He that Maketh Haste to be Rich shall not be Innocent

Chintito

According to Carl Lotus Becker, 'men are influenced by books which clarify their own thought, which express their own notions well, or which suggest to them ideas which their minds are already predisposed to accept'.

It is hard for me to imagine that Becker wanted to leave out the women, and meant only men as in Georgie-Pordgie Pudding-and-Pie. One would therefore allow that his statement encompasses all of mankind or womankind, whatever.

Despite the fact that Becker went on about books, it is easy to see why these days reading the newspaper has also become such a delight. You seem to like everything you read. You believe everything you read. You are under the influence of your own thought and notions.

You love reading that your ministers were horribly corrupt, your MPs loved to amass hordes of money, your political leaders drank from gold goblets, and your manoniyo judge has his certificate cancelled by his alma mater.

That's the good side of the present situation. What you do not appreciate though is the sad news that our national airlines, our very own Biman, is in virtual ruins (no reference to the slide along Dubai's tarmac), and up for sale (although it is down).

As in everything else in our life at home, the Biman news had two sides. An email popped up in my inbox and, not surprising, it had all the good things to say about the national flag carrier. Here it goes verbatim:

"Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. This is your captain Abdur Rahim (Kalu) and we welcome both seated and standing passengers on board of Biman Bangladesh to Dubai.

We apologise for the four-day delay in taking off, it was due to bad weather and some overtime I had to put in at the bakery.

This is flight 707 to Dubai, we are due to land there sometime and if not then we hope to end up somewhere in that region.

Biman has an excellent safety-record that even terrorists are afraid to fly with us!

It is with pleasure; I announce that over 60% of all our passengers have reached their destination in some way or another.

If our engines are too noisy for you, on passenger request, we can arrange to turn them off or we can try to keep the main door closed which tends to fly open on occasions.

To make your flight pleasant and memorable, we serve complimentary tea and water.

We regret to inform you, that today's in-flight movie will not be shown as we forgot to record it from the television last night. However, for our movie buffs, we will be flying right next to an Emirates Airline, where their movie will be visible from the right side of the cabin window.

There is no smoking allowed in this airplane. Any smoke you see in the cabin is only the early warning system on the engines telling us to slow down!

In order to catch important landmarks, we try to fly as close as possible for the best view. If however, we go a little too close, please do let us know.

Kindly be seated, keep your seat in an upright position. For take-off please be careful of the table coming down at all times and the overhead compartments opening. You will be surprised how heavy some of these bags are that are in the overhead compartment.

For those of you who can't find a seat-belt, kindly fasten your own belt to the arm of your seat. And, for those of you who can't find a seat, do not hesitate to get in touch with a stewardess who will explain how to fasten yourself to your suitcase."

ENJOY your flight with Biman Bangladesh Airlines.
Okay! So some very ambitious and rich people wanted to become richer in haste. Although it was very uneducated of them, they appeared to do it in style, including, as per the illustration of BBA, treason in aircraft purchase, rampant corruption in ticketing and billing and fuelling and…; until they got their MBA (Miah Bibi Aatok) or, if you like, caught en masse.

Some of the mas (fish in English) in several other cases too slipped out of the net, while some were caught with the Dudok bait of wealth statement. The fishermen also perhaps got tired of fishing. Not so those that live by the rivers where jhatka trapping has been banned. They long to renew their livelihood, as do the eelish-lets now wading happily in the waters.

There are many kinds in the same profession. It is essential that we separate the beneficial from the harmful.

Let there be mutual co-existence of the good with the good, of the needy fishermen with the emerging school of fish. Let the law-abiding fishermen net all the big and little fish in the sea. But let not the culpable and impetuous, the third type of 'fishermen' ever again cast a net over our growing economy. This is a fitting time to ban the hasty money-makers for life. This is a battle of the law-abiding to protect the needy from the shamelessly greedy. This battle we should not lose. Or we lose the war.

Copyright (R) thedailystar.net 2007