Who Deserves a Hat Trick?
The only good thing about the Donald Trump tragedy is that comedians are in business. In fact they (the comedians) have become lazy as Trump himself is delivering the jokes on a silver platter.
On the same token, the only good thing about the Rohingya crisis is that satirists like us can keep on writing about Aung San Suu Kyi (ASSK). But I would rather be scraping the bottom for topics rather than giving ASSK a hat trick on my column and displacing hundreds of thousands. I've written about her the last two weeks and newspaper real estate isn't cheap, as cheap as the newspaper actually is to buy. So, ASSK, sorry, I need a breath of fresh air, though you are breathing down our necks right across the Naf. You do NOT deserve a hat trick on my column.
But I do like hat tricks. So, I was hoping that the Rural Development Secretary's car would get a traffic citation a third day in a row for exhibiting the right to drive on the right side of the road. Some brave hearts of Dhaka Metropolitan Police surely deserve a truck load of kudos. Though I wonder if it's a suicide mission as far as their careers are concerned, thus creating another exodus towards Khagrarchari and Bandarban—of officers for simply doing their jobs.
But many in uniform have called the boon dock postings an opportunity of a lifetime, not to be traded for the world, not for even a transfer to Baridhara. The man and the woman in uniform, plenty of those at the moment at our South East, are thanking God for the opportunity to serve mankind. One such young officer of Bangladesh Police writes on his Facebook post, there is not a single service person in uniform, hardened by battle and battling crime, which has not shed a tear seeing, guiding and holding those on their exodus from across the Naf. Maybe those cops flagging down VVIP vehicles for traffic violations are not playing a game of Russian Roulette after all, but playing their cards just right so as to be shipped off to where the whole world, except Yangon, is focusing on.
Business is good for hotels in Cox's Bazaar and for airlines operating flights between that city and Dhaka. But once again, the hotels and the airlines, hands down, would prefer to host tourists rather than aid workers and officials, the former, an indication of happier times. Besides, how many would really enjoy the world's longest beach at this point, knowing that not too far, is a tragedy unfolding?
The world is watching especially for what the big boys are saying. Beijing has said it will play a "constructive role" in settling the Rohingya issue. Just make sure it's not a "construction roll" (of steel).
Well, there you go ASSK. You got your hat trick on Homorously Yours. Please, please, don't make me write another one…
Naveed Mahbub is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ATN Bangla's The Naveed Mahbub Show and ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh, the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club.
E-mail: Naveed@NaveedMahbub.com