melancholic me

"Catching teardrops in my hand"... I can't get these words out of my head.

I have been going through a deep melancholy for a while now, a sweet kind of melancholy, super addictive melancholy. Whenever I am home, I am keeping mum, doing nothing... just sitting around or lying down on the bed with the lights out. Whenever I am out I am going to all sorts of places and walking, walking and walking while sticking the earphones in my ears. Its super addictive. Really. I got heaps of uni works to do, more works piling up every day, but I am enjoying burying my head in the sand at the moment... its peaceful down here, it is! If you ask the reason behind my current state, I possibly can't satisfy you... I really don't know. I am just terribly missing certain people, moments, part of my life... missing some crazy tid bits. Re-viewing certain decisions and re-weighing the rightness of the moves taken...
On a second thought, it may not be that serious. In fact I am trying to convince myself, its just another bad PMS :P.

So, right now, I am waiting for the negative tan curve to hit the asymptote, and boom--there I will have the magical moment...

brishti pore tapur tupur

You see, I am in the process of creating a new blog... at the moment you can visit the unfinished version here:
www.tancurve.blogspot.com

I am working on the header-image, it just isn't working out right, trying all sorts of different templates, and subsequently getting frustrated. So give up on that and totally forget about blogging. Ishi posed the question as to why do I seem so out of blogging world, thats the reason.

I think I should keep blogging here until I officially start my new blog otherwise, chances are, I will conveniently get myself out of the blogging world, one day, very soon.

So let's finish by telling what happened today:
Its raining today, or should I say drizzling? Drizzling is probably more appropriate... Something you would call "brishti pore tapur tupur". Even though I just recovered from the worst kind of flu through 5 day course of anti-biotic and sips of "dail" twice a day, I couldn't resist wetting myself in the rain. You see, it was 4-ish in the afternoon. Very few students in the uni. I had 4 more hours to go. I was sitting by myself in a wooden bench under a tree, trying to get through some boring programming problem, and right at that ungodly hour, a rain drop made its way through the leaves on my programming book. It was that particular nuisance that allured me out of my study-mood and invited me to walk in the rain. Thankfully, I didn't bring my umbrella (otherwise, would have felt constant pang of guilt for not doing justice to that). I started walking through the University Walk (THE long walk)... it was wonderful... don't frown, I was listening to my favourite Robindra shongeet by Srikanto... everything just went together so well...
Yes, that's me. The pagla me. :-)

back to pavilion

Everything's looking kinda bigger, brighter, cleaner and hotter. Its annoyingly hot and sticky here. I could have suffocated as I came out of Sydney airport in my semi-winter coat. Anywayz... in case you are wondering what I am doing in blogger at 1.27 am--something happened to my biological clock. Last night I couldn't sleep altogether, went to bed after Fajr and slept like dead. I needed all the members of my family to scream in unison to get me up for Duhr. Since I can't sleep now, I thought I should use the time usefully, so read few blogs. Aha, the big news now is the sisters' wedding! Not suprising, since all my 59 maternal relatives know about the astounding weddings. Last time I talked to nira apu was the day before her wedding. Can't wait till all the married women get back here! By the way, got informed my doe apu's cousin she might not be going to england, instead will be coming back to aussieland in mid-february. Can't wait! Aha, it might not be so good, since the newly married, forcefully + temporarily seperated women will be discussing the pain of biroho with jargons like nonod, debor, ja, shoshurbari... total hijibiji for us inexperienced unmarried girls. That's a big change in our life as a whole, lots happened in my life during my stay in bd. It was a fun, fun, fun and really really jhakkas (as they say) holiday. I already broadcasted some in painful detail I believe. Hoping to post more. But for now, I must try to get some sleep! or may be not, this bdeshi friend of mine just logged in msn from canada...

