silent sunlight

melancholic me

2006-03-19T15:27:00.000+11:00

"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

2006-03-16T18:57:00.000+11:00

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

2006-01-28T00:51:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-27T18:03:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-27T17:57:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-27T17:46:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-27T17:18:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-11T21:57:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-08T08:58:00.000+11:00

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

2005-12-04T00:46:00.000+11:00

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.

facts of life

2005-11-24T21:42:00.000+11:00

Various facts of my current life:
1. Time flies... Me a bit dazzled by the fact that I already finished the first year of my uni-life. Three more years to go, inshallah.
2. Me stopped by at Auburn GoodWords last wednesday and bought Sami Yusuf's new album My Ummah. Me had been listening to that every since... Bro and mum loved the song "My Ummah". Very well done in this percussion version with minimal music and hell of a lot of passion, accompanied by Sami Yusuf's beautiful voice. I like the song about Hijabi girls.
3. My room is a total mess right now. Its scary.
4. Me flying for BD in exactly 14 days... next next Thursday...

cannot believe this... how time flies! Its been almost 4 years... wow!

OMG

2005-11-22T06:46:00.000+11:00

ME FLYING IN 16 DAYS!
OMG!!!

ps me needs a fast cure from the much suffered compulsive blogging disorder.

photo session and karcoal chicken

2005-11-21T22:48:00.000+11:00

salam everyone,

I thought its the easiest to post up and then discuss about organising the day rather than personal emails, msn chats and numerous phone convos. By the time one agrees on something, others come up with new problems.
Okay, so this is the short summary of the event. Feel free to discuss.

Event name: photo session and karcoal chicken (not sure about the second bit yet... Charcoal chicken would be a treat specially for Nahid).

Occassion: me suddenly discovering I don't have any pics with you guyz with my hijab on! I have heaps without my hijab... I need take the prints of some of my pics with my friends here since my friends and cousins and khalas and mamis so want to see. I do not want to disappoint them, but I don't want to take the prints of our non-hijabed pics, simply because of the increased risk.

Date: Next monday (lots of "?"s here... I still need everyone to agree).

Venue: It just occurred to me, there can be some safety issues regarding this. So I will email you guyz about that or you can email me and propose places. Of course the finality depends on your convenience. For the time being, we just need to agree with the purpose and date.

Who are invited: My aussie blogging buddies, YMSA girls, you are all invited and urged to come! Anyone who do not fall under the category, you are urged not to come.

dilemma dilemma

2005-11-20T14:18:00.000+11:00

What do you get for a group of 5 girls:
1. who are a group of fussy 19 year olds
2. who were your high school friends... janer dosto...
3. who are NOT girly-girly
4. and NOT nerdy-nerdy
5. last time you saw who was 4 years ago (before leaving for sydney from dhaka), you occasionally wrote to each other, both snail-mails and e-mails, talked on the phone--no awkward silences during the convos--> (hopefully) lots to say and feel
6. you really really want to give something special and imaginative (note again: not girly-girly)
7. when you are in... err... tight budget (don't bash me up... $15-$20/head max).
8. Okay, I know what you are thinking--I am heading towards impossibility... GOD HELP!

More dilemma
What to get for your special high school teachers?Keyring? Souvenir? Anything a bit more imaginative?

Even more dilemma
What to get for your 55 year old highly-cynical-lawyer-uncle (mama) who promised to get "My Ummah" for you?
I am juggling between "The road to Makkah" and I don't know.

life afresh

2005-11-20T12:00:00.000+11:00

Quote of the day: "Way to a man's stomach is through his heart"--Emu Martin

Courtesy of flynn

Me decided to go green-ish and silver-ish again

Things to consider:

1. The days to come... with Doe apu trying to win "his" heart through stomach, Ash apu going through dead bodies and few other working or soon-to-be working women... mere contemplation gives me shudder.

2. How long will it take me to email the pics to ishi? The mail had been on "sending" status for 15+ minutes now.

3.Why doesn't it feel like I got 2 more exams to appear?

lamz flying in 29 hours

2005-11-13T10:54:00.000+11:00

Lamz,
তোকে মিস করব রে জান্টু!
আমার আপসি ডিপসিকে ছাড়া ৩ সপ্তাহ!!!
......................................
......................................
lamz-deprivation-syndrome এ তো আমি মারা যাবো!

অনেক অনেক ভাল থাকিস।

with virtual hug
আপুনি
May Allah be with you

it's Sami again!

2005-11-08T20:15:00.000+11:00

I am doomed! I am getting atleast a Fail for sure (unless Allah the almightly saves me of course!). I am obsessed with Sami's new video Hasbi Rabbi. Downloaded the "pirated" version from Sami's fan's site.

I am absolutely obsessed with it! Having finished our monthly quota long before, the downloading proceeds at snails speed. It took me a pathetic 4 hours to download the 31 megs movie... but yeah, I finally got t! And I watched it. Once, twice, thrice. Then I got lamzity to watch it with me. Then I dragged my sleeping bro out of his bed and made him watch it with me. Then I transfered the video to my ma's computer as she was too lazy to come down to the study room and I made her watch it twice (along with my siblings) while repeatedly asking her how she found it. I loved it!!!! I am still listening to the song. Okay, I know I make a big deal out of anything "sami" or thats how some people see it. I didn't realise this looked so bad until a friend of mine a few days ago asked whether I had a crush on Sami or not. Ahem. Well, I guess the way I get all enthusiastic about Sami's new production, its not unnatural to find it rather odd. :D. Okay let me explain my behaviour.

Those of you who grew up in an isolated Muslim society like me would understand me. Isolated not as in ghetto... Isolated from the rest of the Muslim Ummah, getting no essence of that whatsoever, never having the sense of "belonging" with the Ummah, feeling hundred times closer to someone from the same nationality than another Muslim of different culture. Isolated in the sense, there is really nothing "Islamic" in Bangladeshi society. The media pretty much controls the society as society sees whatever media presents to them and thus society's thought process is controlled by media. There was NOTHING in the mainstream media in Bangladesh that would represent anything "Islamic" in a good way. As a child I grew up seeing some women with ghomta half way through their head singing praises of the Prophet--"Touhider ei murshid amar" while my parents criticised that practice and representation of Islam. I knew about some extremely unpopular (unpopular among general people, hardly any "general" citizen knew about their existence...popular only among a very selected community of the country) Islamic cultural groups. As a child I grew up listening to those wonderful melody of "Rasul tumi je amar..." and other nasheeds but as I grew up to be a young adult among non-practicing friends, I got exposed to extremely vibrant, magnetic and creative pop music of Bangladeshi, Indian and western music industry. My natural instinct shaped by my family tradition would stop me from getting addicted to them, nevertheless I couldn't deny the fact I loved them and found the Islamic nasheed of the country rather too "dry". Me going to a school where I was the only muhajjiba, there was nothing that could make a teenager like me feel proud of my faith, give me a sense of belonging to the Muslim Ummah. Books like Saimum and Nasim Hijaji stuff were doing there bits (layed the keystone Alhamdulillah), but obviously just reading the theory and not seeing that in practice doesn't help.

Then Alhamdulillah Allah brought me to Australia. I am still very much "Bangali" (love sari, love rabi thakur stuff, love bangla books) but I think I came into terms with my feelings. I didn't have any Muslim friends in the high school in Sydney either, High School in Australia was full of proud "curries". So Uni really meant a change for me. I finally started seeing a microcosmic view of the greater diverse-aware-educated Muslim community. This is really a blessing, I love it. I love feeling the feelings of belonging to the Muslim Ummah.

Now, I think I feel very differently about songs and music than most of the Muslim sisters around me. I love singing. I love it with a passion. I never had any professional training for singing, but I love it and I sing whenever I can. For most people, singing is a "need", singing for them means an adaptation of "necessity" as a form of dawah. Not for me. I love singing so whenever I sing any nasheed, I know I am doing something I love for the sake of Allah. I have this passion of the cultural side of Islam. I know I am not talented like all the others out there, but I got a passion for it and I cannot help myself. :-). I get really excited over any Islamically oriented cultural production.

Specially if I do not have to make an effort to like them!
Specially if I love them for genuine reason, their quality, taste and creativity, not because I am meant to love them.

Read the last two lines again.

Sami Yusuf's production fit in the definition perfectly making me look like I have a crush on Sami (Astaghfirullah... hahahha). I was waiting for something like this for so long. Okay, take Hasbi Rabbi. Sami Yusuf sings in four different languages here--English, Arabic, Turkish and Hindi. The melody is from an Afghan folklore. This so wonderfully represents the universality of Islam, the fact that Muslim Ummah is one, clinging onto Allah's rope, yet the diversity of the Muslim ummah is to be celebrated. Difference, diversity are all good words in Islam, they don't invoke the third d word--"disunity". I love it, I just love it. Those of you who have watched the recent Bollywood productions know what they are upto lately... like in "Kal ho na ho", "Kabhi khushi Kabhi Gham" or "Ham tum", the ones filmed in Western countries... they started this all embracing attitude thingie that is intimidating me... Unlike before, they do not say the traditional culture is conflicting with the western culture, rather they show ANYONE can be an Indian given they love the culture. In "Bride and Prejudice" an African American goes unto singing "India makes me free". One would think, India, the country that is known for its repulsive caste system says that? Yeah, it does. Bollywood so cunningly started going through the path of America... Ah well, they are all capitalists, what did I expect? I can see this is why the younger generation people around us are so inclined to Bollywood stuff because Bollywood is not rejecting them, Bollywood is giving them the freedom of accepting the popular Western culture still making them Indian by a simple touch of "ethnicity"... without making any real sacrifice on their part... I am totally off the topic I see. Okay, let me try to gather my thought again... my point is, this all embracing type attitude gives the like minded ones the sense of belonging. We, the Muslims needed this. Sami Yusuf plays with all different genres (did you know there is a rap in the new album?) with an ease making the universal message of Islam very clear. I don't know about you, but music really works for me. Music can make me cry, laugh, hate or love. I imagine thats true for most people so I welcome Sami's newest endevour "Hasbi Rabbi" with all my heart and pray so that Allah accepts him and let Islam and Muslim Ummah be benefited from his talent.

n.b. If you have read upto this (which I doubt very much :P), please do remember me and my exams in your prayer!

