Outrageous Bombings

Suddenly, my country, as I have known it for the last 25 years, is appearing alien to me. Suicide bombing, religious fanaticism, killing judges, processions by judges, judges calling strikes--are these things happening to our lives? Is this my beloved country, for which my grandfather sacrificed his life for, on 14th december, 1971? Almost 34 years after our triumph over Pakistan army, can we really say that we are an independent nation?

Yesterday, another bomb blast killed 9 and injured 70 people. This incident occurs only a few days before the month of victory. This is indeed a threat to our national security, sovereignty, and above all, the feeling of security that many of us have for being able to live in a free country. In fact, there was not much of that feeling any way. It got shattered long time ago.

I got mugged in 31^st December, 2003. It was a terrifying experience, but I took it easy. That incident eliminated the feeling of safety from my mind, and since then I try being alert while traveling. Before that, I would be in a light mood during journeys, but now I am extra cautious, and I try avoiding dark nook and corners after the sunset.

But what measure to take against bomb blasts? Maybe I will be shopping in Agora, buying a loaf of bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, and the middle aged, bearded, otherwise well respected and good mannered guy might turn out to be “one of them” suicide bombers. The bloody images of my dissected feet, burnt flesh and pummeled body will appear on the morning papers. For Prothom-alo’sinternet edition, the pictures might appear long before the morning. My mother would regret for the rest of her live for asking me to pick up a loaf of bread on my way back home from office. My sister will look at the broken mp3 player, probably recovered from my right trouser pocket, and cry. She keeps on asking me for it, and I keep on declining her request, stating "imminent HSC exam" reasons. I hope my dad will hear the news from my uncles, instead of seeing the gory depiction of what was my face even a day before, in the papers. He had two heart attacks, God, he won’t be able tolerate this shock.

I wonder how my friends will react. With a little laughter, I am also worried about my precious music and games collection. It took me a lot of time and effort to collect the music I have.

Who to blame for my imagination going wild? Can you really call me a paranoid if I start suspecting every bearded man that I will be coming across from today onwards? Would you blame me if I leave this country and settle abroad in a couple of years?

I never wanted to leave this country. I always wanted to do something for this country. Maybe it is because of the blood I inherited from my ancestors. I had to confront the idea of going abroad and settling there; multiple times. But I never felt an urge to do so; I never really got the green signal from the heart for this action. My brain always told me to try for an abroad MBA or masters, but my heart never instructed me to do so.

But today, my heart is in trouble. Today’s newspaper gave my heart a massive attack. Things will never be the same.

I never believed in the Hartal concept, and to me, Hartal is really an annoying and irritating event. The Hartal day passes quite normally, but it creates an extreme pressure on the weekly routine of everyone, and we see excessive traffic throughout the rest of the week, including weekends.

But this time I am going to support the Hartal that was called by the lawyers of the nations. There are rotten apples in every barrel, but that doesn’t mean you need to kill all the lawyers.

I mean, what is their point? I heard a few conspiracy theories, but none of them seems logical to me. Why would a Islamic fanatic group want to kill judges? What could be motive behind this massacre?

I need to read and think more for an answer to this. But I wonder whether my heart and brain will let me do so…..

It’s high time something gets done.

Is changing the government a solution? I don't think so. They are all the same. These politicians lack the creativity and dynamic nature that is required in order to solve critical problems. They can only solve some mundane problems, or allocate budget for solving it. They never do the follow up and check how the allocated resources and approved plans are being executed.

And we call them law makers, policy makers, and the Government.

I wonder why these stupid, incompetent and half-educated people should make laws for us.

Irony…

I Just Finished Writing a Story!

My regular readers already know that I have been writing a full story for the last month or so. I had a clear concept of how I would end and start the story, but as I kept on going, ideas invaded my mind, and at times I found my own writing alien to me. It was like some magical force, someone or something drove my writing forward. In all good faith, I can only say that I got help from Allah for actually finishing this story. I just ran word count in MS Word, and here's what I got:

Pages: 14
Words: 5,736
Characters (No Space): 25,515
Characters (Spaces): 31,141
Paragraphs: 180
Lines: 433

Maybe it's a silly story, and maybe it will bore the hell out of most. But it's still a creation, a story, which I loved creating, and I will love reading when I get older.

Here's a link to the story:

http://dmrwrites.blogspot.com/2005/11/lunch-is-beautiful.html

I hope you'll enjoy it.

By the way, two of my best friends graduated today. I am so, so happy for them. It really means a lot to me. I wish they know it as much as I do :)

What a Mess!

