Bubblegums or Creams

I never got the magnificence of face creams. Firstly, they have this odd look in them, as if they are saying that they are here to eat up all your money that you could otherwise have spent on a GeForce GTX 480, not that ladies are much interested in graphics cards though. Secondly, if they did actually work, why don't the cream companies get a dark woman, make her fair, and then put the whole "miracle" in an ad for the audience instead of plastering a while lady with dark paint and then applying the cream to wipe off the grease?

But then again, the face creams actually do something; they do wipe off grease. Also, it is to be noted that they help in scrubbing off the blue mark they put on your hand after voting in the elections; which is still awesome.

Nowadays though, face creams have lost their purpose; they no longer are the saviours of the dark skinned only. Face creams now cater to varied and funny purposes, starting from the "keeping the skin fresh and light" theory, face creams have gone on to even "providing oxygen for your skin to breathe". Even a three-minute-old child can breathe to keep her flesh alive; no wonder women are becoming lazy, they even refuse to breathe.

Let alone nose-less breathing lumps of flesh that have grown a taste for pure oxygen; the cosmetics companies have nowadays started to produce face creams that are basically twenty four carats liquid gold which is going to squeeze seven thousand dollars out of your pocket for every three ounces or so. Even though the technology to keep gold liquid at room temperature is a marvelous invention, the whole marvelous part of it is being wasted; cool your PC with liquid gold if you are rich enough, what is the point of pasting it on your face, and then wiping if off an hour later?

The Chinese people (I guess sell these "rooty" face creams in miniscule pots for which they charge nine thousand takas per pot, right in the middle of Dhaka. Imagine how many burgers and how many of those "Khoj The French" French fries that much money could buy.

Therefore, out of my total dislike for the face creams and the exorbitant prizes they charge; I went out to the closest store and bought myself the cheapest cream I could find. To my utter surprise, I learned you can actually get enough cream to wet your face in a poly-pack at the same cost as bubblegum, and these are actually available in most of the shops and are from a well-known company. Who uses these?

And so, I came back with the small pack in my hand entirely embarrassed from the look the small kid at the shop gave me when I asked for a face cream.

At home, it was another war altogether; what do you think your mom would ask if she saw you plastering cream onto your face when you are actually supposed to go to sleep?

I actually did not bother to put the cream on my face; I put some on my hand and stood there, looking at it, expecting it to turn out to be acidic and waiting for it to sizzle out through the other side of my hand. Sadly, it did not turn out to be acidic; acids are too costly for a cream that costs the same as chewing gum. But, it did actually smell good.

Oh yes, I am waiting for a producer to contact me; those adverts say that you get to become an actor a month from using the cream. Twenty-two days and counting.

By Eshpelin Mishtak

To Love To Hate

Scream, curse, punch. Backbite, backstab, mock and scorn. There's a hater and bigot in everyone, suppressed or dormant, perhaps, but existing in its small, vengeful way nonetheless, waiting for the trigger, which will free it from oppression. This key comes in different forms for different people. The dark side of RS can only bring to light a few common prejudices fouling the world.

Singers Anyone who can hit a note to save their life should lose it the next second, because no one unable to do the same appreciates this skill. Singers pervert our lives with incessant rehearsals and tedious tunes, even more so in our Bangali culture, where one sibling defiles the other with continual torture in the form of endless Tagore. Hatred can fester between even twins under such circumstances, and who is to blame but the singer?

Artists Why is it that when we spill strawberry syrup on our carpets, our mothers refuse to forgive us, yet when an 'artist' does the same, the carpet is auctioned at an exhibition and earns the creator thousands of greens? How is it that certain people are blessed with the ability to draw perfect circles and lines straighter than lampposts freehand, and we are not? Why is it that they're deemed special, even though they smell like gutters and look no better than their Neanderthal ancestors? Jealousy and disgust are two elements that guarantee hate. There are few artists who've died natural deaths.

Obese people Fat people are stupid. They are to be looked down upon. We can't eat so much because we can't stand to be fat, and therefore we envy how they gorge on fried chicken like water, giving rise to inevitable intolerance. If they're overweight, it's food that made them this way, and it's a crime to love to eat. If you're fat, you're being looked down upon right now. It's just the way it is, prejudice and hatred fusing together and rusting through iron defences.

Rich kids They live a life without troubles. What problems could they have when they own an iPod at ten and an iTouch at twelve? We hate such children, squandering their parents' money and strutting about with their new Xbox and PS3. We feel an almost irresistible urge to tear out their tongues when they speak of a problem at home. To gut them when they speak of applying for financial aid when their parents can pay for college. A knife through their hearts wouldn't be enough to sate this hatred.

Philosophers They always have an answer. They sit under trees and wonder at apples that fall from the sky, while the rest of us struggle to learn their sayings in order to pass our exams. Philosophers are the bane of existence. Their theories cannot be proved, not disproved, and others must waste precious lives trying to figure out if the Mona Lisa is a man or a woman. They have no lives, and we detest their need to take away others' in vengeance.

Overachievers As we dread going home and facing our parents with the B's in our A'levels/HSC, they whine about their lack of one A-Star and Golden GPA. They themselves unfailingly force us to wonder if they'd still like gold so much if we dipped them in a molten pool of the metal. They make us smile as we hear their agonised cries in our mind's ear. Yet when we return from the dark lands, we're still listening to them shake their heads and reports in front of us. Henceforth we loathe unconditionally, and despise everything they say or do. By the time they eventually fail, for fail they certainly will, we're too prejudiced to see it or care.

Hatred is indeed poison. It burns through our very souls and damages us permanently, but it's a drug. Every love turns to hate sooner or later, just as every innocent taste of a cigarette pulls one closer to addiction. Prejudice is an art form, and to hate is to live.

By Malevolence and... Femalevolence