ব্লগিং-উপবাস

2005-11-06T12:42:00.000+11:00

১১ আর ১৪ তারিখ পরীক্ষা। এরপর একটানা এক সপ্তাহের ছুটি। তারপরে আবারও পরীক্ষা। এখন থেকে অন্তত ১৪ তারিখ পর্যন্ত কঠিন ব্লগিং-উপবাস চালাতে হবে। হে প্রভু সাহায্য করো!

(অদ্ভূত সব পরীক্ষা পূর্ববতী উপসর্গ হচ্ছে। আপাতত মাথায় এই মান্ধাত্ম আমলের গানটা ভন ভন করছে--
সে যে কেন এলো না,
কিছু ভাল লাগে না,
এবার আসুক তারে আমি মজা দেখাবো!)

The boring recount of a (hot) Eid

2005-11-04T14:06:00.001+11:00

Eid dress Everyone is either talking about it excitedly or condemning the excitement over something so worldly so I thought this issue is big enough to get the first call. I don't condemn others for having so many and so many Eid dresses (but I don't recall ever having more than two, which itself is a rare occurrence), but I didn't have any this year. Don't get me wrong, there is no humbleness involved, it was merely the fact that assignments, universities, Ramadan and planning for bd has kept my nerves so preoccupied, didn't have anything left for an Eid dress. Yesterday got a panic attack after realising I had to wear something on Eid! I could always wear a sari but then I couldn't think of torturing my self by being wrapped in so many layers plus the abaya in this suffocating heat. Ma landed on the scene to rescue me (read traumatise me) and dug up a maroon salwar kamij with heavy golden work all over it. That reminds me of bridal dress so I only wore that a few occatios so far. My mum thinks its a shame that I never wear those gorgeous clothes and prefer to attire in boring, uninteresting bura colours. hahaha. So, my mother won and I decided upon wearing that heavy salwar kamij of heavy work.

Night before my bioinformatics assignment was due at 12 at night. I came back from uni only to find the house at a chaotic state--a yelling mother and a bewildered sister and father. That meant my mother has already embarked on her cooking adventure and those two poor souls were trying to help her out. Sadly, that wasn't working out too well as my sis was proved inadequate in washing potatoes, my dad burnt the precious meat and the chotpoti refused to get boiled. I threw my bag at a corner and extended my hands in charity. Helped as much as I could while constantly worrying about the assignment I had to submit in couple of hours...
With all those chaos around us the iftar time approached... then it hit me... I just got few more minutes left for forgiveness and acceptance... Baba called everyone for pre-Iftar dua like every other day and started talking about the significance of the moment... he reminded us of the hadith of the Prophet where he cursed those who got Ramadan but couldn't have his sins forgiven by Allah... Baba reminded us, we spent all these Ramadan time asking for forgiveness but we can never be sure of whether we got it or not. It does not take Allah all 30 days to forgive a person, it does not take us to pray for hours and hours to be forgiven. All that is needed is our pure repentence and Allah's mercy... unconditional mercy... it can happen in hours and days but it can also happen in moments. So if we are lucky, we can have forgiveness in these few moments left...Baba led the dua like every other day but it was different. It was full of tears and emotions and true repentance and humility... I cried like I haven't cried in ages, in entire Ramadan. I cried my heart and soul out... And it felt good... just yesterday I was in a sea of despair and hours after that I knew Allah's mercy is more than enough for me... inshallah he has accepted 5 tearful repenting souls...
After that tearful Iftar it was all work and work again. Cleaning up the house... tiding up, cooking... no end to all that. Finally escaped from all those works and returned to my assignment. Finished the assignment and uploaded on the net at past 11.30. The whole house was sleeping by then. When I finally went to bed it was exactly 1.37 am. I did not know howI was going to get up in the morning...

the big day My fear was proved right... I was so dead in my sleep that I couldn't hear anything until lamzity screamed in my ears... "apuni, fojorer shomoi ar 10 minute ache!" Then I tried to jump straight on my bed but my poor over-worked body was protesting. Still managed to drag myself to the shower. It was 6 o clockish by then. Apparantly we were supposed to start from home at 6 am to make it on time to the Eid prayer. But everyone was sort of dead. 5 minutes per head was the allocated time, everyone sort of kept in time. I had to iron my clothes in that chaos so got a lot of jharis for procrastinating. I tried to bring some decency in my messy room. Then dressing up, a bit of eye liner or mashcara, perfecting the bend of the hijab, finding matching jewellery took up some time. Then we had the first part of our family tradition. Leaving us girls to dressing up, the boys of the family, ie Baba and bhaiun have already set out the table. Five of us went, sat around the same table and broke our month long fast together, with a date. Then came ma's scrumtuous sweet dishes. Everyone had something. I just love this tradition of us of having the eid breakfast together! By then it was 6.30 and we knew we really needed to get out of the house to get the eid prayer at 7.30. In that hurry hurry situation we totally forgot to perform the second part of our tradition that I wait every year for. We didn't have it this year, I think this is the first time it happened so in my 19 years of life! Okay this is how it goes: Ma puts on perfume on everyone... Baba, bhaiun, lamzity, me and herself. Then we all hug each other ie do kolakoli. Its a wonderful way to start the Eid day, holding your dear ones closest to you. We always enjoy how our mummy and daddy blush and do kolakoli with each other. lolz. This is the only time we get to see them in that romantic proximity. :P.
Rest of the day involved heat and more heat. Body heat, temper-heat, sunny-heat, stuffy-heat. We raced towards the car 60 minutes till the Eid prayer at Bicentennial park. I love praying there. Those of you who go there already know about the atmosphere, for those who don't let me elaborate... As you get out of motor way, you will be stuck in long lines of traffic--cars with bearded men and hijab-ed women drivers and passengers. Soon you and fellow drivers will become frustrated trying to find a driving spot! Afterall, an odd five thousand people pray there... When you finally manage to find a driving spot 10 miles away from the prayer spot, because a lot of Muslim apparantly had been camping there since last night, you walk to the praying spot. I always love that walk because as you walk through the well maintained park, you see Muslim sisters and brothers walking down towards the praying area from all different directions. As you get closer, you hear that... the magnificent melodious taqbir... "Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar, La Ilaha illallahu wallahu akbar wallahu akbar wa lillahil hamd"... The imam reciting that aloud and 5 thousand Muslims in the park joining him in unison. When you finally see the disciplined rows of Muslims, you are bound to get all emotional. The Muslim brothers at the front and sisters at the back standing in prayer in front of the Lord of the Universe on the green grass, under the blue sky, miles away from any Muslim majority part of the world. If you are there you can feel Allah's rahmah pouring down in the small portion of the park. Last time I went there, my lacrimal glands leaked right when I went to sujud... the feelings was too spiritual and beautiful.
So this year we intended to pray there again. We campaigned a lot and got at least twenty odd families to go there to pray. Me living in the *mountains* usually need 30 mins to get to bicentennial park, just to be safe, we started an hour ago. And, as it had to be yesterday, some road blocked hence all the office going cars were right on the motorway and we were literally moving an inch a minute. I have never seen it like that--cars dead stop on motor way! I thought the speed limit was supposed to be 110 km/h! Don't think it was even 110 cm/minute. It was a disaster and soon we knew we were never gonna make it to bicentennial park. The sun was already up (later on heard about the heat experienced in the park), the air was getting hot, so was our temper. Couldn't imagine missing Eid prayer for traffic jam! That doesn't happen even in BD. Specially its wajib on baba and bhaia... they were getting extremely annoyed at the road, traffic and us (coz we took so long in shajuguju *sigh*). We finally decided to give up our hope and change routs to pray at Sefton as there is a jamat at 8 am there. Its ironical, I was campaigning specifically against praying in Sefton because of the Bangali majority and so unislamic nationalistic attitude among people... hm.. it all fires back eh? Bhaia took us through the inside roads, avoiding all motorways and main roads. We finally managed to park the car and get out of that at exactly 7.59 (I checked the time) and caught up with the jamat right when they started taqbir. Phew!
Finished prayer and started our voyage towards people's house. Went to Saifuddin Uncle's place, poor Sasan was revising his HSC notes... he had an exam both yesterday and today! We dragged Orpa and her mum out of their bed (ie they were still sleeping when we went there). Humayun uncle came out in his sando genji to open the door--no one expected us that early! Ridi sounded relieved she didnt have any exam on Eid day. Oh Nusrat... oh that cutee... went to Oli uncle's hous, Nusrat got very inspired by Rumana's wedding sari and got her parents to get her a red sari. Helped the girl get in bridal dress! Shah Jamal aunty... poor aunty is suffering a lot. And the brother of Farouq uncle... he is only 25. A few months ago, all of a sudden, he had some fever, the virus caused brain damaged and now he is in hospital bed, in coma, unable to respond to anything. Doctor's said the situation probably will never improve. The worse thing is, he got married a few months ago and his wife is several months pregnant...

At this point I took a break... I don't know what else to write... this couple amaze me... I don't know how people cope with tests so difficult... and me, I here complain about my "self-created-bruises"? Huh, talk about sadistic romanticism! Allah, make me a stronger person, help me learn from these things...