Doe apu as the bride and other rants

I don't think I should say much about how she looked in the blue and golden combination, contact me personally for that. I went to the walima at exactly 8 o clock, as the card said but just like typical bangladeshies, Doe apu was late. She went to the purlour at 2.30 pm (starving) still, wasn't back from there. It wasn't too bad though as Zumana and me caught up on what I missed in Doe apu's wedding and introduced me to some of her cousins. When Doe apu finally arrived, I cannot explain how I felt. I felt a surge of happiness engulfing me, it felt just like home! I went and gave her a tight hug. We talked for a while. I must mention here, I loved the arrangement, the party was totally segregated, so much so, me along with many took off the hijab. My mother was happy to meet a lot of people she knew before, so was I to meet Ash and snowman! Oh didn't it feel good and very-much-home-like!
I still can't believe Doe apu is married already! Alhamdulillah she looked very happy (even though, as Zumana claimed, she cried a lot in her wedding day without the assistance of onion).
If you don't already know, I met Ash apu in the Islamic program I went. How we met was funny. I was coming out of the toilet when I heard my name. I looked up to see Ash apu approaching me with open arms. We hugged. Apparently she saw me coming so she started chasing me to the toilet! The next we met in New Market!
You guyz, I don't know anything about whats happening in your beautiful life. I just know from Nahid's sms, its very hot down there. I don't get enough internet-time to read your blog. Keep me updated with sms-s!
I had a quick read of the comments from last post. To Flynn, did I say bd was my home? If I did, then I rightly did so. It was unfinished though, Sydney is my home too. So will be any other place of the world once I start living there. BD is making me nostalgic just like Sydney will make me feel once I get back there after my 4 years of stay in BD. Oh, I must say this: I am missing Sydney. :-(. I can't wait till I get back on my bed and meet you guyz! Take care and plan for the parties as you should be planning. ;).

Dhaka bhromon

December 16, 2005

It was the Victory Day, bijoy dibosh. Thankfully ma was busy with something so I got the day off. I called up my Dudh bhai (I will call him DB from now on) and asked him to show around Dhaka on rickshaw. So he came and off we went on rickshaw, without the hood on. We went to a fast food shop in Baily road. It was beautiful, very much western in its style and service and... price. We didn't eat much but they scabbed off a pretty 770 tk from us! I did some quick calculation and found out I had to pay around the same price in Sydney. However I would not have gotten the nice surprice I got there. As I was busy talking with DB I hear someone say from the back, "excuse me, eta HP na?" It was a classmate of mine from Viqarunnisa. Yes, the Earth is round.
Then DB and me went to Katabon mosque for Juma prayer. They got really nice arrangement for women now. After Juma we got on a rickshaw and told him to go through and around Dhaka University campus until we tell him to stop and we will pay as he wants. We were on the rickshaw for 2 hours. We talked non-stop the whole time. We had 4 years to catch up on! Our stock hasn't finished yet though, nor did it then. Still we got off the rickshaw and started walking through DU. At one instance DB gave me a mischievous smile and asked, "cha khabi?" I looked around to find the small street side tea stalls where the rickshaw-walas sit for a 2 takas worth hot drink. We had our drink. Sitting on the bench just like everyone else. The flying flies couldn't intimidate me. Not even when one fly felt like killing himself and jumped in the hot tea of DB (he bought a new cuppa). We started walking and talking again. Through the familiar streets of DU. Nothing seems to have changed! It didn't even feel like I haven't seen all these for years. It felt like everything was exactly the way I left them. We had jhal-muri despite for warnings from DB about germs and all. I went through SM Hall. Huh, the place I spent 8 years of life! We didn't get on rickshaw again, we just walked to Katabon mosque and prayed asr and started from home. We had to walk a little more for rickshaw/CNG, thats when we had our second cuppa, moshla-flavoured tea from the road-side.
Just as we got off from the CNG, the Maghrib adhan started.

