

Isn't it ironic that while for a mere few meals, for some cash that will last perhaps a few days, some of these so labeled “uncultured” and “uneducated” people are actually risking their lives. Note: this is not the first time this is happening. Yet all the rest of us can do is either watch and smile or not watch at all. Face the truth; some of us were actually becoming prone to the ever-lasting holidays! Perhaps without the channels, we wouldn't know what's happening but then it wouldn't be so bad - not to know and take no action. However to know the chaotic violence of the nation and sit and wait…wait…and wait a little longer until we are individually the victims of the problem, I don't think we have any issues at all.

No, I don't care about the decisions of those making promises more thunderous than any loudspeakers. I don't care about those businesses that are crashing pit bottom and their concerned owners sitting in their BMW. I don't even care about the students that are complaining because they are behind schedule for a few weeks to a few months. I care only for those people who will mean nothing to the nation once the election is over. I care for those children that are running with powerful speeches written in white over their bodies only to know that at the end of the day, we will all continue in a lot more safer ground whereas they will go back to the streets.

In fact the way I see it, after all this is over, we will be more concerned about taking bigger bribes and they will learn how to steal even bigger objects. We will keep moaning about the welfare of the nation and they will wait for another opportunity to have some money in return of meaningless beatings. We will keep switching channels to find images we like and they will risk their lives in return of some decent meals. No? Please correct me if I am wrong.

(Student of BRAC University)