Anyway, got vising few other houses, Ash apu and Flynn's house was in the list. Poor Snowman and daggy were tired and sleepy, even sleeping, we dragged them up! Ash apu was so tired she had to lie down in bed and talk to us. Flynn was being all responsible, taking care of the kitchen. Aunty notified us about her generous help in the kitchen, in cooking that date-cake, buter halua and all. I can't believe I made her hand-write that long recipe of date-cake! We stayed there for the longest--two hours or so and planned for the upcoming party of Bangladesh-going girls. The venue is currently settled to be at our *mountain*. :P. Ash apu also gave me some valuable tips about shopping in bd for "full sleeve kamij".
Our family Eid was mostly in the car. Because we live so far away from everyone else (or is it them who live far away?) the journey was long. There we were five of us packed in our toyota camry. Us three siblings at the back, parents at the front. Songs were sang, games played. We teased Lamzity a lot coz the back seats seemed to be shrinking which is in fact her continuous ruthless expansion--vertical and horizontal...

Its yesterday I realised again, we are pretty close as family. I can see our bond is getting interfered by that four letter obscene word "b-u-s-y". Since me and bro started uni and job, we hardly have our dinners together. This is probably the last time we had our Eid together, even yesterday bro was saying how he needed to spend the day with brothers from uni. I know we will be spending next Eid in Bangladesh inshallah, without Baba (first time ever). Lots of first-time-evers will come and things will change. I was reading Eccentric sis's blog and I knew I will be reminiscining my past-Eids like that may be next Eid... or the Eid after. But that will happen. I knew that so I tried to enjoy every moment, every fight, every heat (and the underlying cool breeze which can only be felt) with my family members yesterday. And I did.

facing my-self

2005-11-02T05:28:00.000+11:00

(may be feelings like these aren't meant to be public... at least not released in www. but i am too tired to care).

I wish I wrote diary like before. Facing my inner self, conversing and sorting things out. Haven't been doing them for so long! Why is it so? Am I scared to meet my inner self?

Feeling all morbid after the last odd night of Ramadan. I was reading from somewhere, you know you spent a successful Ramadan when at the end of Ramadan you start feeling all relieved, happy, satisfied and sorted out. Now I know I haven't had a successful Ramadan because I am not feeling any of those. Rather feeling more confused because I hoped everything will be okay in Ramadan. All of a sudden I find myself in a sea of despair with no where to go. Its like for so long I had been on the edge of a cliff, nearly-falling-down... then I start falling down, I grab whatever during my fall because I know there is no hope once I fall, fall hard--I will end up in an abyss. There I was, clinging onto straws for so long... Sometimes I got substantial support, held onto a stronger something... if only I got a helping hand (or asked for one) I would have gotten and raised up again. Now I feel I am beyond help... just falling down to the abyss for an eternity... falling down... falling down... falling down...
When did it all start? I don't know, I tried to "figure out" with no luck.
I just know now I am so weak, so very weak that I am not surviving well.
How does it feel when you know you are doing something bad, you should not be doing that yet you do that... and later on when you realise you should repent you discover you are not feeling "that bad" about that, but you should?
I hoped I would walk out of Ramadan a slightly stronger person than I am, the self control would do me some good... but now I don't see the change. And this is making me afraid. Afraid of myself.
I have seen people complain they cannot cry in front of Allah even if they die for that. I don't have that problem. I can cry. I cry my eyes out. I can cry when I am alone or when I am with people. But you can feel when the dua is being accepted. I know when that happens. I have experienced that ethereal special feelings a lot of times. But this Ramadan, all my tears and pleading feel useless. I just don't feel I am being accepted. I know after repeadedly committing the same sin, Allah hardens the soul and stops accepting that person. I fear... I fear that happened to me. I don't know what to do, how to change it.
I give excuses and I hate that about myself. I justify my wrongs in my own eyes with theories so far fetched, I wouldn't even look at them had they been for others. I came all these way giving excuses.
When I was little, the absolute innocent age... then if I got hurt/bruised, I would go upto my ma and cry and show her my bruise. She would pick me up and kiss my bruised site and then it happened... all my pain stopped. They stopped just like that. I literally couldn't feel anything afterwards. I knew ma had some kind of magic to have done that. I just wish all the self-created-bruises in my heart would stop like that through a magic... I am running after the only source of magic I know (as a cynic adult now) exists but why is it taking me so long to reach that? why so l-o-n-g?

spellng chcek

2005-10-22T19:50:00.000+10:00

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht frist and lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod as a wlohe.

courtesy of NewsLink @ Joomla

to go or not to go

2005-10-21T08:23:00.001+10:00

10 reasons I want to go to bd and cannot wait till I go:

1. My lovely ever-growing extended family. Let me give you the stats, my mum has 10 siblings while my dad has 7. If I counted properly I have 27 cousins in my mum's side. Dad's side... errr... infinitely many. Each of his brothers and sisters have around 10 kids most of whom are married too... you do the calculation.

2. Friends... as you all know by now my fellow bloggers, I came here when I was 15. I left some really close friends when I came and had been successfully keeping contact all along. I am looking forward to meeting the crazy group again! Have a look at four of them 3 yrs ago (there are a few more plus the not-so-close classmates):

3. Grannys' places. Specially nanubari because a lot of my growing up experiences had been there. I learnt how to swim in nanubari pond, swam in shitolokkha river nearby... two must-have river experiences:
i. going to the middle-ish of the river by boat and jumping from the boat to the river.
ii. boat rides at moon light... uh ah, I can spend my entire life doing that!

4. Islamic organisation in bd... I haven't really enjoyed Islamic organisation before I came. There were many reasons that are better not mentioned. But I learnt a lesson that I am trying to implement in my own life now. Some Islamic figures take amusement in proving others wrong. They might prove themselves right for the time being, but that does harm in the long run--people shrink away from those figures. May Allah save all Islamic endeavours from such personalities. But yeah, I would like to attend lots and lots of Islamic programs and "return where I started and see the place for the first time".

5. Changes in Islamic endeavours in bd in general would be something interesting to observe. The recent developments after we came are:
i. an Islamic party is in the government, so unlike before, people are not discriminated against because they belong to the particular Islamic political party. Not sure whether the opposite happens though, which I want to see hand in hand. It would be an interesting observation, because all my life I saw people being disadvantaged for belonging to Islamic groups. Students in the hostels were not alllowed to have particular Quran tafseer, they would get beaten up if they do, sisters had been beaten up, abused for wearing borkha and niqab... people took all sorts of precautions to hide their affiliation to that particular group lest they get branded. Reverse mechanism should be interesting!
ii. Islamists started publishing a newspaper which claim to follow the ethics of journalism and "present unbiased news". It would be interesting because before I came the only Islamic people owned newspaper was blatantly biased, more like a propaganda campaign than a newspaper. They would shamelessly cover-up the other side of the story. This introduction should be interesting... me and my brother already personally know someone from the editorial group, he will be showing us around.
iii. More frequent appearance of Islamic people in TV channels. Ten years ago that was totally unimaginable BTV being the only TV channel. Now that there are lots of private TV channels, its feasible.
iv. There are some changes in the Islamic cultural groups in bd. They still have a long way to go, but there really had been some changes lately in pursuit of bringing the world Islamic standard. I heard some groups have even started playing percussion instrument. I am looking forward to see the reaction because until I came to ozland, I did not know (selective) musical instrument is considered Halal by many scholars!

6. Dhaka oh my Dhaka! I grew up in Dhaka University campus, so I have a special bond with the campus. DU campus is green, so very green! Very little traffic, almost no sound or air polution, nice and quiet--even though people who don't live there seem to believe otherwise! British coucil library and public library are both in the campus--two of my favourite places. I need to go to my old school as well and meet up with teachers. Kakoli apa is someone I am looking forward to meet. I need to see another sir too, he made an obnoxious, very unprofessional comment about my hijab when I was in year 8. I really want to see him again. :-).

7. Street food culture of Dhaka. I have always loved that, I will be loving them again I know, even though my stomach will protest for certain. Jhalmuri, fuchka, chotpoti, achar... all those. Plus I am planning on going to a puran dhaka food shops and devouring "kachchi biriani". Always read about their appraisals, its time to check things hand in hand. Resturants and fast food shops shouldn't be spared either.

8. Its raining outside now... sudddenly getting all nostalgic about bd rain. Playing in the mud in nanubari during rain then jumping in the pond with all my cousins... oh those good old days! I used to love riding rickshaw in the rain too, by myself, without the hood on. I would love to experience that once more...

9. New developments in Bangladesh in terms of architecture. I haven't seen Jamuna bridge, haven't seen Kornofuly shopping complex, haven't been to Fantasy Kingdom, to the flyover... Apparently polythene is banned in Dhaka now. Isn't that interesting? There is this new vehicle called CNG.. need to ride on that too! That reminded me, as a child I saw "ghorar gari" riding in roads of Dhaka as rare occurance, but apparently they are available to entertain people. I have to get on one of those.

10. I haven't mentioned this up until now even though most of the people have this towards the top of their lists--shopping. Oh yes shopping. Need to buy sharis and clothes and jwellaries and books and cds and what nots...

11. Hahahaha. Just realised I haven't mentioned one of the prime reasons I am looking forward to bd... the wedding bells! Doe's marriage is a must attend. Hoping other wedding bells will ring too and I will get to have the fun of my life!

THE reason why I don't want to go:
People had been 'talking'. Conjuring up stories. Adding on to the gossip. Assuming a lot. I haven't realised its that bad when Ash told me about that, but had been realising since yesterday. I really don't feel like going anymore... this is frustrating... huh!

picture perfect

2005-10-20T23:07:00.001+10:00

[Image deleted by blog author]

years and years ago... the lovely brother kissing his dearest sister...

