Supporters do matter!

golden student days. Although greeted by the natural din and bustle I got vexed with continuous beeping/snoozing sounds of mobile phones' SMS. My host Professor was not in office room and I was told he could be in some other room or may be in a classroom. While having a detour, I walked further down the long corridor when some interesting posters caught my eyes: “Please vote for XYZ, on such date, Send SMS to 1234 in favour of XYZ of

ntv Close up 1, Tomaakey Khujche Bangladesh.” In no time I discovered that instead of wall writings and graffiti like earlier years the clean walls of the Faculty Building is posted with quite a number of these kind of posters. Well, no wonder, some of those are even printed from established offset press with luminous photographs. As I was wandering, I found some writings as well inside classrooms, on black boards/white boards with various coloured board-markers.

My host Professor rescued me in the wonderland only to give me yet some more knowledge. Voting in favour of one's supporters through SMS is going on from this morning in full swing to meet the deadline of this mid day. As we were stepping into his office room an ecstatic student almost bumped onto us while running, shouting to another for a scratch-card as he ran out of his own account of the pre-paid mobile. On my return journey by the Fine Arts Institute a polymer signboard enriched my experience further with an ntv logo and a vivid photograph of a singer appealing to vote for her through SMS for the Close up 1 contest. I said to myself, “Well, why not? This is also democracy -- newer approach though.”

Perhaps my education was not complete. The following night some youngsters at home did that favour to me. As I narrated my jocular experience I was persuaded to give company to the youngsters in watching the very programme of "Close up 1". I was startled by remarks of the judges who were disappointed only to mention that their 'evaluation' very much differed with the voting pattern of the viewer judges. That reminded me of the same kind of resentments of the judges of the proto-type programme of this one, the Indian Idol. Two singers came in turn, quite vibrant, but tensed up naturally as one must fall out of the race. There came one of the contestants whose name I was able to recollect from DU posters and mention at home. Judges' grading differed and she, the lower mark-scorer was nervous, as she herself admitted of some mistakes and not of excellent performance. Some young viewers by me bet on her wining. To my exclamation she did -- with a vast majority votes. At the very end of the programme she did thank her supporters specially all the folks from Dhaka University. "Number of supporters does matter", I murmured. Then the young spokesperson made me more enlightened saying, "Some thousand taka can be spent to distribute hundreds of pre-paid cards to friends and new supporters (Good news for the mobile companies) for sending as many thousands of SMS as possible". Quite a voting and competition for that matter!