Wrestling Diplomacy

I never thought I would hear the words "pedigree," "the people's elbow," or "cage match" coming from a group of young, giggly teenagers wearing burqas in a house in the Oldest Part of Dhaka. I was wrong.

They're not medical terms, or part of an obscure dog breeding vernacular, but rather wrestling moves...yes, WRESTLING, as in the WWF (renamed WWE after Vince McMahon lost a hard-fought acronym battle with the World Wildlife Foundation). For some reason, almost all of the women in my Old Dhaka English class are obsessed with trashy American wrestling shows, which are now widely available in Bangladesh thanks to Indian TV. I shamefully admit that I too, was once among the wrestling crowd. I was a huge Chris Jericho fan (The Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah!), and there was a point when I actually used to schedule my college homework around Monday Night RAW and Thursday Night Smackdown.

As it turns out, Wrestling made a great conversation piece in our class yesterday. It started when Shuma asked me "madame, what is the spelling for 'wrestling'?" I thought I misheard her, but apparently not. We talked about their favorite wrestlers, why they liked them, the most exciting moves. Among the favorites were Rikishi, The Big Show, and of course everyone's all time favorite, The Rock. One student even did a decent impersonation of the famed Samoan-American wrestling superstar. It's funny, I can't get them to talk in English about Dhaka, Bangladesh, their favorite foods, etc., but when I brought up the Hardy Boyz or the Undertaker they were bursting with commentary.

I guess teenagers and twenty-somethings around the world aren't so different afterall...

Off to give a Y2J beating that you will never, EEEVer, forget aGAYNE!

TKP, recovering wrestloholic