[Image deleted by blog author]

looks incomplete without the mother but the mother is around--taking picutre of the blissful husband and lovely kiddies...

i was just looking at the pictures of those good old days. feel like going back again. those innocent, politics free days. ah, had there been a way, i would definitely go back. at least under the circumstance. presumptuous people had been hurting me too much with their weirdest assumptions... nothing stays as simple as they are originally intended to be, thats your lesson for today HP. Grow. Learn... I keep telling myself. and I pray to thee my Lord, save me from these painful learning experiences...

ramadan... once again

2005-10-06T07:07:00.000+10:00

salam all,
So, Ramadan is here in our lives. Once again. Not many shaitans prancing about and having the fun of their lives manipulating us... Doesn't that feel good?! Alhamdulillah, there is so much hope in Ramadan... yesterday when my Dad was doing Munajat at the Iftar, he said something that brought tears in my eyes... the people in grave look forward to this month because this is the only time their punishments are at a halt... Try thinking yourself to be in the darkness of the grave and wishing this peace would never end...
Even for us, Alhamdulillah... you know how every Fard deed of Ramadan gets multiplied to seventy times or greater... when I was younger, for some reason I had the impression that the hadith applies only to prayers... but its not the case! Its talking about all kinds of Fard deeds. Didn't it feel good to realise even listening to parents fall under this category! Can you believe, I actually ironed my Dad's boring shirts and pants just so that my deeds are multiplied by seventy... or take this: I actually had a glass of milk this morning because my mum insisted on that.
Even if you cannot fast for reasons, don't be disheartened. Praying salat, fasting and reading Quran are not the only ways of picking up rewards during Ramadan. Read lots of hadith (I find reading hadith a classical treatment of my depressive moments. Whenever you are feeling a bit down, or negative sine curve as ishi would put it, pick up a Hadith book and start reading... by the time you read ten hadiths, you will find you are no longer feeling as bad and your mind is thinking about more important things of life), and a lot of books... I planned on reading a Sirah book during Ramadan... have your own plans. Don't just read whatever for the sake of reading. And yes, Ramadan is a good time for making all kinds of donations... make donations to all the places you planned to donate, even if you are a bit short of money. Remember, all your donations in Ramadan are like donating money multipul times during other times of the year... Try to update your organizational responsibilities as well.
If you need inspirations, have a read of this: Ready, Set, Ramadan. And pray for me, pray for me, pray for me. I got lots of work loads from uni, going straight to bd after exams so I will have to go shopping even though I thought I won't go to shopping centres during Ramadan. Ugghhh... uni...
Oh yeah, ISOC (islamic society at our uni) is holding annual Iftar next friday 14/10. Do come along with all the poeple you can gather... friends, family, neighbours, everyone! you know how our Islamic society is suffering from terrible malnutrition... :$. Lets hope this month of baraqah brings baraqah on ISOC's health and some sense in whimsical me.

ps Don't forget to pray for me!

doe's secret mission

2005-10-02T13:01:00.000+10:00

scene 1
HP and doe messaging each other:
me salam apu, darao tomar khobor ase. br london came al the way from britland and i hear that from ash apu? i am offended!
doe salam... (...=other stuff) u can spread da news now. pray 4 me.

scene 2
HP cant breath!
I can't breath, I can't breath! gosh, she finally allowed me to end the secrecy and "spread the news"! O my god, I cannot believe I can finally spread THE news!
Does she have any idea how I was being tortured all this time? When did it all start? I believe from as early as March, and wasn't I the one who heard it all? And, with those bursting news I had to keep my mouth shut for so long! 6 months of silence! can a girl endure so much pain! Ya Allah, I can jump up and down, break the dance floor, fly away! I am finally freee from the pledge of secrecy!!!

Our doe is getting married!!!

scene 3
HP realises doe is leaving her in the mountain for the Queen's land.
HP feels desolated. abandoned. heartbroken.
Taste of thai will never taste the same.
Her favorite earrings and denim skirt will always cause sighs to befall.
Those wooden bracelets tied on her bedhead will be the daily reminder.

Ya Rob, how am I gonna survive uni? Ash is leaving, and now Doe, my mentor is leaving me too. :(.

scene 5
An "emergency-murder-operation" being planned in case HP and her mates don't get invited to the wedding in bangiland.

scene 6
HP is making prayers so that doe and her husband-to-be live happily ever after with each other. (Inshallah they will. HP knows doe well... no one can be unhappy with her!)

OUT: day one

2005-10-02T08:04:00.000+10:00

Cataract dam was stunningly beautiful... a sample for you... more about the dam out, night out and ice out on the way...

2005-09-19T07:41:00.000+10:00

ভাল লাগছে না কিচ্ছু।
অবসন্ন লাগছে খুব।
যা করা উচিত্ তা করতে ইচ্ছা করছে না। একদম না।
নিজের উপর জোর খাটাতেও ক্লা-ন্-ত লাগছে।
শুধু ঘুম পায়।
চোখ বন্ধ করে থাকা এত্তো সোজা কেন?

interesting read

2005-09-17T21:01:00.000+10:00

I just came across an interesting article from Islam-Online titled Muslims: within Hollywood and without. Interesting considering it provides you with a well researched insight into the motives and techniques of Hollywood representation of Muslims.

days of our lives

2005-09-17T06:45:00.000+10:00

Then...
There he was lying down on the bed. His wet eyes full of unspoken words and pain. I was happy a while ago—the kind of happiness you feel after having a refreshing shower. I had a shower minutes ago in the palmyra-leave-framed platform (aka bathroom) under the open sky constantly worrying about privacy. I was happy to get out of that and wear my new blue Salwar Kamiz. I perfumed myself and started hurrying everyone else for getting ready. Its Eid man! Then I came to this room and found him lying on the bed, irresponsive to my call. He looked at me and its then that I saw the anguish in his eyes. Those eyes that were identical to my Baba, yet the owner here was not Baba, it was Choto Chacha. He, my uncle, shared a lot of facial features with my dad. Their eyes were the same brown eyes under the faint outline of eyebrow. I think they looked so much similar because of their identical full beard. My dad's one started greying long ago but uncle still had dark beard. So he looked a lot like my Dad's older photos, even though he was three years older than my dad. His skin was smoother than my dad which added to his younger looks. His sticklike figure made him look small and frail. He looked even more skeletal and ashen in the oversized crisp white Panjabi he was wearing to “celebrate” Eid. I sat down beside him and noticed the pearls shining in his eyes.
I held his hand and sat there for a while but couldn't bear the somber atmosphere for long. I could feel my cheeks going hot. Anticipating the storm approaching from deep down, I promptly excused myself and ran out of the house, kept running through backyard then the pineapple garden until I reached the bamboo bush. Then I walked and slid myself behind the bush in my own secluded place. I discovered this place a few days ago. This grassy platform of land was partitioned from the outside world by a thick wall of bamboo plants enclosing the area in a half circle. I sat there facing away from the bamboo plants, facing the expansive green lake covered with lily pads. The bamboo leaves all around me bowed to touch the calm green water. The cool breeze passed from time to time exciting the swinging bamboo leaves. The overall setting was tranquil and pacifying. These days I was getting easily emotional and confused in the commotional vibe of the house, so I had to keep visiting this tranquil place every now and then to rediscover my serenity. The cool breeze was drying my wet cheeks by then. I was somewhat appeased and took a moment to stand aside and reflect.
I don't remember a time when my uncle was not sick. But he was never this bad. This particular sickness started fifteen long years ago. I remember that time when uncle was paying frequent visits to our S M Hall quarter. That was the time he first started having trouble walking. His weak legs would shake as he walked, protesting, unable to support the weight of his body. A lot of doctors were consulted but none could detect the problem he was having. Uncle, brother of my robust forty year old Baba, would walk around the house supported by a cane stick. Since then his situation was steadily declining with every passing day. Prominent doctors in Bangladesh were consulted and tried, failing all—he was dragged to India. My desperate relatives tried all sorts of things including Kabiraji. But nothing could cure him. It was getting worse every passing day. Even then, no one stopped trying. Every one hoped he will get better soon. People talked in this term—“when he gets better...". But Allah's plan was different. His situation got so bad two years ago that a cane stick couldn't support him anymore. He had to lean on someone else to move around. Even going to the toilet demanded a straining effort off him. I heard my parents talk about him; I came to Dadubari in last couple of years, but never felt the pain touching me. Now that I am a bit more mature and was staying here for a longer time, I could see everything up-close and really grasp the pain he and everyone else was going through. Uncle had always been an honest, pious, quiet and introvert person. My Dad is soft speaking; he never raises his voice above anyone else, not even me—his daughter. Uncle was even softer in his words. People usually get frustrated after years of suffering like this. But Chacha never complained about his situation. He was humble. He never talked about how he was feeling, I guess he was too wary that he was causing problem to everyone else. His eyes mirrored his frustration as he couldn't help but take help from people, as he wanted but was incapable of doing things that he used to do. I think life is easier for the people who are disabled from birth, because they never knew how it feels like to walk in the first place, so they don't miss the absence of that. But a person who used to walk and run around, gradually started loosing his power... it must be excruciating. I mean, he couldn't have known it was coming. He must have had dreams in his life that were never fulfilled, will always remain unfulfilled. He must feel wistful every time he sees a perfectly healthy person walking by. How do I know how my life is going to turn out? Chacha's eldest daughter is just a year older than me. I couldn't imagine myself in her situation. And Chachi? She is the full time nurse of uncle. Chacha got sick five years after their marriage. My aunty entered the family as a teenager and now she was taking care of uncle sacrificing her entire life. There are people in this world that Allah scrutinizes with tests so hard, that I doubt I could ever pass. The thought that Allah was literally protecting me from all those difficult tests made my heart melt.
I just let you take a glimpse to a day of my life four years ago.

