Not too long ago, a Mussulman Bangalee living in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, who sounded more like a Muscleman had opined that in Bangladesh we should kill few Hindus and only then should we have our breakfast. For his uncalled-for quip, the guy was shown the door at an e-forum. There is a good reason for calling this guy a Mussulman instead of the standard nomenclature Muslim. In Bangladesh, our folks introduced themselves as Mussulman. According to etymology of the word Mussulman, the word was derived from Turkey where the locals call themselves musulmn. In our neighboring West Bengal, which is now called Bangla Pradesh, the Ghoti accented folks call the Mussulman Mocholman for a long long time. Mind you, it is not a derogatory term; Bengal’s legendary novelist Sarat Chandra Chottopaddhaya wrote a masterpiece novel Srikanta in which the hero, Srikanta, calls the snake charmer Muslim a Mocholman. Contrary to popular belief in East Bengal, the term Mocholman is not a derogatory one.
The Mocholman Bangalee from
Massachusetts who advocated in the cyberspace killing a few Hindus before
having Nasta (breakfast) however forgot to tell us the menu of our
breakfast. He should have been more specific about the breakfast.
Should we eat our usual fermented fish and equally fermented rice -- the
one which is lovingly called Shidol Shutki aar Panta Bhat?
Or better yet, should we break our night long fast with Mughlai dishes
such as Mughlai Paratha? When I was fretting over my choices of the
dishes, an idea came from nowhere. No, that will be a lie of immense
proportion. The idea came from another Mocholman from Washington
DC who has a neck for writing short and "pithy" comments in the Readers
Opinion Page of a cyber newspaper, NFB. Lately, the Internet has
really become the playground of a few nutty Bangalee
Mocholman.
Perfecting the art of nuking - annihilating
the entire Bangladesh!
Before I go any further, let me mention about our Internet newspaper NFB, which stands for ‘News From Bangladesh.' This cyber newspaper, NFB, has made a name for itself in its short five years of existence. NFB is more like a water hole. In wilderness, all the animals irrespective of their taxonomic position gather around a water hole to quench their thirst. Similarly, most expatriate Bangalees with diversified interest – from Mozart to Muhammad – visit the NFB site to quench their intellectual thirst. In any given day, one would find articles in which a person will boldly proclaim that Islam is the most scientific religion on earth. Also, one would find in the same issue some liberal thrashing Islam saying that it is the most outdated belief system in the world, which is in conflict with the technologically advanced West.
Beyond this typical debate topic, one may find other eternal debate on whether we are Bangalee or a Bangladeshi. This debate always centers on the concept of modern state-nation or cultural identity. On the top of this, we also see folks debating on Rabindranath and his alignment with the Mocholman of East Bengal. A loony once called the poet of all possible things—a tax collector. However, lately the posting of an inane proposition engendered a strange debate. A devout Mocholman who is fretting day-and-night over the sovereignty of Bangladesh and who thinks our motherland is surrounded by enemies proposed recently in NFB that Bangladesh should seriously think about developing N-bombs to thwart the aggression, which may come anytime soon.
This lampoon is being dedicated to this "intellectual" Mocholman who is well known to most NFB reader. He often wrote his one-paragraph long pithy remarks about Sheikh Hasina’s draconian policy while Hasina was the PM of Bangladesh. These days he writes on myriad subjects starting from plight of the Muslims in the West to nuclearization of Bangladesh. Of all the people of Bangladesh, this gentleman should get the Golden Fleece Award for coming up with this idea of nuclear deterrent for Bangladesh. He opines: Having nuclear arsenals is the best deterrent. This is a post WWII idea that was the basis for the West’s love affair with nuclear proliferation. The West has enormous resources available to them. They have the luxury to embark on a path to develop all kinds of nuclear arsenals. However, our Mocholman intellect from Washington DC forgets that Bangladesh is no West. This nation of 130 million impoverished folks is plagued with all kinds worldly malady. Someone once mentioned that if we name Bangladesh to any westerner and ask his or her reaction to this name, in all likelihood, the person will say flood, cyclone, and disease, etc., have beset Bangladesh year-in-year-out. Under this backdrop, it is simply a preposterous idea to suggest to anyone in Bangladesh that the nation should develop nuclear weapons to maintain its sovereignty. To mock at this preposterous idea of going nuclear I decided to write this lampoon to honor our Mocholman "intellectuals" such as the one who live in Washington DC and in Dartmouth, Massachusetts. The former gave me the idea of nuclearization of Bangladesh and the latter gave me the idea of having a hearty breakfast after annihilating some non-Mocholman citizens of Bangladesh, which I would refuse steadfastly to perform as per his dictum.
