::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Chintito

‘Past is the only thing that you can no longer change’

Chintito

Memories you want to have in the future, you must create now, so said a sane anonymous.

That is what Matin, Mainul & company did not realise when they were manning the longest caretaker government in history. They created the wrong record for them and the jimmi nation.

Even trying to change during the din badaler pala, one must remember that 'past is the only thing that you can no longer change'. So, one should create one's positive future now.

One may recall their side-of-the-face laughter, read muchki, when in the post-natal days of their regime they stated to the nation on television that even the rui-katla (meaning big fish) would be caught in reference to the alleged crime of the politicians. Without knowing the details, people in general were happy. The country would be rid of bad practice and we could look ahead to building our own Petronas, we thought. Now after two futile years most of the fish are out of the net, and their very act of confining all and sundry with the common charge of corruption has become questionable.

In this regard, if my memory remains loyal, one may recall Sheikh Hasina's article in a Bangla daily (cannot remember which, please help) in February 2007, 'Shada ke shada bolun...' (translated it approximately means 'call a spade a spade') in which she appealed to all (mostly the Caretaker Government) not to equate all political leaders and workers, nor gauge them by the same palla. But the carelessly talkative guys (CTG) thought their work was all but done if they could put everyone behind bars with excuses as lame as every politician's son is a criminal.

Despite their personal akrosh, based on the power they acquired as 'the selected' only because they were perhaps close to powers that be, and as evidenced by their successive bizarre deeds, no one imagined in their wildest fantasies that they would want to 'poison' a party chief, nor is there any evidence yet giving credence to that hasty claim by AL minister/advisor, although the nation did have a fit of the fantods with the so-called minus-two scheme; and therefore the demand by BNP stalwarts that the toxin contention on the prime minister be tested for all its ivy.

The CT (chalteyee thaaklo) government, backed by the people soon after delivery, but now only the Army tags the blame, had a marvellous opportunity to put things right while organising the general elections within three months, but they put their hand in too many pies and their honour expired when the all-jaanta janata smelt rats in the junta. Some 'big fish' by today's changed context have refused to come back home despite the routine call by their force.

Now the cat is coming out of the bag that some of the advisors of caretaker governments have been allegedly perpetrators of criminal acts. A charge was filed (?) against one former advisor in 2007 who did not realise that he had twenty-four months to govern, and so tried to make capital gains by fraud within the stipulated time of a CT government. At least he was honest about the time period.

What a turnabout for Fakhruddin's selected 'elite' (Is this country so devoid of worthy persons?), whose injudicious and impulsive decision killed almost a dozen people during the hasty demolition of Rangs Bhaban that took nearly two years to be razed to the ground instead of the haughtily promised three, or was it four, months?

As said by one panellist on Ekushey Raat on Ekushey TV December 2007, 'When Dhakaites demanded a road to traverse East-West at that point, they did not bargain for the dead bodies'. One Shahidul's hapless dad waited opposite the mutilated building for weeks awaiting news of a mutilated body closest to him that he knew was trapped inside. Even the court order of allowing the Rangs Bhaban to remain up to six floors was violated. CT should not stand for Callous Tormentors.

Matin is now trying to squarely blame intelligence agencies for the invectives against politicians and businesspeople during his rule, as if to say that those agencies are outside of the government, he being in-charge of Home affairs. Surely he miscalculates that more than half our population are not ekebarey bachcha.

The manic-jora couple's audacity is summed up by Mainul's recent veiled threat, as seen on a TV ticker, (these chaps do not want to learn their lesson) that 'the military would be back if advisors were called to question'.

Mainul means perhaps that even if an advisor is proven dishonest, no question can be raised about that act of misdemeanour. Does he underestimate our armed forces that much? That they will side with the corrupt? And financial mishandling is not the only criterion of being fraudulent, as the shipping pilots and container handlers at Chittagong port shall testify. (DS 24 June 2009)

One may question the wisdom of the very bar (Moudood, this in no way refers to you or your bottles, about which the case, if any, will be quashed, so declared the law advisor, reacting to which the BNP GS Khandaker Delwar Hossain said on TV that it is understandable that the advisor is also weak towards bottles, or something to that effect), one may question the wisdom of the very bar that adorned this hallucinating bloke with a legal parchment.

Democracy is getting hot, and that's the way it should be. Kill your opponents with wit, not really.

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