Now...
Last night I went to bed at the brink of utter frustration—by then I spent two hours of my valuable time on the Bioinformatics research but could not find any appropriate paper on Swarm Intelligence. The terrible flu added to my distraught state. So I went to bed for a good night’s sleep hoping everything will get better in the morning. When I heard Ma's voice a while later, I thought it was morning already. She was talking to my brother. I grabbed my mobile to check the time--Gosh, it was 2.34 am! Why on earth are they conversing this time at night! After making an effort to hear what it was, I heard the news. The news of Choto chacha.
My Choto Chacha, after experiencing excruciating agony for fifteen long years, passed away half an hour ago. Innalillahi Wa inna Ilaihi Rajiun... Surely we are from Allah and we will return to Him.

The distance prevented me from seeing my uncle in last (nearly) four years but from what I heard, his condition rapidly declined in those years. Baba saw him once three years ago, then my uncle was simply bedridden but he could still talk and be consulted about important matters, although occasionally delirious. When Baba saw him a couple of months ago, my uncle was totally paralysed, unable to move any of his body parts. He couldn’t speak anything at all so whether he understood anything or not was left to people’s contemplation. His face did not show any emotion at any time. He couldn’t eat, few grains of rice were forced down his throat by aunty from time to time, but that definitely couldn’t nourish him, as his skin clung onto the bones tighter every passing day. I cried simply by looking at the photo of his skeletal body and bright, bright eyes. It is frightening, when every other body part loose their language and function, eyes take up the job of depicting everything—the pain and helplessness. My aunty (may Allah reward her appropriately) took care of him 24/7—feeding, cleaning and comforting him. He died after struggling for breath for three days.
I just hope and pray his sins had been wiped away by the suffering he experienced in this world.
I never saw my Baba cry like that. He was reminiscing the time when he and Chacha were totally oblivious of the merciless time about to befall them. They were just three years apart, ending up doing everything together including fighting. My Grandfather would shave both of their heads together. Each of them owned a cow (their living toy...), Baba's one was white and uncle's one red...
I couldn't stop sobbing when I thought how unpredictable Allah's plan is. I couldn't stop weeping when I realised Allah has gifted me with so many of His Rahmah, so many—they are simply too much to count. Yet, yet I take them so much for granted! Doing terrible in my exam is just as far as the biggest trouble in my life goes. Or the extra weight I have put on. Or the ugly pimples... Sometimes there are other trivial problems that I myself create to bring colour in my uninteresting life. But there are so much happening in the world. So much to worry about. Everyone's pain is relative. The people in pain should really try to look at the people who are suffering more than they are and appreciate the beautiful things Allah has rewarded them with.
When I was having all those thoughts, I talked to a friend of mine. She goes through tests that I don't think I am capable of passing. When I confessed to her about my fear, she said two things that I will end my piece with.
First of all, Allah doesn't overburden anyone. He tests people only with the things He knows they are capable of passing. Even after that, even after the confidence Allah holds on them, even after being capable of passing those tests, if people fail, Allah gets very disappointed.
Secondly, Allah sent everyone with a package. A package of amalgam of things in varying percentages. But the total percentage always makes up to a 100%. So you may lack in beauty (10%) but you will have a nice family (50%) or other talents (40%) to cover up for that shortage—to make up the final 100%. So, appreciate the things you have. Don’t take them for granted. Try to discover the favour of Allah upon you and be thankful for them. And again, appreciate the time and things you have now. You never know when you are going to lose what.

errored me

2005-09-12T16:45:00.000+10:00

error 1: spent the entire morning doing maths, tried so hard to build up my confidence and there I was stuck on the first math... I was getting a bizarre extra part which I should not have gotten. I checked and rechecked. Did the other ones then came back and attempted again. But no luck.

error 2: the problems a very dear sister of mine are facing. I got a lot of inspirations from her in last few years, I am indebted to her in many many different ways. Now she is facing so much problem but I cannot do anything to help her. Feeling helpless, frustrated. The other day when I heard about her problems, I couldn't say anything. I just put down the phone after a while and didn't dare facing her since. I am just praying she recoveres from the array of problems... The errors in her life are stuck in infinite loop in my head... how do you stop thinking about something?

error 3: a bacterial and viral concert had been arranged in my throat today... Pretty extravagant party so the preparation was being taken for quite a while now. There had been conspiracies of spoiling the festives event by pouring down hot tea and coffe down the throat at regular interval, but all were proved futile. Those little creatures have hell of a lot of will-power! Man, I should learn from them...

marriages going wrong :S

2005-09-11T23:05:00.000+10:00

I still remember the Tania apu I met during Mukul Mama's extravagant wedding--young, bright, lovely, beautiful and ever-so-cheerful Tania apu. She is a cousin of cousin (in other words, second cousin) of mine. We had great adda that day led by Tania apu's wonderful sense of humour.
Few years later we were invited to her wedding. She was getting married to a guy of her own choice. The parents did not agree to it first, but being the only daughter, she eventually coaxed her parents not only into saying yes, but also to throwing the biggest wedding party their family ever experienced. Lots of cheerful pics of the bride and groom had been taken. The world happened to believe, that was the beginning of the happiest family ever.
And so did I. It was only a few days earlier my Mum heard she went to England for doing post-grad MBA. She went there without her newly wedded husband. My mum is always the biggest pro for husband and wife residing together after marriage, disregarding all the problems. So she rang Tania apu and started giving her a sweet scolding... why haven't you dragged your husband along with you woman? It couldn't be that hard! I mean, all the married international students bring their spouses together! This is the most beautiful time of your life... you should enjoy it together...
Tania apu cut my mum short without letting her finish... her comment left my mum stunned, absolutely embarrassed and fumbling for word: "Khalamoni, I am divorced for a year now. No one in the family knows except for my Parents. May be that's why you don't know..."

This is like the umpteenth time I heard of a broken family in last few months. I am getting sick of all these problems with familes. These young people marry with so much dream in their eyes only to "realise" later on the marriage had been altogether a big mistake. I have seen Muslim sisters from the Uni getting married to Muslims brothers... looked cool at the beginning. Now whenever those married sisters gather together, I know it's not safe to be around them because all they do is backbiting their poor husbands--about how grossly the guys have changed after marriage, how insensitive the hubbys are towards their feelings, how childish can those clumsy husbands be, how rude their hubbys were in a certain family gathering...
I have seen sisters who were very enthusiastic about getting married even months before... now they are strong willed women who vowed they will never get married or they might get married, but only later... no chance now. The "happily" married sisters of course played a major role in their decision making process.
I know of a Bangali sister who started practicing Islam on her own. She convinced her parents after much hardship, to look for a practicing Muslim guy for her. Even though they would like otherwise, they did find her a guy as she wished. I saw her before marriage, she was totally illuminated from her inner happiness and bliss for being blessed enough to be marrying a practicing Muslim guy.
Their marriage turned out to be a disaster too. What is happening now a days?
One of my uncles got divorced four years after his marriage. He has a gorgeous five year old son now. His x-wife got the custody for the child, so my uncle gets to keep my cousin only during the weekends. Sometimes we ring him up and talk. He is an adorable kid. It aches my heart to look at the world from his eyes. The other day after much hesitation, he asked and urged my uncle in exactly these (profoundly mature) words: "I love you and I love Mum. Why can't you two be friends again and live together?"

To tell you the truth, even though I am a whole-hearted believer of the virtues and blessings of an Islamic marriage, I am getting more and more doubtful day by day as to whether I really want to get married or not. I am damn scared now! I know compromise is the key... in practical how much will I myself be able to compromise? I doubt my ability... I doubt that very much...

I just came across a wonderful article by Tariq Ramadan named Half of Your Faith (in other words, marriage). Have a read of that, a pacifying read for troubled and confused ones like me...

bangla writing

2005-09-09T21:30:00.000+10:00

Okay, my Bangla had been causing much confusion among the blog visitors. I will try to shed some light on my doing here--trying to be technically correct!
People have been complaining that they see the bangla fonts with displaced akar ukar symbol or simply as boxes or triangles! The reason being, I am not using the traditional fonts, rather I am using Unicode character to write bangla. To see those Uni(versal)code characters properly, your browser needs to be unicode compatible. Your Internet Explorer must have one of the following two things for that:
1. Service Pack 2 for windows... you can ask around, there is a free cd with that software Microsoft is distributing now, so it won't be to hard to find that.
2. You can download a wonderful free software called AVRO from here. You can read and write Unicode bangla fonts aided by AVRO.
I tried to be as technically correct as I could... hope didn't invoke any more confusion in the process... :$.

tale of a smashed finger

2005-09-04T07:35:00.000+10:00

I was coming out of the study room--that's when the tale of my smashed finger began. As the rule goes, I had to "close the door behind me", I have always done that but only dear God knows what happened to me that day, I pulled the door behind me by holding the door instead of the knob and there goes two of my fingers BANG--smashed between the heavy wooden door and the door frame. I couldn't breath for quite a while, Gosh it hurt! Ouch, ouch, ouch... My evil bro from inside study room realised I smashed some body part and somehow managed to find humour in it--there he went, laughing his head off. I could hear him laughing while I was gasping for breath and shaking my fingers as if to shake off the excrutiating pain that was so painful and so painful and so very much so that I forgot the existence of anything and everything. Gosh, smashed fingers can hurt so much? It was the darkness of the garden too that made me stumble for the garden water tap. Finally I got that and put my fingers under the trickling cold water... I was expecting the pain to go away after a while... but NO! It was sitting there stubborn. By then I couldn't bear the pain anymore, my eyes started welling up and soon my cheeks were flooded by tears. God, this is so painful! Nah, the pain is not going away--so me decided to go to my room and get busy with something else while trying to forget the nuisance. As I went to the light, I discovered for the first time, the honoured middle finger of my right hand was smashed right across the top knuckle where the skin was messily peeled, the knuckle already awfully swollen and blue. I also discovered to my great horror I could not bend the finger! I couldn't type for nearly two days. Now I can type, thankfully, but with much hardship. Tending my finger as best as I can. Ouch it hurts!

bangladesh blasted by bombs

2005-08-18T09:10:00.000+10:00

Last night I heard the news of Bangladesh being blasted by a series of Bombs. The bombs went off in all 63 districts (out of 64) in a mere interval of 30 mins. (Source The Daily Star, Naya Diganta). Only 1 person was dead but many were injured. This is evident, the main purpose of this activity was to shake the country with a panic rather than killing life.
Some people are connecting the bombing activity with an already banned party: Jamaa'tul Mujahidun.
Aren't we Muslims suffering enough yet?

