PLANET RS
Everyone likes winning. Feels awesome. Gives us that warm, fuzzy feeling along with a sense of accomplishment. Every year, our recognition of Victory Day is very nationalistic in its approach. And while we love and respect that (Cover and Back Page) we also wanted to celebrate the idea of victory, of being Bangaldeshi in all its flaws & eccentricities (page 3). We find out what victory means to the young Bangladeshis (pg 7).
Some say, life is full of little defeats. But in the grand scale of the universe, let us never ever forget the little victories that make life worth living.
Kazim Ibn Sadique, Sub Editor, RS
The Things We Do
They say no man is born with skill. As the years tick by you gradually start acquiring certain skills and then you spend even more time mastering them. Clearly, the man or woman who came up with the above statements never came across a Bangali in his/her lifetime. We Bangalis have bag loads of talent flowing through our blood stream. They are a very special set of skills and you have to look at it from a different perspective to find them. In order to make your lives a lot easier we came up with a list of some of the basic traits Bangalis are born with.
Mathematical skill: It's not what you think. We Bangalis did not waste our time mastering useless mathematical mumbo jumbo, like calculus or trigonometry. We are talking about a very different mathematical skill. There is a certain mathematical law every Bangali should follow. The law is called Chondon Bhai's law and it states that, “The price of what you eat at a wedding, must be more than or equal to the price of the gift you bought for the wedding”. But if you have embraced your inner Bangali spirit a little too tightly and show up at weddings empty handed, then just eat as much as you can and get out as fast as possible. In such cases you may not get wedding invitations very often and frankly it's just rude.
Land of the spices: We can basically make anything taste good. It is no mystery that the food in Puran Dhaka is amazing. But due to a shortage of liquid assets the cooks of Puran Dhaka use substances like petrol, the sweat from their arm pits, plastic or just about anything to substitute core ingredients like salt, sugar, etc. However, the food's still delicious and that's all that matters, right?
Innovation: Bangalis are innovative. Almost everywhere on Earth muggers usually use guns, knives, threats to rob/mug their victims. Recently a study by the BBAF (Bangladesh Board of Ajaira Facts) showed that, the IQ levels of Bangali criminals are far superior to that of other criminals anywhere in the world. To our criminals guns and knives are obsolete. They use weapons such as human faeces, animal faeces, pepper and even snakes to rob their victims. These items are cheap, easier to carry (except the snakes) and also reduce the risk of being arrested on the grounds of arms possessions.
Born salesman: We can sell just about anything to anyone; you just have to know how to lie. Luckily, we Bangalis happen to be experts on the lying department too. Just look at the double, treble and quadruple crossings of our politicians.
Embrace your inner Bangali.
By Alvi Ahmed
Killer Aim: Our cricketers miss direct hit run out chances. Our footballers can't score goals. Our movies are so far out of the box that they are practically in a parallel dimension. Why is that? It's because missing the target is ingrained in our culture. Look at the dumpsters. We throw our garbage everywhere other than in the container. You know what that means? We'll hit everything we don't aim for. Just think about that for a second.
Some snippets from our emails, Facebook wars and discussions held between numerous scuffles over the last piece of puri/chop/Mountain Dew. If you have something to rant about, mail us at ds.risingstars@gmail.com or go shout it out on Facebook at www.faceboook.com/DSRisingstars.
Bipro Biswas
Damn I like Rising Stars. It is really awesome because of its diction. The words used in the weekly is charming. I wish it glory.
The Rising Stars We've been wished many things but never glory. Awesome.
Sahil Ridwan
Agree with Mood Dude. We're surely damned. "Controlled by whom?" We surely don't need an answer to that question.
Sarah Nazreen Mithila
History repeats itself. We're looking at the new Farakka.
Rizvi Alam (via cold wintry Minnesota email) Winter survival tips missed out the worst thing about winter. All the girls dress in large hoods, gloves, scarves. You can't see them at all. At least not where I'm at.
Nirvana Cobain
George Harrison was the coolest Beatle that lived. :)
Saif Ahmed
I will soon make a custom RS t-shirts and wear it every Thursday, because it's National RS Day.
Rising Stars We will so feature you.
Sousan Suha Amin
RS feels UNLIKE RS without Babu. Bring him back.
And Shehtaz Huq was good with her piece in this issue. The rest were like... okay.
Imika Tsujiai Satsuki
I'm sorry, I just HAD to write this here...
LLAMAS ROCK!! :D
- The Rising Stars But they're hairy and smelly and 'spitty' like local bus passengers during Ramadan.
Sabrina Samreen (via email)
The article named “The Blue Headed Devil” made my blood boil with rage. I often see the cartoon Doraemon with my sister (a great fan) and it's not bad! Cartoons are meant to be entertaining not necessarily educational and every
Where you go for dates
and what that says about you
Everyone knows how the “couple scene” in Dhaka works. Let's have a look at what they look like through the eyes of normal people like you or me.
The Fuller Road hogs: Infamous for its street dating scene, Fuller Road is turned into a jungle of dui shaliks (coupled birds) every single weekend, and most weekdays too. Daters from Old Dhaka, Dhanmondi, Moghbazar, etc all flock to this frankly, utterly drab, stretch of road to sit on the sidewalk and stare at the walls opposite to them. What fascinates these couples about some organization's wall writing propaganda demanding the freedom of Kata Harun or some such character is beyond the scope of this writer. This is usually the reserve for guys who have bikes and like to show off for their better halves (or, sometimes, their lack of one). Fuller Road residents are forced to walk on the main street as the sidewalks have been converted to sidesitanddatespot. Seriously, guys, put some more gas in that bike and take her to a proper scenic place rather than forcing yourselves to stare at walls.
The Banani Bridge and Bosti hangout: Yes, the Banani Bridge is a brilliant piece of architecture, very convenient too. And yes, it has quite the view if you can ignore the slum-land on the opposite bank. That shouldn't be enough reason to be cheap and skimp out of the fine dining Banani Road 11 offers and have jhalmuri with your date while obstructing the passage of cars on the bridge. Again, this points us to only one thing: you are cheap. If you can't even pay for lunch or dinner once a week or even once a month, you don't deserve to be part of a couple.
The Westin or The Radisson public: A polar opposite of the Banani Bosti couples and Fuller Road encroachers, the couples you'll find at these places are the most obnoxious, stuck up people you will find in Dhaka City. Their idea of fine dining is paying insanely bloated prices for food that is just marginally better than anything else on offer. They'll pull up in their Benzes, act like they own the place and eat small portions of food while justifying it with “it's not about quantity, it's about quality”. Splurging large amounts of cash won't win you any points here either.
So. Whatever you do, you'll get a bashing. Find the right middle, in-between spending large and being cheap, and stick to it most of the time, occasionally splurging cash to make her happy.
By Shaer Reaz
Need a job?
Don't forget that your time for sending in CVs is drawing close. If you're very roughly 14-18 years old, know how to write, contact us. Artists and budding photographers also welcome.
BetaWriters winners please add the original versions of the selected entries. You can send in as many write ups as you want, show your versatility with different types of articles.
You will be required to come to office at least once a week. Further details come during the interview.
Mail CVs and sample work to ds.risingstars@gmail.com with the title: Recruitment Application.
Deadline: 24 December. We will let you know when to appear for interviews. Bribes accepted, but discretion advised.
CORRIGENDUM (i.e. the accessional screwup): Last weeks page 6 article on how to experiment on eggs without their consent was written by Siffana Sohail. We were so caught up in turning the egg into a flying ninja, we forgetfully (like Einstein)dropped her name.
