In pursuit of WWF recognition

Could it be argued that henna became popular only after Madonna started donning it and flashing it during her concerts worldwide? Could it also be argued that Yoga became popular only after western celebrities started advocating for it and practicing it themselves to seek salvation from their stressed lifestyles? Could it also be argued that Hindi as a language and India as a mystified country got more attention especially after Beckham tattooed his wife’s name in Hindi in his arms and more celebrities visiting India were made to wear sarees and say ‘namaste’? You might argue that many other factors simultaneously play a role in making all those things happen, nevertheless, the reasons I explicitly mentioned, are still out there and keep playing a role isn’t it? My hypothesis is that ‘God is a westerner white fat man with white hair and white beard’ and if ‘white men say so and think so’, we the impoverished third world inhabitants will get a due recognition or endorsement of our initiatives and efforts.

Take the example of this blog. Since it is still a not-for-profit entity, various bloggers are trying to bring out time from their respective busy schedules to advertise for the blog, so that more and more people start reading it, writing articles in it on Bangladeshi companies etc. But as it was bound to happen, individual efforts are never enough to pull a large internet traffic to the blog. Rather we are grateful to Google and the very presence of so many company names (which work as meta tags, search keywords) which have put the blog in a pretty high ranking in Google searches. We realize that we cannot afford to undertake a push-strategy for the blog, similar to that of CellBazaar these days, sticking a handy little sticker behind almost every third vehicle plying through the choked streets of Dhaka city. Neither we have the seed capital, nor we have infrastructure, nor do we have any institutional patron who would help us do that. So we have to opt for a pull-strategy. As most of the people we are approaching here, are giving us dry smile with sly looks…as if asking ‘who the hell are you folks? Are you guys guru of some sort? Since you aren’t famous yet, we won’t even bother what you are talking about….’

We are still thinking how to do something, tell something, innovate something which would pull the internet audience to the blog, rather than we pushing the blog down the people’s throats. We wish we had a fat white western buddy in our Facebook friend’s list, who could one fine morning give us some sort of an award…say ‘Best Business Journalism’ award in ‘3rd world category’ ….or ‘Minnesota State Award for Business Blogging’…keeping in view our humble efforts to get the young writing about business, Bangladesh and about big time ahead. By the way, all the award names I mentioned are fictitious and bear no link with anything in reality, they are just an output of my imaginative self. But just imagine if we could have managed to receive a WWF (Western White Fat) recognition, how easy it would have been for us to achieve a huge rise in interested readers, bloggers and other stakeholders who would make use of this platform for individual or business interests. Well…wishful thinking you still think? We don’t…I will shortly get in touch with my American friend…who is a part time student, part time womanizer, part time animal-rights activists and a part time blogger too….if any Tom Dick and Harry can simply utter that ‘Bangladesh Corporate Blog is great’, we have our local media ready here to make merry of this ‘proud moment’…this ‘achievement’ and this ‘success story of the Bangladeshi youth’. Until then, I keep on waiting with my legs and fingers crossed.