World Cup Fever

A Campus Afflicted

Arafat Rahman

FIFA World Cup, The Greatest Show on Earth now stands on the threshold. Although the bangla mayer damal chheles never managed to cross their hurdles on the way to this show, and fortunately enough, no one dreams of it, it might be really difficult for a foreigner visiting Dhaka city to believe so. In fact, it would really confuse any foreigner about where on earth he is standing; is it Buenos Aires or Rio de Janero?! At least the flags waving in the air will not let someone think he is thousands of miles away from Latin America.

World Cup is now the focus of almost all discussions in almost every place, and the AIUB campus is no exception. Young men in jerseys of their favourite teams can be seen all around the campus; but Tanveer has been spotted coming to the university in one jersey, and changing it after an hour or two. When asked why, he was proud to boast how smart he was: "You know, in the morning I have a class with Prof. X who is a supporter of Brazil. So I put on the Brazilian jersey in his class. But after two hours of break, I have another class with Mr. Y, who happens to be a supporter of Argentina. How dare I enter his class wearing a Brazilian jersey? You understand the rest, don't you?" Thus proving himself worth the title he has earned: The Impression Management Specialist!

Shafayat and Rob are really counting upon the performances of Germany and France respectively. Usually, people with common interests become friends. Unfortunately, the common interest, common goal, similar dreams, of these two was about to bring an end to their school time friendship, as all these are centred around a girl common to both! To stop this breakage and plaster the crack, the intellectual think tanks of the student community have made them come to an agreement that the one whose favourite team fails to perform better or as good as that of his counterpart in the world cup, bows and leaves the other alone in the field!

The students doing the course titled Integrated Marketing Communication are in a state of dilemma, whether to pray for Argentina or Brazil. The problem arises because the course teacher (who, once outside the class is addressed as "Dada" because of his brotherly attitude towards us) is a supporter of Brazil and if Brazil performs bad, he will be in a bad mood and the assignments and exam papers that he will check under such a state of mind may not earn very good marks. On the other hand, all the family members of Dada including our "Bhabi" (Dada's wife) happen to be supporters of Argentina. When bhabi's mood runs off, Dada doesn't remain very pleased. So, Argentina performing badly can actually lead to almost the same consequences!

Perhaps the person least bothered by World Cup is one of the senior faculties in the School of Engineering. Before he could tell us which team he supported, he asked which teams were playing. It has been heard from some senior students that this great teacher of physics supported England in the World Cup cricket in 2003, and the same holds true for World Cup Football. Dear readers, can you guess why? Is it because he earned one or more of his academic degrees from England? No! Is it because England is the birthplace of cricket and football? Dear readers, I bet you cannot imagine why. It's his obsession towards PHYSICS that makes him support England, the birthplace of Sir Isaac Newton!