Nanu Bari

December 27, 2005

I went there on the 19th and came back to Dhaka on the 26th. It was like a week or so. My Brit cousins and uncle came to BD just for 2 weeks, so my mother wanted to make the best of it by staying with them in her birthplace with her brother. It was fun. Nanubari is a village with all the facilities of a city. Fridge, tiled bathroom, running water, gas-stove, badminton court, CD players along with ponds, rivers and shorisha khets. There was no land line phone though, and my mobile didn't have any credits. There was no mobile-network available either, that being so far away from a city. So I was totally disconnected from the rest of the world. I lost count of days and times. Every day was new in its own style. It was a great family reunion with guests from Australia, Britain and America, so we were 50+ people on the same house. There were games like ful-tokka and rumal chor when the electricity went at night, when it came we cousins sat down for a round of monopoly. Or we played badminton until it was midnight. Or we just sat around and talked. The biggest fun event of the day time was swimming event. RIver Shitolokkha flows by Nanubari. My uncles and cousins decided to swim across the river. So they did everyday. Due to increased risk, there was a security force following them on a boat. Needless to say, non-swimmer female cousins were part of that security force, just sitting on the side of the boat with our feel on water. When we got totally sick of rice and curry every day, my mother deary cooked a totally aussie style BBQ in the matir chula. Oh another thing, in this seven days, we bough BD food achars worth of over 500 taka. The corner shop owner was completely satisfied with customers like us. Days came when we gave them money but they couldn't give us pickles because they ran out of stock!

Alhamdulillah, my stomach is safe.

The only bad thing about the stay was I had to wear full hijab the whole 7 days due to Islamic-sense-less people all around. My adult guy cousin's do not understand the problems with poking me, her girl cousin. Or just walking into the room while I am preparing for bed and sit down comfyly for a chat. OKay, its a really big complain I know. Pray for my relative folks, so that Allah accepts them under the shade of Islam.

DaduBari

I was supposed to bombard my blog with fotos with this post. Seeing how slow the connection at my mama's place is, I just decided to post the initial version without the fotos. I will post the photos later on inshallah.

December 16, 2005
I had been in a different world last three days. A world of simplicity, closeness and warmth. I had been in my Dadubari. Four years it had been since I been there last time. But hardly anything changed. That same virgin village that still have not been raped by monstrous industries and complicated metropolitan minds--leaving the village people simple and unsophisticated. I took a lot of pictures, I will be uploading them inshallah, they will speak for themselves stronger than what my words can express.
Kalo hoye gechi Unsophisticated they are, sometimes crude. Every single one I met so blatantly declared--"tumi to onek kala howa geso"... or "HP to bidesh giya moila hoiya gese"... Mejaj ta ja choreche na! Not a single "woman" asked me what I study. All they complained about was my ever-darkening skin colour and slim figure... beshi hugna...I spent at least fifteen minutes trying to explain each woman the significance of Australain rough weather in darkening my skin. After this long lecture the women declared... "taile bidesh giya ki labh"... as if, forsha howar jonno bidesh gechi! God, save these people!I couldn't help but wonder, do these women not have anything else in their mind other than skin colour? No they don't. Fair and Lovely couldn't have profitted so much if they did. Ughhh.
Dadu This delirious 90+ year old lady couldn't recognise me or any of my family members... She sings as long as she is awake, remembers her name, but does not know how many offsprings she had. Her songs are very educating though, educating about life 50 years ago. Because this lady things she is still living her life 50 years ago, so sings as she beliefs.
Boro Fupi Sweet, cute, soft, down-to-earth lady. She got married when she was 12, now being taken cared of by her son-in-law. She is so sweet and emotional that she never fails to bring tears to my eyes. Only to satisfy her, I had to force myself to eat rice THREE TIMES A DAY! I was eating rice, she was sitting beside me. She asked me for the already squeezed lemon. Fearing there is no more juice left, I offered her a new piece. But she took the one I squeezed, squeezed that and said with quivering voice--the only reason she took the one I squeezed was, that had the touch of her "ma", ie me.
My faithful shoinno bahini There were people and their warmth. But what I like most about dadu bari, is the natural beauty. Every so often I walked out of the house to see the village. Its so beautiful, so very beautiful... you gotta see my village! I will post some pics Inshallah. First of all, have a look at the two little kiddies who showed me around the village. They are my nephews: cousin's kids. They are so cute, once I just pronounced my desire of eating guava because I haven't had one of those for so long... they got so desperate to get some for me that they climed a guava tree in search of some odd-season guavas (this is not the time of guava). Those poor things spent a good hour in the tree bashing around the branches in search of guavas. No matter how many times I tried to tell them, they wouldn't give up! At last they got some guavas for me but they were detastetable! Bitter coz had been bashed too many times, also they had been immature in the first place. Huh, young faithfuls!