Okay, this blog of mine has become a multipurpose, multidimensional, multiirritating and what not blog. Although I like writing stories and stuff, I should not use this blog for writing stories.

I already have:

A gaming blog(Gamespot)
A blog for talking about the past (blogger)
A forum specific blog (amadergaan.com)
A MSN Space(MSN)

I need:

A blog for current thoughts (I am using msn spaces for this, but I don't like it)
A blog for travel logs/stories
A music blog
A blog for articles of interest

I will stop writing in MSN and AG (which I have already done, to some extent), and continue writing here...my current thoughts.

So no more huge entries, no more stories, no more rehashing the past here....just current thoughts and updates on current happening. I will add links to my other blogs in the right side of this blogs, very soon. I already have a link for the Yesterdays blog here.

Now I will convince myself for having so many blogs. I could have done all this using categorized blogs in msn. But msn space is not the thing for me. Blogger has many customizing options, and I think I will start using them, soon.

Here's where I will be adding my links (check back for inactive links):

The Song of My Life
Yesterdays
Life of a Beatlefan
Linking Brain and Word Processor..

Will update later..

A Break from the Usual: Prelude to Another Trip and Thoughts

It's been a while since I wrote something other than a story or a travel description here. I have some other blogs where I usually put in my current thoughts. But this is my most favorite blog, and I feel like interrupting the story and writing a few words here. As Eid holidays are approaching, the excitement is increasing within.

We are going to Saint Martin's island on the 5th! We will reach there on 6th, and we are expected to return on the 8th. I will hopefully reach office on the 9th. This will be the third journey with my school and college friends. We went to Netrokona and Coxsbazar on last two occasions. I did not finish writing the story of Netrokona, but I wrote a huge, 12 entry account of the Coxsbazar trip. This will be a short trip, but I expect it to be an illustrious one, like the previous two. This time we don't have Murshid with us, and Sujit can't make it due to official commitments. Yes, he'll be working during the holidays. And of course, Afzal is in Germany, so he can't come as well. This left us with a small, 4 member group. Fortunately enough, Sajal agreed to join at the last moment.

We bought Bus tickets for Teknaf. The price for a direct bus journey from Dhaka to Teknaf cost us Tk 420 (What a dubious price!). We will hopefully reach Teknaf at around 9 AM, on 6th November. The journey starts at 10:30 PM, from S.Alam's bus stand at Komolapur. S. Alam is the name of the bus service we will be using. This bus stand is just opposite Komolapur rail station, the very same place from where we started our Coxsbazar trip. The place brought memories, lots of them.

We spent almost 2 hours in search of bus tickets, a few days back. We were extremely lucky to get the tickets.

From Teknaf, a 2 hour naval journey will take us to St. Martin. The vehicle is unsure till now. We can either avail a luxurious ship called Keary Sindbad, or we can avail a Government operated Sea Truck. As a last resort, we have trawlers operated by local fishermen. According to Pintu and Murshid, the Trawler journey is severely painful, and frightening. But I am not afraid, nor is Tushar.

We had to face a lot of resistance. Apparently, only me and Tushar seemed excited about the journey. Others were trying to discourage us from the very beginning. Murshid and Pintu toppled the ranks among the most activate discouraging agents! Murshid is going to China for a training on the 4th, and hence he stopped discouraging. But Pintu still looks hesitant and a bit disturbed at the proceedings so far. However, I am sure he will be happy when we do end up in the island paradise.

After we reach St. Martins, we plan to stay overnight and enjoy the scenic beauties. I just received two banglalink T-Shirts today, which will come handy during our trip. A friend of Ashique and Pintu helped us in booking a hotel room. We booked a single room, where two beds will be joined together for accomodating four. We are five, but there is thin chance that any one of us will sleep. We plan to spend the night in the beach.

Sajal is a very old friend, and I am delighted to have him with us in this tour. It took a lot of pursuading, though, to make him agree. But that is an inseparable part of any tour. Only the Netrokona tour was made possible without much coaxing. But that's a different story..

I turned 25 last month. Yes, I am only 25 years old. And also, with the aging process, I am just on the brink of completing 2 years of full time working. I have been working continuosly, from November 6th, 2003 till today, with few holidays. In GP, I took maximum 5 days leave, and in banglalink, I only took leave for a day last month.

I quit GP on 27th July, and joined BL on the 28th. So it makes 2 straight years of working. What have I achieved so far?

A lot.......

Friends, please wish me luck for the trip and the days ahead.