Women's Day, Old Friends and Rules

This women’s day was special. It was all about breaking the rules of courtesy. Instead of being with a group of people attending a musical program, my school friend Sabrina, I and Farhana ran off to having a quiet dinner instead at a Korean restaurant followed by juicy updates on our lives.

Sabrina and I go back a long way, back to the days of my long braids and round spectacles, reminiscent of pitter patter of mischief. Breaking rules is not quite that fun anymore as it used to be back in school. The most memorable moments with Sabrina would be when we went on a trip to Colombo to attend a wedding or when about we all stayed over at her place and at midnight decided to go on a rickshaw ride. Worst was when we actually tipped the rickshaw puller to allow us to peddle the rickshaw. We managed it quite well too. Now, at this place, something like having five teenage girls out on the streets at night, one peddling a rickshaw while the other four are on it, is simply not done, and 15yrs back, it was even more dangerous than it could possibly be now.

I will never forget it when we got locked out later and one of us actually tried to climb the windows to reach Sabrina’s second floor apartment and wake up the maids to let us in.

Scary!!!!!! What were we thinking of?!

Did someone ever predict that the most notorious bunch from school could possibly turn out to be the most successful? I will get to see Sabrina next year with possibly more degrees tucked in her belt and more successes career-wise. Atta way, girl!

"The thing about life and its rules is that the things you will remember best are the things you were not supposed to do but you did them anyways. " - Meredith; Grey Anatomy

Love From An Angle

Juliet was an idiot, for starters, she falls for the one guy she knows she cannot have than she blames fate for her own bad decision. Some explains that when fate comes into play, choice sometimes goes out the window. At a young age I have learnt that love, like life is about taking choices and fate has nothing to do with it. Everyone thinks it’s so romantic, Romeo and Juliet, and how sad. But, if Juliet was stupid enough to fall for the enemy, drink a bottle of poison and go to sleep in a mausoleum, she deserved whatever she got. - Meredith, Grey’ Anatomy.

Here is a one way of viewing the concept of 'love" to a few people in Bangladesh. Love to some, if you had noticed carefully, might be a result of frustration, peer pressure and loneliness and have no resemblance to the real concept of unconditional love that exists within people in normal life. Even a decade ago, it was a taboo to even think of forming bonds of mild friendship resembling romance, let alone actually fall in love and have a relationship.

Recently, with the evolution of technology and global outlook, romance has gained popularity status. In the few cases, it can be seen that young children, even at playgroup or kindergarten are calling out “I love you” because they saw it on TV and think it’s cool. Some teenagers throng around, looking for someone to fulfill their different levels of loneliness by having someone to shoulder psychological depressions, family turmoil and personal troubles, not to mention assist them with assignments. Some young adults marry to benefit their family lineage and have another shoulder that would replace more loneliness piled up from emotional baggage of their teenage past, mere responsibility, pressure and stress and some people existing in the elder generation, tend to fall in love with younger people to satisfy a strange desire to feel younger.

So if Shakespeare were alive today and lived in this strange part of Bangladesh in the lives of these people; would he have written a revised format of the famous love story “Romeo and Juliet” and named it "Babul Ar Rohima Keno Kandlo", specialized just for these special cases where 'love' apparently exists? And, in the end, would Rohima have drank a bottle of poison or poisoned Babul instead?

A Real Treasure

Today my nephew Marfiq turns 1yr old at noon. Here's a happy birthday wish for him!

It's your first birthday, Marfiq, with one candle on your cake; As we all stare in wonder at each new move you make I wish great joy, happiness and success in every small step you take henceforth. You have arrived into our lives with pleasure and we look forward to seeing how you progress and grow from the cute and tiny infant you were one year ago.

Marfiq Fact File: He is accomplished: He started attending school at the age of 3 months; He is intelligent: His first favorite toy is a book; He is sensitive: He won't even look at you if he senses that you don't like him; He's first audible sound: ba ba; He's present favarite word: Dao Dao Dao; He is fated as: the first baby in the family; He is always with his: mom; His dad: Sings to him.

Build Your Own Castle

At the end of the day faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It’s like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than you dreamed. The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And it’s not so important happy ever after, just that it’s happy right now. See once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you, and once in a while people may even take your breath away.

- Meredith Grey Quotes from Grey Anatomy

Today, an HR manager and a friend took my breath away for sure while we were having lunch at a Mexican restaurant. Suddenly, she commented on how she felt I could achieve and accomplish so much more if I only tried. I regarded her abrupt compliment with interest. It was a statement, it was an encouragement and it was an observation of my worth. I opened my mouth to comment, closed it and opened it again and than gave up trying to be a fish. She meant well, but the fact is, I am quite happy and content where I am unless a wind blows me away. So I smiled, said thank you and drank my soup.

The thing is, we all have a blueprint of the castle we all eventually want to build, somewhere along the story of building it, if changes are required to form a better looking castle than ideas are always welcome. But if we ever give our blueprint to another person not related to us, chances are, our castle will look way different than what we initially wanted it to be. It might look better, or it might look worse, but the bottom line is, it will not look or feel completely like our castle.

So, I believe we should have faith in ourselves, to build a castle or a number of castles, because no matter what it might look like in the end, it’s ours and we are the king or queen who owns it and there is no happiness that can surpass that feeling. So build your castles, albeit slowly but don’t give your blueprint away.