tomake peyechi khuje, he cafe

Me and bro had been forced by mother deary to go to an errand to finish an unfinished job, we were on our grand expedition when I noted the advertisement: "Internet Cafe khujchen?" This one question enthralled me like no other question has in last few days! The possibility of accessing the world I know so well... so I convinced my bro to come with me in my mission impossible. Mission impossible it was. It said we had to go to some 34 Purbo Rampura, the rickshawwalla took us through streets that never see the day light, asked at least a dozen people but failed to reach us to our destination. Finally, a "thelawala" saved his life by blocking the road, so the rickshaw-wala had to apologise and leave us there. We got down from the rickshaw and voila, there it was! Right there! Alhamdulillah. I wrote the following blog from home, have a read... I really gotta run now. Do pray for me guyz!


11 December, 2005
Jet lag haven't spared me yet. My sleeping pattern is at absoluted disaster still, last night had six hours of sleep--hightest in an entire week. Bags under my eyes are forming, headache building up but cannot sleep!
If you ask about my physical health, that's probably the biggest news. Wait, probably not. The biggest news probably is, my stomach is perfectly okay even though I ate out, Alhamdulillah! That I did yesterday. The day after I came from Australia spent with families--feeling their warm welcome, watching their excited expression upon received gifts had been a real bliss. The happy day turned into an unhappy one when I watched the evening news. Bombs and bomb threats by so called religious people, their confession, accusation, blame game--all these made me sick and I ended up crying and sobbing. My brother tried to reason with me, but nothing could make me stop. That ten year old boy, whose father was killed by a suicide bomb was crying and saying "er bichar chai"... How on earth people commt these atrocities and murders and try to tell the world Allah wants these horendous crimes to happen? I was enraged and frustrated. Crying is something I am good at so thats what I did.
Next day I decide I needed a face lift so rang my dudh bhai Kamran bhaia and requested him to come and take me out. He promised he would be there in half an hour but took over an hour and blamed the traffic for the delay.
Then we started our voyage. Me, my bro, Kamran bhaia and Lamzity. All in a CNG. It was a real painful experience because Lamzity needs a little more area than what the CNG seat offers.
We did some window shopping and real shopping in Eastern Plaza and New Market. O, they checked my bag for bombs in Eastern Plaza! Then I announced I wanted to get on a rickshaw, so Kamran bhaia got me into a rickshaw and we headed off to New Market. There I had fuchka after 4 years. FOUR YEARS! I had to feed everyone coz both my bros are absolute broke-case.
I walked a lot afterwards, to those familiar alleys through nilkhet boi er dokan. Had a nostalgia attack, I must admit folks.

Sounds sort of unfinished, eh? But I really gotta run now. Again, do pray for me and forgive me for my absense from the blogging world!

ps. Just checked my result, even though I was terrified, Bangladesh fever will cost me a subject or two, I did pass everything! Alhamdulillah!

last minute rambling

Status: leaving the house in two hours

Description: rate ghum hoi ni. shokale uthe abishkar korlam, bdr kotha bhabte bhabtei amar pet kharap hoye geche, batash inhale kora shuru korle koto kothin roge pori ke jane! khabar khawa shuru korle to kothai nai...