Why not let us ask an enterprising Bangalee to open a restaurant in posh Gulshan areas of Dhaka. Lately, a plethora of eateries has mushroomed in Banani-Gulshan area. Nevertheless, I don’t remember seeing any Nuclear Restaurant. One can call it Café Chernobyl. Eating at Café Chernobyl could be called euphemistically nuking oneself. So, you can call your sweetheart at home from your busy office and say, "Honey, why not meet me at Café Chernobyl in after hours?"
Your spouse replied, "Oh, not again! Didn’t we nuke the other night? I can hardly digest their Nuke Mussallam."
After finishing a dinner, persons should be glowing in the dark coming out of Café Chernobyl. The "hot" curries are supposed to be too hot with half-life of 28-days for the radioactive phosphorus. "No kidding," replied your spouse. The dishes in nuclear restaurants all have special Zing added to them. One advantage of devouring nuke-food is that all cancer cells will die out immediately. No need for radiation therapy. Yes, indeed! You ought to promote these restaurants among those who could afford. If Bangladesh runs out of nuclear material to supply all these nuke restaurants in Banani-Gulshan, then there should not be any problem. We will send brave Bangalees to Pokhran nuclear test site in the desert of Rajputana. So much radioactive junk was left by Indian scientists that we can feed all the Anwars and Sohails of Bangladesh for the rest of their life. We can also send an expedition team to Chagai Hills in Balochistan, the site of Pakistan’s 1998 nuclear blast. The impact of the N-bomb made a crater over there in the sand dunes of Balochistan. Too bad we can’t send our people close to Chagai Hills now. The intelligence report is that Osama bin Laden, and Mullah Omar may have made their base there with all the fleeing Talibans and Al-Qaeda soldiers. Well, there is enough leftover radioactive stuff still lying in Pokhran site to last another hundred years or so. We can zap all the elite of Dhaka in about a week. The government will save billions of Taka (Bangladesh currency). No one will ever go to Singapore, Bangkok, Madras, London, or New York anymore for the treatment of any disease that seems to afflict only the rich folks of Bangladesh. How about that as an incentive to visit Café Chernobyl?
Dhaka’s Gulshan and Banani area at the northern suburb have become home to many exotic restaurants. To complete the task, two or three new nuke-restaurants may open their gates to Dhakaites. I have seen in last June (2001) an entire area of Gulshan devoted to eateries. Perhaps opening a few Nuke restaurants won’t hurt the delicate sensibilities of Gulshanites. The premier Nuke-café and restaurant can be aptly called Café Chernobyl. At the cost of few crores of Taka any enterprising Bangalee, who we have many in Dhaka’s northern suburb, can build a colorful Nuke eatery. The Café Chernobyl can offer a plethora of delectable dishes such as Hydrogen-Biriyani, Nuke Mussallam, Uranium Kebab, Mega-Curie-Puri, Pluto-Halva, Thermo-Bakarkhani, Atom Rosho-Gulla, Enriched Lachchi, Chilled Radio Dhahi, and of course the favorite Megatoni Burhani.
In June 2001, while I was in Dhaka,
I witnessed the opening of a new upscale restaurant in the heart of Gulshan.
This was the first Turkish eatery in Dhaka. The place was booked
up for weeks. When all the hoopla surrounding the opening of this
restaurant was over, then a relative of my wife invited us over to the
restaurant call Topkapi. I thought I was going to a palatial building
designed after Istanbul’s famous Topkapi Palace; but it turned out to be
a moderate sized building renovated to house a modern restaurant.
Most of Gulshan-Banani’s elite, who has the slightest idea what baklava
tastes like, had become a real connoisseur of Turkish delicacy. Therefore,
I have no doubts in my mind that Gulshanites will have no idea to rate
a Nuke Restaurant. One thing I know for sure that someone will write
in Dhaka’s Daily Star how gorgeous the Nuke Restaurant looks like.
