BD 85/1, 10.0 Overs, Zim 198 All Out

This is something which I'd always want to see!

7.6 Chigumbura to Aftab Ahmed, FOUR, short ball, cuts it to deep cover
for four more
7.5 Chigumbura to Aftab Ahmed, FOUR, full ball, lovely drive on the up
over mid-on fielder for four
7.4 Chigumbura to Aftab Ahmed, FOUR, edges it to third man
7.3 Chigumbura to Aftab Ahmed, two runs, short ball, outside off,
guides it to third man
7.2 Chigumbura to Aftab Ahmed, FOUR, driven over cover for four
7.1 Chigumbura to Aftab Ahmed, SIX, short ball, on leg stump,
beautifully pulled away to over fine leg boundary for an otther
six

I miss...

I miss my school
I miss thought free days
I miss my college
I miss going to sleep without thinking about the next day
I miss the days when I didn't believe in many things
I miss the days when I didn't have a cell phone
I miss AG
I miss my AG blog and journal
I miss office(!)
I miss Mr. Kibria
I miss dialup
I miss water
I miss sleep

I miss so many things together! When I was younger so much, younger than today....I never needed anybody's help in any way....and now my life has changed in so many ways, my independence seems to vanish in the haze..........

Another Thursday

I'm an extensive user of the winamp keyboard shortcut "J", which is used for "Jumping to file". Whenever you press J in Winamp 2.x and 5.x, you'll find a "search for text"prompt, where you can type in the first few letters of the song you want to hear. As you keep on typing, the song choices get limited, and you're usually left with the song you wanted to hear. This may take a little bit more effort if you have different versions of the same song saved in your hard drive. Instead of creating a short playlist, I keep all of my songs in the playlist, "cause you never know which song you may wish to hear" at a particular point of time. Hence my home and office playlist both contains 3000 or something song. However, the songs are not 100% identical. I have more new songs in my home PC, and sometimes during office I feel like hearing that song from Simply Red, which I don't have on my office PC. One tough day...filled with craving for that song....and then I use my USB flash drive for the transfer! Alas....despite of feeling the urge to listen that song, I forgot to load it in my flash drive yesterday. Now, at 8:15 AM, I am once again feeling the urge to hear that song.

Office has not yet woke up from the Eid frenzy. Our bosses are in Coxsbazar, attending a strategic workshop. So there's no rush from their side as well. I missed 2 days office due to the journey, and I missed a critical lunch. Everyone, except me was there...the lunch party that my big boss had thrown for bidding farewell to a departing, veteran colleague of ours. She's leaving for Australia, to live with her husband and to complete masters. The somewhat harmless party at Pizza Hut was actually a feedback collection session. We had a companywide survey a few days ago, where we were asked to rate our bosses, and to comment on our working conditions and stuff. Not too surprisingly, the results were drastic, and alarming for ze bosses. There's no prob with my reporting boss, but the people above him got some problems. Anyways, the people out there were asked to "state the problems in the face instead of backstabbing." I wish I was there. A friend of mine taught me to be straight forward, and I'll always be grateful to her for this. I am not saying that I'm always straight forward, but I try to honest in my approach.

Going Home is the theme song for the movie Local Hero. I haven't seen the movie, but as I am a die hard Knopfler fan, I collected the soundtrack. Mark Knopfler is a really talented guitarist and a gifted singer. Dire Straits is one of the very few bands (Beatles, Doors, Dire Straits, Deep Purple, Rainbow), whose every song is liked by me. I'm listening to the theme right now. The usage of saxophone is absolutely amazing in this theme. There's another instrumental by Knopfler, which almost always brings tears in my eyes. I don't know why, but Irish Boy has something different in it. Everytime I listen to the theme, something happens to my soul.

Today I have to attend a day long "Gap Analysis" with a vendor for a proposed new service. Before going there, I am supposed to make a test format, but I am not feeling like doing it now. But the peril will be suffered by thine; I shouldn't be leaving office before preparing that document.