jam-packed suitcases

So we are 4 people going to bd after nearly-four-years and we got (mendatory) gifts for about 200 people. I can see a skeptical shrug on that figure 200. This is no exaggeration I tell you! My mum has a football team for her siblings while my dads are eight bros and sis. My mother deary's sisters and brothers have less than 3 offsprings per head. Even then, all my uncles and aunties and cousins in mum's side (just the first cousins and uncles-aunties, mind you) add upto 54 people, that is, excluding our family. My uncles and aunties from dad's side have 5 kids in average... so the statistics are quite daunting there. My dad is the youngest brother--all his bros and sis have married sons and daughters, who have sons and daughters in turn. What's even creepier is, some of my cousins already have grandchildren (mind you, I am still talking about first cousins)! So I am nanu and dadu to many... My valiant mother has attempted to take at least something for this entire population, who are apparently, very closely related to us. And then there are friends of mine, my bro, mum and dad... Ma has bought gifts for everyone. She is still quite scared there will be people she will meet who she didn't buy gifts for... The result: we have stretched our limits as much as possible. Today, still 5 days to the flight, each of our suit-cases weight 30+ kilos, our hand luggages weight no less than 10 kilos... Even worse, we had to leave out a lot of things we really wanted to take... I still have not packed my phone, charger, mp3 player, cds, toiletries and other essentials. So you get the picture. Shopping, listing, tagging, packing has kept me v-e-r-y busy for last few days. Before starting all these, I took some time off to attend our first time ever photo session.
Coordinating among people, venue and time was the hardest thing to do. Emu and Nahid were half way through their exams, Flynn said she couldn't make it on weekends. As if it was not complicated enough, weather intervened and decided to pour like anything few days before the beginning of our famous arid Summer. The venue has been changed from Opera House--> Ferry--> .......... park --> Auburn botanical garden --> ......... park again --> Royal Botanical garden --> Ishi's place. Alhamdulillah we finally agreed upon converting Ishi' place to our photo studio at 10.30. And there we were at 11 waiting for emu-martian to show up. As she lives quite close to Ishi's place, that was unusual so we rang her up only to find she has done yet another emu-thing by totally completely forgetting the night before phone convo with HP. Doe apu arrived shortly among us freshwomen (this should be the feminine gender of freshmen, right?) and we officially started our photo session while terribly missing Emu. Finally Emu arrived but then Doa apu had to leave. What to do, promising to see her next time as a bride, we started taking more photos. Oh our creativity started cascading like the Nile... stair-case
green sofa
red sofa
kitchen chairs
sitting-down on our bottom in the driveway
steaming tea cups (empty for Ishi) on hands, sitting on the dolna
niqabi us: nice big eyes
lying down on grasses: all eyes closed due to the extra-bright sky
Ah there is no end to that! We took exactly 101 photos. Flynn was quite dazzled, she could not keep her eyes open in most pics. All of us agreed, we have never taken so many photos in our 19 years old life. Oh oh I must talk about our auto-timed photo attempt. We did not know how to activate that function so we had hillarious experience of trials and errors. First few attempts were disasterous: we set the timer and sat there smiling until our cheeks started to ache but nothing clicked. So we had to go fix that again.
Photo session it was. Another exciting thing happened. I bought my first mp3 player--Creative Zen Nano Plus 512MB mp3 player. Its slim, light, sleek and cool. I bought this with the money Baba gave me upon completing my high school last year. Mother was insisting I buy some "shonar goina" with that money to make the money "useful"... ughhh shonar goina... that is the most obnoxious way of making money useless (unless you love telling people how much gold you have in a pure Bangali-aunty-like manner). I knew ma will probably talk me into buying shonar goina once I go to bd so I bought this before she got the chance!
Its 12.30 AM now, one more day gone... meaning we are flying in 4 days. WOW! I will miss you guyz, I will miss Sydney, do take care and keep in touch! I will be using my current number for some days even after going to bd so you can SMS me there, but NEVER attempt ringing me (a horrific amount of charge will be imposed upon me as a consequence). I will get a new phone inshAllah, will notify you the number as soon as I get that.
Lastly, have a look @ one of our photo-session-special super duper posing ideas getting turned down by my ill-mannered camera that refuses to flash every now and then.