Let us first enjoy reading an old story by Aesop…namely The Goose & the Golden Egg.
“There was once a Countryman who possessed the most wonderful Goose you can imagine, for every day when he visited the nest, the Goose had laid a beautiful, glittering, golden egg. The Countryman took the eggs to market and soon began to get rich. But it was not long before he grew impatient with the Goose because she gave him only a single golden egg a day. He was not getting rich fast enough.
Then one day, after he had finished counting his money, the idea came to him that he could get all the golden eggs at once by killing the Goose and cutting it open. But when the deed was done, not a single golden egg did he find, and his precious Goose was dead.”
So, you see how eggs can be the cause of lots of trouble for mankind.
Civilisations have been built and civilisations have been destroyed throughout the centuries but the demand for eggs has never dwindled ever. From the kings and queens to the poor peasants, everyone loved eggs anytime of the day or the night. This wonder food has been the source of nutrition for mankind for the millennia.
But, throwing egg on someone is not the civilised way to egg someone on in their solemn mission in a foreign country. You may shower flowers on a person but surely not eggs. One should rather offer egg in the breakfast in either scrambled or poached or boiled form to ensure nutrition and energy, but never to be splashed on one’s jacket. That way, vitamins and other nutrients do not enter one’s body. The sketch on the front page of Times of Bangladesh showing hens protesting such wastage of a precious egg depicted the hard reality. We must remember that eggs are eggspensive everywhere these days.
The culture of throwing eggs on the head and body of an opponent became popular here in our lower courts in the last one year. People showered eggs on the fallen VIP leaders out of love as prisons, unfortunately, do not offer eggs during breakfast. As the demand for eggs, good or rotten, started to rise, more and more traders now sit around the lower courts and sell eggs to the political activists.
However, we are surprised to find that it is also getting popular in the west. Reportedly, some Bangladeshi activists showered eggs on their Bangladeshi opponents at JFK airport.
The Americans were not amused by this eggcentric act and arrested the person who threw the egg. And this angered the hen community in Bangladesh as well. They rightfully protested against such abuse of eggs.
Then we heard that dim therapy (egg therapy) was quite popular with our police force that practiced this on criminals who needed nutrition. Only difference is the police allegedly applied it in the wrong way.
However, there is a rumour going around that throwing of eggs from a distance and hitting the target with meticulous precision has been appreciated by the Olympic authorities. Who knows, this may get included in the event list of the next Olympic. If that happens, we are sure Bengalis will win all the medals.
The writer is a senior journalist
