Oh Summer Whine!

I get a call to do a comedy show at an event. I am asked, "Do we have to pay you?" I answer, "No, in fact I will pay you. Presume that's the arrangement you also have with the caterer at your event." Or, that you got the idea from Trump's notion of Mexico paying for the wall.

Hard as it may be, but let's look at the rest of the world besides America and the daily Trumpdates – Trump's noisy updates. It almost seems that the noise of the world pales into insignificance, though all that noise in the rest of the world is also somehow related to Donald Trump. 

We got our own noise too, literally. The noise that helps us keep track of time without having to use a clock. You know it's 2:00 am when the truck pulls over and the bricks are unloaded onto the freshly made sidewalks that the City Corporation built for us to walk on. Dhaka is becoming like New York City – a city that never sleeps with its 24/7 construction work. From a plane the city DOES look like a big gaping mouth – smelly and with lots of cavities where the milk teeth (independent houses) have fallen off and the permanent, multi-storied teeth are sprouting up. Oh, and the face is clean shaved (not many trees) and needs a LOT of moisturiser (landfills galore). 

Coming back to the nocturnal bricks. They are unloaded with our characteristic yelling. Just realised we are a nation suffering from a collective case of voice immodulation. Ever wonder why the chief guest always answers the call with a booming "Hello! Hello!! I'm in a meeting now, call me later" while being buried behind the US-Mexico wall of flowers, as the thank you note is being read out by a squeamish host? I know why we have no concept of speaking softly, we originate from the countryside where there is the huge paddy field in between two acquaintances passing each other as they greet through yells to ensure being heard. 

6:30 am. No need for an alarm clock to wake me up as the grinding concrete mixers start churning. The wake-up call – the city's version of the rooster at dawn. Maybe Trump can use this as Chinese torture in lieu of water boarding. 

Thank heavens for global warming and a short lived winter. We can now turn on the fans and ACs, welcome back load shedding and the sounds of generators to drown out (water board) the whining of the omnipresent (and omnipotent) construction equipment. And who better to welcome in Pohela Falgun, the day of the orange, by none other than the orange man, Donald Trump himself? 

Oh well, as the world whines at the summer tempests of Trump, things are starting to heat up here too. We have a new Election Commission with future elections – 100 percent Putin-proof…

The writer 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