অস্থিরতা

2005-07-27T19:47:00.000+10:00

পর্ব এক
হিন্দীতে খুব কাঁচা আমি। এটা নিয়ে কোন স্থায়ী দুঃখ নেই আমার। এখন অস্থায়ী দুঃখটা তীব্র ভাবে হচ্ছে। জাগজিতের গযল শুনছি কিন্তু পরিস্কার অর্থ ধরতে পারছি না। বেশির ভাগই অনুমান করে নিচ্ছি। খুব খুব ইচ্ছা করছে গানগুলোর গভীরতায় পরিপূর্ণ উপলব্ধি নিয়ে আকন্ঠ ডুব দেই। পারছি না।

পর্ব দুই
আজকে ইউনি থেকে আসার সময় আমার ব্যাগে একটা লাল গোলাপ ছিল। প্রথম লাল গোলাপ পেয়েছি যেদিন পনের হলাম। ভাইয়া পনেরটা তাজা লাল গোলাপের তোড়াটা হাতে দিতেই সে দিনটা সার্থক হয়েছিল। এই ফুলটা আমার এতো ভাল লাগে কেন?

পর্ব তিন
"না পারাটা" খুব বাজে। সহ্য করতে পারি না। একদম না।

পর্ব চার
(পুরানো কেচ্ছা)বিশ তারিখ সকালে উঠে মাকে অ-নে-ক-ক্ষণ জরিয়ে ধরে বসে ছিলাম। আগের রাতে ঘুম হয়নি। রাত বারোটা বাজতেই এক এক করে তিনটা ফোন। এক গাদা ম্যাসেজ। ঘুমের বারোটা বাজলো। সকালে মা পর্ব শেষে আমেরিকা থেকে আসা পার্সেলটা খুললাম। ভিতরে হুমায়ূনের মোটকা বইটার সাথে এক বস্তা পাগলামি।মায়ের দেয়া সুন্দর চাদর আর মারাত্মক জিন্সটা সেদিনই পরার সুযোগ হয়নি কিন্তু ভাইয়া আর পিচ্চিটার দেয়া ফাটাফাটি স্লীপারসে পা ডুবিয়ে সারাদিন হেঁটে বেড়াচ্ছিলাম। আর হ্যা, ঈশি পাগলটার দেয়া লেন্স লাগিয়ে চোখ খয়েরী করার পরে মায়ের চেহারাটা হয়েছে দেখার মতো--"এত্তো সুন্দর চোখগুলাকে কি বানাইসে... ডায়নী ডায়নী লাগতেসে..."
বাবা বাংলাদেশ থেকে ফোন করে মন ভরিয়ে দিল।
আমার প্রিয় বাসন্তী সুতির শাড়িটা পরেছি প্রবল উত্সাহে। ঈশি আর নাহিদকে পড়াতে পারিনি। ইমা পরেছিল। শাড়ি পর্ব এসেছে রান্না পর্বের পরে। পিজ্জা আর কেইকটা অসাধারণ হয়েছিল। প্রথমে ভাইয়ার তারপরে ঈমার দেয়া বইটা "আবিষ্কার" করলাম। ভাইয়ার দেয়া বইটার ফাঁকে একদম ওর স্টাইলে একটা ঝারি। মিস ডো আপুর স্কার্টটা পেলাম সেদিন। সাথে থাই রেস্টুরেন্টের সী ফুড আর অন্যান্য অসাধারণ খাবার।
সব লিখেছি তো? উহু, রাশার কথা লিখিনি। পাগলিটা এখনও বিশ তারিখ রাত বারোটায় মোম জালিয়ে উইশ করে।

soon-to-be-nine-teen

2005-07-19T11:56:00.000+10:00

(I wish I still fitted in those cute little clothes... the pic was taken exactly eighteen years and three hundred and sixty one days ago)

one-teen
two-teen
three-teen
four-teen
five-teen
six-teen
seven-teen
eight-teen
nine-teen

I am an already-nine-teen according to Islamic calendar and soon-to-be nineteen according to Gregorian calendar.

I don't know much about the significance of the age nineteen in this cultural context. May be the last year of being a teenage will be one. To me though, it has always been an "absolute mature age", because that's the time my mum got married (people this is a serious reflection, I am not insinuating anything, okay?). Now, being about-nineteen is giving me a creepy feeling... I feel I should have been much more mature than I am now. I should have accomplished much, known much. When I take a lazy look to the years I might live (probablity calculated from the average living female), they do seem to be quite enough. When I take a look back at the years I left behind, that's the time when I start feeling suffocating... I see I did not take much time to be nine-teen... I still remember every single thing I did last year same day. The years had been so short... will that be the case for the years to come as well? My mum and dad take a retrospective look at me and say how they can still remember clearly about the Sunday I was born in a local hospital in England. My brother was apparently very upset because he was allowed to come home with only one doll when he wanted all those lying in that room...
They say, its just like "that day".
In Bangladesh I had to memorise essays for my English and Bangla exams... essays named "shomoyer mullo" or "precious time"... tell you what, that was excrutiating... I had learn these stupid verses which all the high school going kids used repeatedly even after they became awfully cliched junk- "Time and tide waits for none".
I think the author did not see a single dam in his entire life. Time... yes never saw any device that can stop time.
I only memorised those junk for the sake of getting a top mark. It never really occured to me, time is indeed so reckless and so fast.
Anyway, my point is, I am feeling sad. I do not want to grow up! I do not want to be mature. I do not want to be at the age of mature yet immature. I like staying a pichci! When I shriek saying all these, Lamz gives me a weird look and says, "but i think being nine-teen is cool".
It is not cool. Its scary. Why you ask? Let me try to make sense of my fears...
1. Allah readily accepts the doa of the young hearts... not the older ones. My time is running out with every passing year!
2. With every passing year I am supposed to be more "wise". I am hardly learning anything!
3. With every passing year my time in this world is running out. My time is my wealth. My deeds will be proportionated among the time I spent here... Lord, my time is running out!
4. The world is getting uglier and uglier with every passing year. Who knew truth of the world discrimates people in terms of age?
5. Expectations, expectations, expectations... the load of expectations from me of other people (and of me) are supposed to be met with every passing day... The years are passing true, but nothing is being met.

I don't want to be old! Every day I askmyself, "are you ready to die now?"... in reply I get the same old scared little voice... "no!"...

ye ommi

2005-07-11T17:28:00.000+10:00

Ye Ommi—Sami Yusuf’s newest video release.
If I am asked to comment on its artistic quality, then I would say, this is a great music video. (Going back to English classes in Year 12) Sami Yusuf playing piano in a dimly-lit voluminous open area is an excellent physical representation of his feelings of despair and loneliness without his mother. The camera shots taken from far away and the set (most probably digitally edited) were very well done to give this effect. Overall, the camera shots and blending between scenes were really well done. A shot I particularly liked: when he was little, her mother is filmed with high angle shots, giving the effect of her being seen from a lower position by a young Sami. If you follow the words and Sami Yusuf’s expression closely, it will bring tears to your eyes. The music was great too, accompanied by Sami Yusuf’s amazingly good voice.
If I am asked how do I view that as a Muslim…
A lot of Muslims felt irritate as the video showed Sami Yusuf to be playing piano. However, that did not bother me much. I know Sami Yusuf respects and follows Yusuf al-Karadawi’s fatwa (as he stated in a dialogue in IslamOnline ). Yusuf al-Karadawi does not outlaw the use of any musical instruments (read his fatwa regarding musical instruments and music IslamOnline). So, I guess, Sami Yusuf played piano knowing he was not crossing any line.
About the close-up shots of the beautiful Middle-Eastern woman dressed up in a westernized-style-hijab (I do not know what else to call this): I observed the video very closely, the dressing up of the woman can be still approved by some scholars of Islam, however, that will need the scholar to be very flexible and moderate. (Do not ask me what I meant by flexibility and moderateness).
Nevertheless, personally I felt Sami Yusuf pushed the boundaries of Islam a too much in this music-video. Just one step would take him beyond the limits in Islam. This truly was an unnecessary risk on his part. He proved himself through the video of Al Muallim—Allah gave him the talent, he can be very creative and appealing to all without crossing any lines. Competing with the prevailing pop culture of the society, his music video of Al Muallim was a mega hit in some Arab countries. He himself proved earlier it is possible to create a clean yet enchanting alternative without using a “pretty woman” to attract audience. Yet... yet...
I am disappointed.

speech night

2005-07-08T21:24:00.000+10:00

I am going to this speech night tomorrow inshallah, Jamal Badawi and Abu Shaban will be there. Haven't been to one of these for so long! Hope there will be remedies for my present "deflated" condition.

2005-07-08T14:30:00.000+10:00

dear blog,
spent the day picking beans and cutting onions
xoxo
hp

london bomb blast...