Creativity is a sought after terminology for me. I always wanted to be termed as a creative person. Be it a simple double border in a MS Word table, be it a new style of documentation, or anything else--I want to leave my mark. I want to see the new kids telling "Wow....this Ishtiaque dude was damn creative....he created this test format 5 years ago, and we're still using it". Hehe...silly thoughts.

I wanted to start writing the second part of my journey today, but I won't. Maybe next week I'll write it. Our weekend has been cut short this time, and I'll have to come at office on Saturday. This sucks big time, as I'll be forced to go to office for 6 straight days. Damned life!

Journey of A Life Time: Part 1 (The Cow's Tale)

Eid Holidays are over, and I am back in office again. This time, it was the Eid Ul Azha, the eid of hard work and less time for roaming around. Eid day was on the 22nd, a Saturday. We have weekly holidays on Fridays and Saturdays, and that's why this Eid gave us next to no holiday. We didn't have to come to office on Thursday, as Government declared it as a public holiday, but we were notified that we'll have to compensate that holiday on 29th, due to some stupid affiliation with some stupid chamber of commerce. Anyways, on 21st afternoon, I tagged myself along with the "Cow procurement" party of our family, consisting me, my cousin Rousseau, and three of my uncles. We went to Shahjahanpur gorur haat, and then to Komolapur gorur haat. As it has been published in yesterday's newspaper, on the day before eid, cows were sold at a price equivalent to the same of Water (panir dore goru bikri). We thought we bought a huge cow at 18k BDT, and it did look huge. However, later on, we found out that it didn't contain that much meat.

The haat experience wasn't that bad, as I was expecting. I went to the haat 2 times before, and this was perhaps the most peaceful experience of all. We bought the cow within 3 hours, and it didn't take more than 1 and half hours to walk back the cow to home. This time, me, my youngest uncle and cousin did the "walking back" job. Walking back the cow through the crowded roads of Dhaka is quite fun. However, our cow was a domestic one, and perhaps this was the first time it came to Dhaka. The cow had white complexion, and was very gentle in nature. It wasn't mooing, but it did not travel the road willingly. In multiple occasions, the cow decided to stand still on the road, refusing the go any further. In those cases, the two guys whom were accompanying the cow, had to beat him up mercilessly using a stick. This saddened me, and I tried to refrain them from resorting to the beat'em up policy. After ensuring the safety of the cow in our backyard, I looked at myself and judged that I didn't get too much dirt on, and I can go to the barber for a haircut. My mom gave me a deadline that I must get a haircut within this day, or else there will be news for me. Ahem...so I went to the barber's and sat in a chair for getting the haircut thingy. It didn't take too long. The barber was young and jolly, he talked a lot and he told me that he was going to give me a bollywood cut(!@#!). I was too tired and engrossed in thought to say anything. I dunno how good a haircut he gave me, but everyone said that I was looking good :$

I was waiting for the goats to arrive. My uncle went to the haat again for getting the goats, at around 10 PM. I was playing Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth, and hillariously, Aragorns war chant and goats "baaa" sound echoed together, at 1:30 AM. I finally went to bed at around 2 AM.

Woke up at 7:30 in the morning, went to the mosque for prayers, and came back and enjoyed the delicious food items prepared by my mother. Meanwhile, the poor cow was getting slaughtered downstairs. Usually I keep myself present during the yearly slaughter sessions, but this time I decided not to see the brutal dissection of the cow throat. Not too surprisingly, I have grown a soft corner for the cow, which was very cute and gentle. I didn't want to see him getting slaughtered. I went downstairs long after the slaughtering was over. I spent the rest of the day in a very busy manner. I actively participate in the process of taking meat from downstairs to upstairs, and later on, me and my cousins distributed the meat in to 7 equal shares. The categories were Pure meat, meat with bones, only bones, liver, lard, meat with lard, meat from the head, etc. Liver was further broken down into three sub categories. The process is fun. Though the thought of touching meat with bare hands might make some people puke, the actual process isn't that much bad. We finished everything by 12:30 PM, which was quite fast.

