WWKS

Not sure if there is a direct correlation between the plummeting of gold imports in India and the fact that there is once again another gold smuggling bust at Dhaka Airport. But a whole kilogram of gold inside a living, breathing human being? This has got to have shattered all world records, the previous one surely also set by another Bangladeshi. We really should check with the Guinness Book of World Records, though I'm not sure how the editors would actually word it, let alone have any illustrations.

We are not the only people who have been engaged in this strange exercise. Even the 'First World' has had similar instances. Take this 'First World' incident with its certain level of smartness, where the homo sapien has outsourced the job to the canine to smuggle illicit drugs into the US by implanting them inside a dog. No wonder the dog is man's best friend. But the customs officials at Miami Airport are not far behind our boys, probably for once THEY came HERE to be trained on successful detections. The scene there is surely amusing with several armed customs officials stooped near the tail region of a rather unsuspecting dog. Stranger still that it's not a dog sniffing a suspect human, but a bunch of humans gathered to sniff a dog, and at a rather unhygienic part of the latter's anatomy.

Coming back to the gold. Not sure where the smuggled gold ends up, but if it's at the regular ornament market, I would say many a progressive bride would be inclined to shun the stool gold just like the blood diamond.

Interestingly, it is the same demographics who choose to be the rectal Fed Ex for gold. Does it say something as to why they are particularly vulnerable to being lured into such a risky exercise while initially being lured into paying a small fortune to get jobs overseas that the locals will not stoop to doing? Getting the rough end of the stick when going, when being there and finally upon returning. What Would Kissinger Say (WWKS)? He called us a bottomless basket and now a bottom full of gold?

Speaking of Henry Kissinger, I am surprised that some still think of Bangladesh as such. I headline at the Jakarta Comedy Club where a Bangladeshi shows up (a rare occurrence, 'pay to watch comedy?'). He pulls me aside, "Dude, you gotta bring down the house [with your comedy] as I have brought these expat friends with me to whom Bangladesh is still the way Henry Kissinger described it." Now, THAT's a LOT of pressure. Do comedy and de-Kissingerify the audience? I finish my show amidst high fives and pats on the shoulder. Then the coveted guard of honor for the best comedian of the evening, "Hey mate! You were funny!! Let me buy you a drink." "Coke Zero for me, thanks!" as I don't drink and Coke Zero costs more than a litre of petrol in Dhaka. He is surprised to see a comedian so dry, literally and figuratively, off the stage, but also knowing that his allocated budget to intoxicate a comedian can get this Bangladeshi a dozen Coke Zeros plus a handsome tip for the server. But it is the pleasure of the conversation that, yes, we Bangladeshis do comedy, we have talk shows, we have cars, we have flyovers, we don't die of starvation, we have floods but we handle them, we have traffic but we wait patiently, we have corruption but we navigate through it, we are poor but we are rich.

Kissinger may have muttered under his breath that Bangladesh will cease to be a bottomless basket when hell freezes over, pigs start to fly and Bob Dylan wins the Nobel Prize. Well, the latter has happened and Henry Kissinger is history.

The writer is an engineer at Ford & Qualcomm USA and CEO of IBM & Nokia Siemens Networks Bangladesh turned comedian (by choice), the host of ABC Radio's Good Morning Bangladesh and the founder of Naveed's Comedy Club. E-mail: naveed@naveedmahbub.com