Its Art Deco furnishing will be praised along with its radioactive menus,
which glows in the dark because of intense radiation it carries.
The entrée such as Uranium Kebab will no doubt receive the highest
rating of any culinary expert in Dhaka. Honestly, any gimmick you
come up with in Dhaka is always a big hit. The West is supposed to
be emulated without any question. It is chic to be seen at Gulshan’s
expensive restaurant. Thus, there will be a growing clientele at
the Nuke restaurant, The Café Chernobyl.
Trust me it is going to be an instant hit. Don’t worry about the
common people or the nation. They know how to survive in most adversities.
A Bangladeshi dreaming of having an atomic
breakfast!
Talking about the nation of Bangladesh
one thing came to my mind. I mentioned earlier that one resident
dunce at the NFB proposed this idea that Bangladesh should develop her
own nuclear arsenals because we live in a dog-eat-dog world. Besides,
the Hedos (a shorter form of Hindus that was used by Sarat Chandra
Chattopaddhaya in many places throughout his novel Srikanta) who live in
India cannot be trusted after what they did to our Mocholman (Muslims)
brothers and sisters in the land of Gandhi. You never know what the
present government of Bangladesh headed by a matriculate (her opponents
say she is a class eight graduate) could do. If enough "intellectuals"
from Washington DC would cry out loud asking for Bangladesh to go nuclear,
then it is quite possible that Khaleda Zia may employ some Taliban scientists
from Pakistan to build a few Islamic nuclear bombs for Bangladesh.
She might ask her people to eat nuclear breakfast too. The country
will go broke developing nuclear device. I asked a veteran NFB writer
to think about the consequence of Bangladesh building Nukes. He immediately
came up with the idea of drawing a picture showing poor Mullahs of Bangladesh
begging in front of IMF and WB offices in Dhaka. He was quick to
add the cartoon of Nuked Mullahs. These Mutant Mullahs are none other
than Bangladesh’s Eslami politicians belonging to BNP-Jamaat axis.
The Mutant Mullahs now at IMF and WB
asking for more monetary help.
The above cartoon speaks for itself. One can easily understand the built-in humor in the cartoon. The Mullahs who have gone to IMF and WB office for alms represent the Islamized Bangladesh. The Nuked Mullahs have become mutants in the eyes of the artist. Do we want this to happen to our folks in Bangladesh?
The dynamics of world politics vis-à-vis
Muslim countries in the world may dictate some disgruntled Bangalees from
Bangladesh to opine that this impoverished nation will be better off with
its nuclear bombs. This will undoubtedly thwart Indian design to
annex this small land of 56,000 square mile. What could India do
with an astounding population of 130 millions is a moot point. But
so long Bangladesh has anti-Indian people, they will always worry unnecessarily,
vauntingly of course, about safeguarding the ever so fragile sovereignty
of Bangladesh.
Peril of dining in a Anaobik Restaurant.
A Mullah takes his four wives to dine radioactive yummies only to turn
them into mutants
In 1999, Bangladesh bought a dozen second-hand MiG warplanes at the cost of 120 million U.S. dollars to protect the sovereignty of Bangladesh. On March 22, 2002, Dhaka’s Daily The Observer has a colored photo in its front page in which the PM, Khaleda Zia, is shown seated with some army Generals in Kurmitola cantonment. The caption says, "Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia being briefed on different activities of the Bangladesh Army when she went to visit the Army Headquarters at Dhaka Cantonment on Thursday." Since Bangladesh is always viewed as a weak country -- militarily speaking of course -- a section of our people always wants to procure military arsenals to protect the nation’s sovereignty. Therefore, why not go nuclear all the way?
To strengthen Bangladesh's sovereignty
let our people have nuclear breakfast every morning to their heart's content.
America will always love to dump all the threadbare plutonium or uranium
from her nuclear power plant. Bangladesh could become the dumping
ground of nuclear waste for asking. Let our people become mutant
as sketched by the artist. Who cares? Bangladesh may find its
name in the Guinness Book of World Record billed as the most nuclear nation
on earth. I bet our resident dunce in NFB whose article appear at
the bottom of the Readers' Opinion Page will be pleased by such characterization.
Won't he?
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A.H. Jaffor Ullah writes from New
Orleans, USA. His e-mail address is - Jaffor@netscape.net
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