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Darn it Damascus!

NAVEED MAHBUB
AND now, the winners of the World's Most Livable Cities sweepstakes—Aussies and Canucks!!
Damascus also steals the spotlight—again! It's on top of the inverted list. Dhaka is a distant second, and not in the least envious.
All cities are equal. Some are more equal than others, apparently, on the basis of stability, healthcare, culture and environment, education and infrastructure.
Dhaka now sees an additional influx of foreign consultants to guide it with their infinite wisdom. Don't forget the increased hardship allowances as a result of Dhaka's ranking.
Karachi is more stable than Dhaka, as rated by drones.
Dhaka's healthcare report gets hospitals in Singapore and Thailand to do high fives. Now, even Dhaka-ites with moles on their behinds will hop on to air ambulances.
Don't forget you can get every conceivable prescription medication over the counter. The 12 year old apprentice behind the counter can even prescribe the right medication for you. Before going home, guess who load up their suitcases with prescription antibiotics and antidepressants?
As for culture, not really Dhaka's fault that Shilpakala, the Fine Arts Institute or Ramna Botomool gets lost in translation.
Men scratching their groins with poetic oblivion? That is very much a part of the culture here, not a gesture of sexual innuendo. And it's because of the heat (another factor for Dhaka's ranking), for which countries not signing the global warming prevention treaty for 'lack of data,' but had 'sufficient data' on WMDs in Iraq, need to take some credit.
What if you send the Buckingham Palace butler to rate a culture where belching is a complement to the chef?
Education. That's why a flood of newspaper ads with smiling graduates beckoning our kids to strange sounding universities abroad. Wonder how I got my 2 US patents with a predominantly Bangladeshi education.
Finally, infrastructure. Hey, who do you think is keeping the World Bank in business?
Now, when did the surveyors come to Dhaka (if at all)? Was it during hartal, flood, load shedding, conjunctivitis outbreak and the airport ground handlers' strike all on the same day? If they came during Eid, Dhaka might have beaten Melbourne. Now, that's Eid-ul-Fitr. Come during Eid-ul-Adha, Dhaka would be splitting hairs with Damascus.
The data in the report are in absolute terms. For apples and apples comparison, Statistics 101 states that data needs to be normalised. So, Dhaka, age 41, needs to be compared with Melbourne when it was 41. Otherwise, it's like Aishwarya Rai and Shuchitra Sen competing for the Miss Universe title. Say what? Dhaka is older than today's Melbourne at 400? No, no—that's Dacca, not Dhaka, ok?
Dhaka-ites are in unison when complaining about the city. Let someone from the Land of Hezbollah migrate to the bankrupt Detroit (where if you get a flat tire, you just drive on for dear life) and then come to Dhaka to complain about the crowded bazaars, spit, stench and indifferent waiters, you see the same Dhaka-ites are again in unison, this time, to furiously defend this very city.
Perhaps Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto's words, after executing the Pearl Harbor raid, also applies to Dhaka: "We may have just woken up a giant."