2005-07-08T10:39:00.000+10:00

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(foot note: translate "..." as bewildered, raged, despaired, appalled and utterly confused)

war of the women

2005-07-05T23:51:00.000+10:00

My brother was driving the car and I was driving him nuts by various means. All over a sudden a van dashes past us... the driver screams at us on the top of his lung--"f***en talebans!" We were stupefied. Our stupefaction lasted only seconds though. Then we burst into laughter.
The other day, while I was rushing to catch the train, an aussie guy in his 30s was yelling at me in most obscene language as well as doing barking sounds putting a show of his vocal skills as if he was trying to "shoo" me off as I am intelligently degraded creature than he is!
The other other day, I was walking through the footpath. I could see a guy staring straight at me from far away. I resisted the temptation of crossing the road so that I do not have to face him. My worst fear came true, as I was walking past him, he cursed under his breath... "f*** off to your own ****ing country". I was infuriated, I turned around and said, (as politely as possible) "excuse me?..."
The other other other day, I was walking through the shopping centre indulging into window shopping when a bunch of teenagers passed comment as they passed by, "we got a bomber here, a bomber..."
Ahh, there is no end to it. Repetative same old rage-story. I am reading a nice article now The war of the women by "Yahiya Emerick & Reshma Baig". Snippets from the book:
"... A popular English saying says that "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned." The meaning being that if a woman feels like something unfair happened to her, her anger will be limitless. I'm not going to say that that is necessarily true or not, but I have seen shades of it in the world-wide war between women who wear the Hijab (head-scarf) and those who want to oppose it..."
"...They literally make it seem as if all you have to do is remove the Hijab, wear a mini-skirt and give up Islamic teachings then all your problems will be solved. When the root of the problem to begin with is almost always someone in their lives, maybe themselves or their husbands, were not following Islam to begin with! The cure can never be the poison.... "
"... "One thing that scares the heck out of everyone is an articulate, well dressed, intelligent, and professional Muslim sister wearing Hijab". It's true. Because they present the alternative that every woman can attain. That is the real equality and the real standard of respect. (See Qur'an 33:35) The trouble is, so many people are so trapped in the sinful, immoral lifestyle of lies, substance abuse, irresponsibility and chaos, that their shame drives them merely further into rage..."
"... The Shaitan calls people to forget Allah, to forget that they're responsible for their actions and to forget that this life is a short time of testing. He lures people with their animalistic desires and their cravings for the best in life. He whispers that there are no moral standards and that you can do as you please. Those who accept this call, whether with Muslim names or non-Muslim ones, descend to the level of intelligent beasts..."

holidays?

2005-07-05T19:24:00.000+10:00

Holidays= days of leisure: days taken off or set aside for leisure and enjoyment, when somebody is exempt from work or normal activity

Days taken off or set aside?
Yes. 32 days

Exempt from normal activity?
If my normality is limited to uni works, then yes.

Exempt from work?
Hell NO!

By definition, I am savouring anything but “holidays”. Just have a look at my life now and try to figure out why:
1. Today I slept in for the longest in my entire holiday. When mum came and called to have “gorom gorom bhapa pitha” then the glowing green digits claimed the time to be “7:50”. Last night went to bed at around 1. Then I fell asleep while reading The Da Vinci Code. This morning I found myself to be holding page 113 of The Da Vinci Code and the table lamp was turned on the entire night. Anyway, back to where I was, this is happening everyday, I am going to sleep late, never before 12, waking up for Fajar and not going to bed until the following night. Still holiday seem to be slipping through the fingers… going so fast!
2. Baba started for Bangladesh today. I did not go to drop him off, Ma and Bhaia did. Last few days I had been doing everything but sleeping in the shopping centers. Ask me anything about our Westfield, I will tell you. Its very unlike my super-Mum, still she kept everything for the last minute this time. I seldom realise I have so many relatives! Until yesterday evening I did all the packing, wrapping and stressing with Ma. DAMN!!! Just realised I did not write the letter to Nanu. I tried to sit down so many times with the letter! She wrote to me last, I still did not reply her. She is so cute, last time I emailed her in my uncle’s address, she made him take the print out and translate the email for her. Every time someone comes around, she will read the email to her! I should have written to her. :(.
3. Oh writing letters… I am trying not to think about that. I have so many letters to write! So many people to ring! I know the girl next door is preparing to kill me by now. I know my Bangladeshi friends already designed ultra-modern-devices to kill me without a track. They finished their HSC nearly 2 weeks ago. On June 23. I did not ring any of them yet. Not my fault though, I got 2 new phone cards, tried the first one, the line is not getting through. So scratched the second one as well, which was proved to be equally useless. Believe it or not, I had been trying every single day… To make it even worse, Roiya had been messaging me almost everyday. I reply her message but for some weird reason she does not get any of my sms. I feel so sorry for her! Anyway, we talked during the exams and decided we will write as soon as we finish. Me about my uni and they about their rag day and all. Last time, when I missed Viqarunnisa School’s rag day, Titumpush made every effort to make me regret that… sending detailed anecdote of the events accompanied by 40 pictures! This time, missing out totally on Viqarunnisa College (the college I always thought would be mine!), waiting (eagerly) for a similar endeavour! Anyway, I was where was I… yeah, right now, I am expected to write 6 letters. One for the girl next door and 5 for my Bangladeshi friends. A scary thought indeed, (considering my shortest letter to friends so far is 5 paged long).
4. Coming back to Baba going to Bangladesh again. Since Baba is going away from us for a long time (3 weeks) we had been having a lot of family plans lately. We did a long family meeting yesterday. This Sunday, after a hectic morning and program, I had to frantically get myself ready for the family BBQ. It was only five of us. We went to a park nearby. The park was really nice. We often drive down there. Anyway, the BBQ was really fun except we forgot to take oil so we had to borrow cooking oil from fellow barbeque-ans! After the BBQ we stayed on the park for a bit longer, running around and playing handball (with my pathetic skill of course—not too bad, definitely entertains others!). O right, Ishi went to movies to watch Madagascar while we watched (a pirated copy, my brother was forced to take that from an enthusiastic kiddie he knows) Madagascar at home (no luck with popcorn though, had to feed on chips!). The other day we also went to a program arranged by the parent’s association of Mum’s school. I was disappointed really. Lets not discuss that now…
5. Book... I am in the middle of two books now—To Kill a Mockingbird (reading primarily because the girl I tutor is studying that at school) and The Da Vinci Code. Right the day I finished exams I started reading Angels and Demons. Finished that by Sunday. In just four days. As I finished my exams, I was expected to do quite a lot of house chores, excluding that and normal eating-bathing-sleeping-praying, I did not do any of the other things I was supposed to do… On top of that, I was out the whole of Sunday. My point is, to be able to finish 650 pages in four days after all that, I literally did not do nothing but reading! If you have a look at my report for those few days, you might get confused as to whether I kept report those few days or not… because I truly have nothing to put down for those days. Obviously no study, no Quran, Hadith, Islamic literature, organisational activity… nothing! After finishing that, when Bhaia was still reading The Da Vinci Code, I had a bit of time to stop and reflect upon my days… and then the guilty conscience started kicking in! I had to compensate somehow. Decided I will read at least 500 pages of Islamic literature during the holidays inshallah. Inshallah. Inshallah. As I already promised to myself, I have to get this done. Which means I have to read at least 25 pages every single day until the end of holidays. A big commitment, eh? (Serves me right… when will I learn prioritising my works?) By the way, Angels and Demons rocks. Bhaia is reading that now, after him any of you can borrow and read that. Thanks Ishi!!!
6. My tutoring is a headache. I tutored yesterday, today, inshallah will tutor tomorrow, the day after! I enjoy tutoring, but now, I am trying to get them to do some extra works which means I have to spend extra times at home.
7. Organisational responsibilities… I know. I am THE procrastinator. I not only leave the things until the last minute, but also take them well beyond due date! Have to tidy up a lot of works, need to start working on the posters RIGHT NOW. I started working on the forum long before, now I am trying to do some things, with little success. I need to go to a PHPBB online tutorial to learn stuff. God, I need to learn technic for expanding time!

Huh, holidays!

mesmerised still

2005-07-05T17:28:00.000+10:00

Still obsessed with Sami Yusuf's mesmerising voice, vibrant music, brilliant composition and wonderful message. (Yes, yes many of you know that by now... I did not sing any one else's nasheed since Al Muallim came out!) Click on the image to listen to samples of his songs.

মেঘ বলেছে যাবো যাবো

2005-06-26T21:22:00.000+10:00

ছাব্বিশ ছয় শূন্য পাঁচ
মাউন্ট কিয়ারা--সাদারল্যাণ্ডের পথে অন্য লুকআউটের ভিড়ে দাঁড়ানো নিতান্ত সাধারণ ছোটখাট পাহাড়। তাই খুব ঘটা করে সেখানে যাই নি, অন্য এক জায়গায় যাওয়ার পথে নেমেছি শুধু। তেমন কিছু উঁচু না হলেও পাহাড়ের গা বেয়ে উঠা সরু রাস্তায় গাড়ি চড়াটি পুরাপুরি অন্যরকম ছিল। বাঁকের পরেই আর কিচ্ছু দেখা যায় না, ওপাশ থেকে আসতে থাকা কোন গাড়িও না। ভীষণ উত্তেজনাকর! তাছাড়া আবহাওয়াটাও এমন বেরসিক--ঝির ঝির বৃষ্টি ঝরিয়ে দিল। ওসব ত্যাঁদরামি সহ্য করবো না ভেবেই জোর করে বিপদজনক রাস্তা ধরে পাহাড়ে উঠে গেলাম আমরা। উঠেই বুঝলাম ভুল করিনি একদম--বৃষ্টি ঝরানোর নেশায় বুড়ো বুড়ো মেঘগুলো মহা সমারোহে নিচে নেমে এসেছে। এই ছোট্ট পাহাড়ের চূড়ায় এসে থামছে। আবার দৌঁড়ে চলে যাচ্ছে। ছোঁয়াছুঁয়ি খেলছে। আমরা পাঁচ জন মেঘের সাগরে রাজ্যের বিষ্ময় নিয়ে ডুব দিলাম।
(ছবিটা মাউন্ট কিয়ারা থেকে তোলা। কপিরাইট ভাইয়ার।)