I went to my only Bhabi's house, one floor down. I live in the 2nd floor, and she, along with my eldest uncle's elder son (who is her husband) lives in 1st floor. And then I went to 2 of my uncle's, came back home, and lied in bed. Stayed there for a while, and then got up and had lunch accompanied by my sister and parents. That was the time when I got my first shot at the kurbani beef. Beef was good, but not fully boiled. I mean it was still a bit hard.

After lunch, I slept for an hour or two. B's phone call woke me up. She's a very good friend of mine, and it felt great talking to her after a long time. Her cell phone is an old nokia 3310, which is almost a museum item. Recently, the battery went nuts and I couldn't call her due to that fact. She called from the tnt number, and although I was sleepy, I enjoyed the chat. by the way, she's a distant khala of mine.

I got up, started the PC, and played games till 4. Then went to Pintu's house, another very good friend of mine. There I met Pintu, Afzal, Murshid, Tushar, Sajal, Shujit, Ashique--all my ol' pals . We had plans for going to Netrokona and Mymensingh, with Murshid not confirming his going beforehand. This issue was discussed thoroughly, and I personally tried my best to pursuade Murshid, for going with us. He had an exam on 27th, and declined to join us. His reasoning was quite valid, but it was still painful for me to accept the fact that he won't be joining us. This was the first time all of us were going out together, on a journey as long as this one. Me, Pintu, Shujit and Murshid are buddies since our early schooling years. I first met these people in 1990, more than a decade ago. There were ups and downs in our relationships; but we never lost contact. So this was a life-time opportunity for all of us; an opportunity none will want to lose. But unfortunately, when we boarded the bus scheduled for Mymensingh on 23rd, Murshid was not with us. We missed him throughout the whole 3 day tour, and I hope together we'll go somewhere else in the near future.

I had a long adda and walking session with my friends, and at around 7 pm, the school friend's group decided to visit the school. This has become a regular routine for us. Every year, on Eid day, we go to visit our school in the evening. I think we are following this ritual for the last 3/4 eids. Everytime we go there, we meet a group of people whom we never get to meet unless it's Eid. These are the people who went to school with us. So many faces, and strangely enough, I haven't forgot any of them. This year we met Ismail, after almost 9 years, and still we could recognized each other. But I'm sure that I won't be able to recognize many college-mates, even if they recognize me. School friends are the best friends one will ever get.....most probably this hypothesis won't be proven wrong.

We wanted to leave early, as tomorrow was going to be a big day. Being present in Mohakhali at 7 AM is a challenging goal, for any circumstance. So we needed to get back home early. Enroute to home, me Pintu and Murshid decided to give Bobby a visit, another old friend of ours. Bobby is a school friend of Murshid. They used to go to school together, before Murshid joined Khilgaon Govt. High. I first met him in 1995, as far as I remember. Later on, we became good friends when he also joined NDC and we both got into group 2. Bobby left for USA after passing HSC.

I saw Bobby after 7 years...and he didn't seem different at all. That same smile, that same sense of humour, and a bit healthier(!) physique. After all, he's married now. Yeah, he got married a week before that, and he didn't invite me :@ . I am not angry, though, as he didn't invite too many people. It felt really good to see him.

When I returned home, I was a happy man, and I had a lot of expectations in mind for the days ahead. Who knew that the next three days would turn out to be some of the most memorable days of my life! (Till date).

Visiting The Stars

Blank!

November Rain...

Yesterday, Bangladesh won their first test match. I think they won quite easily, and the opponent cannot be called a formidable one, in any way. However, a win's a win, and the records will not highlight the fact that most players in the Zimbabwe team were inexperienced. It was a great day for our nation, and I am looking forward to seeing more such great days.

