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     Volume 6 Issue 15 | April 20, 2007 |


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Chintito

Of law and liquor (Hic!)

Chintito

The arrest last week of the smoothest talker yet to be seen on telly (no reference to any lollipop hero) goes to show how dumb and nitwitted some of our lawmakers and ministers are. Even after half the clan had been caught in flagrante delicto with stolen goods and relief materials meant for the poor, here we have the icon of law himself caught red-handed with red water and saris of all colours stamped for his destitute voters. Tch! Tch! Tch! …and this after pursuing politics with the supposed Islamic nexus, albeit of derailed values.

In defence of this heinous crime (social, moral, civil and religious) you all perhaps know what he would have said in shuddho Bangla: (read slowly, as if you were a cow chewing cud) 'We have given at least one sari to all the women in the country. If you ask them you will get the answer. Some even got two during our term. In the end, we were so successful that we actually could not find anybody else who needed a sari. The men wanted lungis. (muchki smile) I was in fact saving them for anyone who needed them in future. People are always growing up, you know. In that case, can you really charge a man for doing his duty? (Pause) We were in the process of making a list…'

Now we are no one to tell anybody that to evade an arrest they should get rid of all they have amassed illegally. In reality, we will not. But any intelligent (that is the big doubt) thief would dump every bit of evidence after they realised that the law-enforcers were hot on their trail. How does one know that? Well, one or two of your colleagues, abettors in crime, getting nabbed and jailed is one big hint.

It has happened before. An MP or a minister got caught for hoarding bundles of tin meant for distribution as relief material among the disadvantaged, or for encaging the fleet-footed deer in artificial environs. What could the other thieves and law-breakers have done? They could have thrown the tin into the river and eaten the meat, if only to show that although they were crooks they had brains and an appetite. But regrettably (not for their sake, but because they are our elected representatives), such is their IQ that many more of them got caught with more relief tin and more uneaten deer and were sent to jail via the magistrate's office.

Knowing fully well that the law (he should know best) would today or tomorrow raid his house in view of his high profile, our 16-botttle minister had two options: one, to throw the alcoholic liquids down his loo and pull the flush; and two, to gulp the damn thing down. An unconfirmed report has it that he was taking the second option seriously, but only slowly.

Two things went against our pleader-turned-leader-turned-hidder: firstly, sheer complacency, because he had been able to smooth-talk into all previous governments even though they were of opposite ideologies, and secondly, his confidence that no one knew the law more than him. Well, his party learned at the cost of its doom and the common citizens have had some glaring samples of his legal aptitude increase the age, cancel the judgement, linger the separation…

Criminologists say that a criminal will always leave behind evidence.

It was so easy to get rid of the tin sheets, but alas! To their disgrace, they did not even have the humility or the common sense to erase the government stamp that read 'relief goods'. Maybe they could not read. A defendant always gets the benefit of doubt.

It was easier possibly to sacrifice the deer and consume them especially with the impending bird flu. But, thankfully they survived the deer, we mean. Or, maybe we do not know of those that have fallen under the butcher's knife. They say those who have deer meat regularly have cheeks that glow. Chock-chock! Tosh-tosha!

It would be mouth-watering for the sinner with Muslim names to devour the haram liquids, but hic! How many pegs can one consume and under so much tension? Ironically, the drunk require peace of mind to enjoy such heady and pungent tarol padartho.

No one cares a hoot about who has how many tin sheets or bottles stashed away where, given that the perpetrators of corruption have scaled mountains made of crores of Taka and millions of dollars. Happily for us, some of them have fallen down on the other side of their own creation. What bothers us is that people with such low intelligence, high dombho and degradable esteem were making the law in this country.

Now that we are facing a crisis, every soul-searching citizen, individually and as member of an organised body or political party, should search for an end to patronising such self-seeking politicians. In that lies the future of this country that we only dreamt as beautiful.

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2007