Rambles
Life took a turn towards the best

I am just an ordinary girl with a normal life. During my O' levels I went to a teacher's place for studying math and physics. We referred to him as Mr. Disaster. The time with him was a disaster but the time spent there was a different matter. I made some friends there who are more like family. And to ace that, I found the guy of my dreams…

I not only found him, I found him the way I always dreamt. And that is why I call him the guy of my dream, because every guy in every girl's dream is Mr. Perfect. And he is literally that.

I always wanted to fall in love with a guy who is a close friend mine. I believe if you are friends before falling in love, you will understand and know each other better. I'll call my guy Nimay in this article (using real name is not at all safe).

We did physics classes together. Actually, we wrote physics notes together because Mr. Disaster never took our classes. He gave us this fat ugly book and told us to copy it down. Only the two of us were asked to do the cursed task of copying a book. No-one else had physics there except Slipknot (another friend of ours), but he was hardly present in the class. We had nothing else to do while copying so we talked. We shared pieces of important and unimportant things of our lives just as two really close friends would do. A month or two later we became best friends.

Nimay was my shoulder to cry on and I was his greatest well-wisher (according to him). Days and nights passed by and we got closer and closer. I just really liked the guy sitting across the centre-table on the opposite sofa talking to me. He didn't know but I stared at him so many times at silent moments. Just watched him writing. He looked so innocent, so dearly loveable, just like a new born baby.

Nobody knew about my feelings, I wanted to keep it a secret. I always feared my friends would make fun out of it or they would not understand me. But I told BrekenBark (a friend whom I take as a brother). He knew everything. I told him each and every little changes taking place inside my heart.

Its not that Nimay and I always agreed upon everything. Trust me, we used to fight at times like no others and the main reason was his smoking. He's a chain smoker. I always pointed out the bad sides of smoking and he kept on asking "why do you care so much if I smoke and die?" I could never answer him. I always shut up when he asked me this question.

I was scared of losing him? What if I loose my best friend? I wanted to tell him about my feeling so much, but never could. I thought I got some signs from him, but I tried not to count on them. Even if I was 5 minutes late to my teacher's place, he used to call me up and ask "dosto tui koi? You are coming, right?"

I used to get so happy every time he called. I wanted to think he misses me, but I resisted these thoughts getting hold of me. I always thought he could never fall in love with a girl like me. It kept on breaking my heart but my love for him grew deeper and deeper.

When we were not together, he used to call me up at my house, and we talked over the phone. He used to come online at night and we chatted a lot. One night while chatting he said "dosto, my mom kept her cell outside her room…. I'll call you up" and so he did. This went on for few nights.

Our exam drew closer and our classes to the end. Every time we talked over the cell he used to say "I miss you so much. When I get out of Mr. Disaster's place, I know I won't be seeing you for the next two days and that makes me so sad. How am I gonna live? Soon we will be sitting for the exam. We won't have classes together anymore. How the heck am I gonna live without seeing your face, without hearing your voice?" His unexpected words surprised me so much that it started to change my mind gradually. A voice from the core of my heart told me to tell him about how I felt for him.

I took several steps by saying "Nimay, I want to tell you something" but then I backed up. But one day he got stubborn and said "you have to tell me this time. What is it?" I made him promise me that whatever I'd tell him, even if he is negative about it, he will never stop being my best friend.

Finally, I took the words out of my stomach, I told him the truth. He was quiet for some time, and then said "Ahare Jaan, ei kotha bolte tor ato koshto holo? I feel the same since way back. I love you too. Didn't you get it from my way of talking?" …… you have no idea about how surprised and shocked I was to hear it? It was so unexpected. We actually used to secretly love each other!

It was November 24th. I don't actually remember the time, but it was around 1:00 a.m. (so technically it was 25th Nov). We became a couple. Two best friends fell in love, just the way I wanted it to be. Though we have a lot of fights like all the other couples we do understand each other a lot. "Our life took a turn towards the BEST" he says… and I blindly agree with him.

By DJ Sara Adil

Going back in time with 1984

1984 has come and gone, but George Orwell's prophetic nightmarish vision in 1949 of the world we are becoming is timelier than ever. 1984 is still the great modern classic of "Negative Utopia"a startlingly original and haunting novel that creates an imaginary world that is completely convincing, from the first sentence to the last four words. No one can deny this novel's power, its hold on the imaginations of whole generations, or the power of its admonitionsa power that seems to grow, not lessen, with the passage of time.

The book starts in the year 1984, set in Airstrip One, what we know as England. Airstrip One itself is the mainland of a huge country, called Oceania, which consists of North America, South Africa, and Australia. The country is ruled by the Party, which is led by a figure called Big Brother. The population of Oceania is divided into three parts, The Inner Party, The Outer Party, and The Proles, who are the commoners & workers.

The plot has three main movements, corresponding to the division of the book into three parts. Book One creates the world of 1984, a totalitarian world where the Party tries to control everything, including thought and emotion. In this part we are first introduced to the main character of the story, Winston Smith. Winston is a member of the Outer Party, working in the Records Department of the Ministry of Truth. His job is to rewrite documents and alter records and newspaper articles. The action starts when Winston begins to become skeptical of the ruling dictatorship of the party.

In doing so he buys himself a book, to use it as a diary. As individual _expression is forbidden by the Party, having a diary was a crime, which could be punished with death. There are so-called telescreens in each room, showing propaganda and political pamphlets, which had a built in camera and microphone to watch over the citizens. Keeping a secret book is not only forbidden, but also very dangerous.