blessed ++ blissfull

2005-06-22T23:55:00.000+10:00

"++" adds two lists together...
sorry! You see I had computing exam today...
Alamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Alhadulillah I am still in one piece! Today was one of those days that are filled with good moments and good feelings. The absolute reason is ofcourse the unbelievable that has finally manifested itself and filled my despair-filled-dark hours with luminosity... I finally finished my exams! I am not quite sure about whether I feel empty or relieved! Anyway, next thing, went straight to the Uni library and borrowed "East, West" by Salman Rushdie and "To kill a mocking bird" (a book that I should have read long before) by Harper Lee. Salman Rushdie's Midnights Children was quite an entity for me! I felt nauseating for a few days from reading those intricate-never-ending sentenced and even more bewildering amalgam of confusing ideas and values. Had to say "nauseating" (quite deliberate use) because it was not one of my type, still read that out of the fascintion and curiosity of reading a book by him... someone so infamous in our Islamic society. Now I know that is for good reasons, but let's not go there quite yet!
Okay, next thing, ran to the bookshops and bought two books, both by the same author Dan Brown-- "Angels and Demons" and "The Da Vinchi Code". I had been waiting to read The Da Vinchi Code for quite a long time, but no library owns it, no one I knew had it, at last found that in the Uni library, with a long que behind it. Neverthless, booked that. I am still behind six people. That might a bit much, finally decided me, and hence is the purchase. Ishi told me Angels and Demons is the prequel of Da Vinchi's Code, so got that as well. Started reading Angels and Demons, so far I like it. Very witty. In fact, I am waiting to read a marvellous book once again. The last such an uncomparable book consumed by me was Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin. That was brilliant. A book worth revising. Waiting hungrily for a book like that. Hope these two will serve me good!
Oh two best things about today:
1. Ma's birthday (left a secret present for her which she still could not find out. Everyone else's one had been long discovered, discussed about and admired at. May be the secret place is too much of a secret).
2. Received a 16 paged letter from ishi. She broke my record of longest letter. My one, however was the result of writing to Bangladeshi friends, living thousands and thousands miles away from me. But her? Living in the same city as me? Going to Unis just steps away from each other? In this age of mobile technology? When SMSing happen constantly? When we send email with a click on the mouse and write blogs? Well, this girl...

THE despaired

2005-06-18T10:35:00.000+10:00

Hmm... I feel miserable.
Sorry if that remark ruined your day ( I realised, I am turning into a nagging little creature lately), but you see, I really do feel terrible and miserable. My hands are frozen (the first thing I could think of in the attempt of explaining my miserable-ness), hair unbrushed (since last morning), sitting hunch banked (sorry miss spiny chord, but making you happy will need too much effort right now), my toes are numb, about to fall off (thinking of upgrading my slippers, current version is deffinitely not working properly... so much for the white fluffy slippers!)... and oh yes... the horrendous inevitability... something that I should have mentioned long before... EXAMS!!!
Those horrible ordeals started yesterday, first exam instilled a considerable amount of doubt about my competence (not that I was doubtless before, but this time that doubt was provoked to such an extent that all my previous doubts can remain unnoticed). I have THE frantic fear... I might actually FAIL! Oh dear Lord, I am desperately in need of your special favour, unconditional love...
I left more than half of the paper unanswered. Having a secret laugh myself as well, thinking about the spectacular-hair-tearing-session of the organic chemistry professors that might (probablity 99%) follow my paper... I recognised all the reagents, I could tell which page from lecture notes did I learn to make sense of those lines and dashes with tiny letters in between them, the carbonyl compounds-- all those late nights and hair tearing behind those carbocations, electron movement, electrophilic and neutrophilic reactions... yet.. YET I say, I could not write a single one of those reactions without doubt, I could not remember the mechanisms of any reagent reaction properly! I felt despaired, devastated, miserable.
HUH! Might just fail the first semester of my uni life! Have been having serious thoughts about this lately... Uni is just not for me... someone more responsible will suit in uni better, than this irresponsible me..
####... biology. Day after tomorrow. :(.

onek din pore

2005-05-15T14:09:00.000+10:00

i feel like renaming this blog to something like "tukro bishonnota" or scattered melancholy.. anything.. something else. didnt update this blog in ages.. the only reason being, can't get service pack 2 to work... hence this unicode thingie turn out to be ancient undecipherable heiroglyphic stuff!
yesterday i felt like coming back to this blog... i was writing a haskell function, when i just felt doing random exercises on the keyboard.. and opened a notepad window only to write this: "i feel like living in seclusion for a while... desperately need to hybernate..."
okay, enough boredom for a day!!! better get back to work!

শেষ দিনের রোজনামচা

2004-12-31T05:28:00.000+11:00

২০০৪ বছরটা দেখতে দেখতে শেষ হয়ে এল। আইনস্টাইনের থিওরি ওফ রিলেটিভিটির সাথে কোন সর্ম্পক আছে বোধহয়, সময় অন্যান্য বছরের চেয়ে বেশ দ্রুত গেল। কি করে যেন আমি কলেজের শেষ সীমানা পেরিয়ে গেলাম। বছরের প্রথম দিকে এইচ এস সি ভাবতেই খুব দূরের কিছু মনে হচ্ছিল। আর এখন বছরের শেষ প্রান্তে এসে পৌঁছেছি, সাথে কলেজ পাশের একটা সার্টিফিকেট আর অনেক অনেক স্বপ্ন। দুই মাস পরেই ইউনিভার্সিটি। বায়োমেডিকেল ইঞ্জিনিয়ারিং পড়বো হয়তো। কি গাল ভরা নাম রে বাবা! পড়াশোনা ছাড়া আর উল্লেখযোগ্য ছিল বন্ধুত্ব (নতুন কিছু না, মেয়েদের কাছে বন্ধুত্ব সব সময়ই উল্লেখযোগ্য)। এই বছরে আমার বন্ধু ভাগ্য খুব ভাল ছিল। অসাধারণ কিছু মানুষের সাথে পরিচয় হয়েছে, ঘনিষ্টতা হয়েছে। বিশাল একটা ঘটনা ছিল, আমার আঠারো হওয়া। ড্রাইভিং লাইসেন্স নেয়া। বেশ কিছু জায়গায় আঠারোর অধিকার খাটানো। মনে হচ্ছে এই এক বছরেই অনেক বড় হয়ে গিয়েছি। দেখা যাক নতুস বছরের আমাকে দেয়ার মতো কি আছে।

মন খারাপ করা...

2004-12-30T04:44:00.000+11:00

আজ বৃষ্টি হবে ভেবে খুব আশা নিয়ে বসে ছিলাম। দুপুর থেকেই আকাশ কালো করে মেঘ জমেছে। বৃষ্টিতে ভেজার বিশাল প্ল্যানের ড্রাফট মনে মনে এঁকে রেখেছিলাম, গুনগুনিয়ে গানও গাচ্ছিলাম-- বাদল দিনেরও প্রথম কদম ফুল... এখন রাত এগারোটা, বৃষ্টি এখনও হয়নি। মনটা যা খারাপ হচ্ছে না...

আমি এবং বাংলা বানান

2004-12-30T04:37:00.000+11:00

শুনেছি, অল্প সল্প পড়েছিও, বাংলা একাডেমি বাংলা বানান নিয়ে সম্প্রতি নাকি কি সব কাটা ছেঁড়া করেছে। আমি যাদের লেখা পড়েছি, তাদের সবাইকেই এ ব্যাপারে বাংলা একাডেমির উপর কম বেশি খাপ্পা মনে হলো। আরও বুঝলাম, বাংলা একাডেমি যাবতীয় ঈ-কার বাদ দিয়ে ই-কার চালু করছে, যুক্তাক্ষর বাতিলের চেষ্টা চালাচ্ছে, আরবি এবং অন্যান্য বিদেশি ভাষার জন্য 'য' ব্যবহার চালু করছে, আরো কি কি যেনো। তবে বাংলা পত্রিকা গুলো খুব প্রচলিত কিছু বানান ব্যকরণের নিয়ম অনুযায়ী ভুল থাকলেও চালিয়ে যাচ্ছে। এরকম আরো কিছু জটিল ব্যপার আছে। সব কিছু আমার ছোট মাথায় আটতেও চায় না। তাছাড়া বাংলা ঝালাই করার কোন ব্যবস্থা না থাকায়, যা ঢুকে, তাও বেরুতে সময় লাগে না। তাই ঠিক করেছি, বানান শুদ্ধিকরণের জন্য আমি পাঠকদের লাগিয়ে দিব। যান্ত্রিক গোলযোগের ব্যাপার স্যাপার মনে না হলে, কোন বানান ভুল বা অসামঞ্জস্য চোখে পড়লে পাঠকগণ দয়া করে সে বিষয়ে আমার দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করে এ অভাগীকে উদ্ধার করবেন।

প্রথম ব্লগ

2004-12-29T05:56:00.000+11:00

আমার বাংলা টাইপিং স্পিড ভয়াবহ। মহা ধৈর্য্যশীলদেরও ধৈর্য্যের সুতা ছিঁড়ে যায়। তাছাড়া প্রবাসে থাকার বদৌলতে বাংলা সাহিত্যে প্রতিভা মারাত্মক দূর্ভিক্ষে ভুগছে। ব্লগ সৃষ্টি এ অবস্থা থেকে মুক্তির উদ্দেশ্যেই। (আর লেখা যাচ্ছে না।)