My organization is the official sponsor of the team, and I expected some sort of celebration. But strangely, nothing happened. We have a TV in our 7th floor conference room. After the 9th wicket fell, a lot of people (including myself) rushed towards the room for being a part of the historic moment. Well, that's all about it--some cheers, hand clapping and applauds after Ashraful took the catch. Within 5 minutes, the place was cleared out, and I went out to lunch with 3 of my friends, who are also my colleagues.

It's good to have classmates in the same organization, and it gets better when you are in friendly terms with them. We often spend time chit chatting (during our breaks), we work in cross functional teams, we have informal discussions about the company, we share our expectations, future plans and disappointments..and a lot more. The source of envy is the guy who recently got married. Very few of my male batch mates (I am talking about my IBA batch mates here) got married. Some more will get married this year. Maybe within an year or two, I'll become a chachchu or something...thanks to my friends in Uni...hehe.

For the last few days, I am having a feeling of anticipation. It's like I am waiting for something to happen. This feeling got a bit subsided since yesterday, and I am yet to confirm the reason behind it. I mean the discovery process will be twofold. I'll have to first figure out what I was anticipating, and secondly, I'll have to be sure that my feeling of anticipation has subsided and that element is the reason behind it! So if I convert this situation in to a model:

Y= the feeling of anticipation (dependent variable)

X= the reason behind the anticipation (independent variable)

a= some incident, that got rid of the anticipation (!)

so y=f(x)

At this point, I just realized that I tied my bonds with the better part of mathematics 7 years ago. No, no...I am not that old, and neither did I study in a noobish subject. I had math courses during my BBA, but those courses did not give me that much insight in to the true form of maths. In my current life, I see only BBA's around. I mean each and every guy I interact with has some sort of business degree. Those who don't are either engineers or finance people. And none of'em are my friends. I have a friend circle, where nobody's a business graduate. That's my school friend's group. I really enjoy the time I spend with them, as there's no "job/business/revenue/salary" blah blah blah discussion over there. When the people from IBA gets together, the discussions eventually ends up to job satisfaction, salary, boss, etc. topics, which is sickening. It's like 5 days is week was not enough for all the job crap. I used to have an IRC pal hangout group, but that group is barely existent now. I am only left with my AG group. I have minimal contact with people outside these groups. I used to have a very good friend, with whom I had regular interaction. But I am in the verge of losing that friend, too.

I don't enjoy visiting my relatives. This is not only due to the fact that most of them are either older than me, or younger...but the more prevalent fact is "difference", and I can't blame people for this difference.

I have noticed one thing. Many writers write for others. They always keep the audience in mind. They avoid writing too much personal stuff. But I write for myself. I have passed a significant portion of my life, and I don't think I will become a writer. However, I did spend time as a journalist, for two magazines. I even had that 2 year working experience in my CV, and it helped me in getting the current job of mine. Yeah the job must be sweet, as I get some time writing. But actually it is not. When I am busy, I am busy like hell...and when I'm not, I have nothing to do at all. This sux...but I have nothing to do here. Writing was never that much of a difficult task for me. Throughout my life, I have experienced writer's block for only a few times.

I have to reply to a few mails, again. But I am experiencing a writer's block over there! How peculiar this is.

It's 3 PM..the worst time of the day. My boss was not in office the whole day. She just came in, and I am quite sure that I will have to face her within the next 2 or 3 hours. For your info, these meetings are never sweet. I would like to tell you how she looks like, but why should I create envy? (a)

Anyways....not feeling like writing anymore, at this moment. As I said, I am mostly a selfish writer. I like writing about myself more, than anything else. I also like reading my own writings. I still look back at the articles I wrote for Shaptahik 2000 and Computer Times. Sigh....those good ol' days.

"You can't take me"--this is a loser msn nick, and I am not using it. If nobody's taking you, it's not the world that is incompetent, it's you who are not competent enough to get "in" to anywhere or anything.

Heh.

Bye...