The second part of the novel deals with the development of his love for Julia, someone with whom he can share his private emotions. For a short time they create a small world of feeling for themselves. They are betrayed, however, by O'Brien. Winston had thought O'Brien was a rebel like himself, when in reality he was a chief inquisitor of the Inner Party.

The third part of the novel deals with Winston's punishment. The punishment is a three step process, Learning, Understanding and Acceptance. After days, weeks or even months of being tortured and tested, Winston's punishment comes to an end, and he is released. As the story comes to a close, Winston often sits in the Chestnut Tree Café, drinking Victory Gin and playing chess. He now has a job in a sub-committee that is made up for others like himself.

On a cold winter day he meets Julia. They speak briefly, but have little to say to each other, except that they have betrayed each other. Where once they could not keep themselves apart, they now shudder at the very thought of one another. The Party won. As Winston faces death, he realizes how pointless it was to resist. He loves Big Brother!

1984 has long been the first book to which we have turned for a vivid picture of a government that has used war to justify infringement on freedom; that has used speech codes to limit everyone's ability to understand higher concepts or concepts that favour human individuality; that uses powerful media to build unwarranted consensus and rewrite history; and that has used technology to nip political opposition and individualistic or eccentric practices in the bud. Far from being a caricature, it insightfully and skillfully characterizes the tendencies and motivations of unlimited government power, and the horrifying, hopeless result of such government: humanity denied its freedom to think, to be rational, and to dissent...its freedom to be human.

After reading the book, one may say that by writing such a plot, Orwell tries to focus us readers on the reaction of the individual to totalitarianism, love, and cruelty. For those who like reading well thought out books, this is definitely a book worth reading. Also, for those readers who do not like the typical happy endings of most books, this book will definitely lift your spirits!

However, to people who detest sad endings, it would seem as if the book was pointless, because even after all that Winston had to suffer, in the end he lost everything, became as much a robot as everyone else and eventually died. For those readers, I would not recommend this book.

By Rohini Alamgir

the astounding ones

A person who hi-jacks or takes control of a vehicle (in our country especially a rickshaw) is known as a hijacker. You can hardly find a person (of course a financially well-off person, not a beggar) who has not been threatened by these perilous animals. Nowadays the number of people taking up the job of hi-jacking is increasing. Well, it is the most beneficial occupation in Dhaka. Hijackers are the wealthiest citizens of Dhaka.

Their job is very difficult. It is very crucial for a hijacker to be odious. They do rigorous searching about the victim's possessions and mode of traveling. If the victim travels by car then the hijacker forgives him/her but if the victim prefers traveling in a rickshaw then only Allah can save him/her. The hijackers have a very good vocabulary of expletives and they memorize all the names of the famous gunda-pandas (their idols).

The freshers are not very hard-hearted. An innocent face, a little sweet talk and a bit of crying can restrain them from hijacking the victim. Their heart easily melts. The experienced ones are very clever. They at first stop the rickshaw-rider from paddling by holding them by the collar. Then they take out their gun, pistol or knife and point the weapon at the victim's head or neck leaving the victim with no other option than handing over all the valuable possessions to the hijacker. Sometimes even after robbing all the valuables they kill the victim or cause some kind of injury to the victim. The people around do nothing but enjoy the show.

I recently became aware of how educated the hijackers are when my parents got robbed while returning home from Agora by rickshaw. The hijackers didn't ask for anything except for the ATM card and the pin number. They know all about the banking system. They are so clever that they took away the ATM card on Friday at 11:00 PM so that their victim would not be able to stop the withdrawal of the money. Their audacity amazes me.

By Ansha Zaman

Now and then

Cartoons were always the best passion for the kids who are grown-ups now. The passion for cartoons has been replaced by that for car-tunes. People don't want to have a laugh over a humorous cartoon act, they are more interested in who's got what and whose dad is who.

We all remember the days when we remained glued to spaces in front of our much-coveted television sets as we waited eagerly for our most wanted cartoons. Recreation meant television and some open-air sports, then, but much of it has changed now. No clue whatsoever, no idea however- time passes by. Much of our brain's hard disks are loaded with so much of worldly thoughts what we don't tend to relate to cartoons that much or talk about it, that often. Enthralling acts of Superman, Batman and Captain Planet don't mesmerize us any longer. The once worshipped heroes seem to have the humorist in them, not the heroics. They didn't change. Who did? The rolling-on-the-floor-laughing effect that Tom & Jerry and the Pink Panther once provided us with, seems to have lost much of the magnitude too. They still contain the same humour. Is it humour, that has a new meaning? The wits of Bugs Bunny and Road Runner don't have the same appeal, now. We tend to save much of the wit and charm for the gorgeous lady or perhaps the sleek gentleman.

Mode of amusement has a new meaning now. We have more options at present, as a result our interest seems to be divided into more units that it used to be.

We had our fun. We had our time.

Most of the 'single-television' families seem to deprive their children of the fascinations, fantasies, humour and freedom of mind that these tiny little animated objects provide. We know cartoons are a better source of entertainment than drooling over some peppy trailers or slaying our time over Hindi soaps. We know it. Do we actually do anything to change it? No. Sad, but true.

The unique form of entertainment, that has cheered generations fascinated ages; cartoons we salute you.

As the rotation of the hour hand continues, we seem to sway away from the innocence and wit that these cartoons buzzed us with. Still, subconsciously, we have a fondness for it. Believe it.
Cartoons, always.

By Taskin Rahman