It’s Called Teamwork

Teamwork is very necessary for a good and successful work force. Last Wednesday, 28th of Feb, teamwork flashed through the veins of my colleagues at my company.

They all rescued a six pound chocolate Tia Maria cake for my colleague, Trisha's farewell party, which toppled and fell from the table and broke into half, with one half landing atop the other.

Murphy’s Law: “If anything can go wrong, it will”

The rescue operation lasted for more than half an hour where more than a dozen colleagues “forked” the destitute cake into an upright position with just a little destruction evident on its upturned surface in the final result. The cream was almost intact after the jubilant and successful rescue operation team had finished their work with such dexterity.

While I held on to a fork, I realized that even a soft cake if handled with skill, diligence and tender care can survive a massive fall.

Now, the root to the rescue was not the cake itself but the person it was meant for. Trisha had indeed created quite an impact with her amiable nature, shining face and ever beaming smile in the six months she was with us. I wonder how many of us can actually do that? I silently applauded her for making a choice of persuing a higher education over a good job, no matter how comfortable and attached to it she had become in the short while she was here, or how much we all loved her to be with us. We will surely miss her but we wish her joy and good luck.

On the flip side, here is food for thought: "LOVE YOUR JOB, BUT NEVER FALL IN LOVE WITH YOUR COMPANY, BCOZ U NEVER KNOW WHEN THE COMPANY WILL STOP LOVING YOU" - Narayana Murthy

Fire in the City

While I worked at my workstation in my new office building yesterday, I saw distant smoke rising up in the horizon and helicopters circling around. That was surely not what my colleagues predicted for me to see through those huge glass windows. Unfortunately, I got more than coconut trees to see for once and hopefully I wished, not ever again.

According to the daily news, three people died and at least 50 were injured as a devastating fire swept through the 11-storey Bangladesh Steel and Engineering Corporation (BSEC) Bhaban in the city's Karwan Bazar yesterday morning.. ..

Major Siddique, who went all the way up to the roof around 2:45pm, told The Daily Star that the building itself had a number of fire hazards. Only one staircase and faulty fire extinguishers--all raised the spectre of higher death toll.

This should ring alarm bells in the minds of most office goers. I am no different. Needless to say, the city does have more than just a few buildings with possible hazards just waiting to happen. After an over-bridge collapsed on a car near New Market a few years ago, there was terror in me whenever I would pass under any over bridge in town.

Than, we have the numerous builders building apartments all around the city. No offense meant to them but my dad, who is a civil engineer, had come across a case where there was no fire or earthquake plans made during erection of the monstrosity with disaster waiting to happen.

Now, I am sure there are countries with similar cases around the world. But for a person like me, getting into a lift in a new building is fast turning into an ordeal. It’s a phase I would like to get over. Is the government going to ever find a solution?

Reflections

Who am I today?" I ask, and I wonder if I even know. I know the past has shaped me now, even though the past was long ago.

The little moments form a blur. The times both happy and sad, all the people I once knew and the things I used to have.

They all helped me to become where, what and who I am now, because everything has influenced me, I'm not sure exactly how.

But I'm thankful for the memories, even of the people I've never really met. For the people I miss, the people I love, and even the people I'd like to forget.

For these memories have helped me grow. They've made me calm, yet strong. And now there's a story to my life that they've been writing all along.

So, thank you for the memories. Without them, I don't know who I'd be - because somewhere among these memories are the things that define me..

A Road Trip

After the fateful viewing session of the “Casino Royale” at the exclusive movie theatre in town with 15 people including friends and colleagues previous Friday, this weekend saw me looking forward to rest and leisure in capital R and L. Watching movies are just for fun, but a movie where my colleague Florian can literally fall asleep in the hall, my friend Mishu can actually miss the bond's hitech gadgets and someone else yearn for the usual strong female character and grumble about it throughout the movie, fun can be calculated in degrees. The movie had left us feeling less than exhilarated and to pep ourselves up, I and my friend Mishu decided one good movie after a bad one was in order, so we both headed out to Gulshan club to see an Indian Movie. But with our luck, the movie was in bad taste and we ran out during interval and ended up in a coffee shop to remove the “bad movie buzzes” with cups of cappuccino and coffee mocha.

After last weekend’s interesting fiasco I decided studying and staying home was the key for this weekend treat. But thanks to my friends, I awoke to Rica’s phone call and got talked into a short road trip to Jamuna Resorts. We didn't regret it. For starters, she had a half day plan at the resort where she had booked a room for leisure where we would enjoy the resort view, have time to talk, relax and come back rejuvenated after the long 6 hours drive to and fro from the destination. So, we all started out in zest.

After traveling for a while, we decided to have impromptu breakfast at one of those tea-stalls on the roadside. As I had not had the privilege of ever doing that in Dhaka city I was all up for adventurous food. But, it seemed I was not adventurous enough because I ended up avoiding the breakfast which consisted of yummy egg omelete and paratha and stuck to the tea instead. My friend Farhana actually ended up with a questionable stomach afterwards, so you might want to reconsider doing that if you have a sensitive stomach.

The drive included listening to a wide range of songs, thanks to Miss Marium DJ, she was totally in sync with our moods along the way. We were happy, we were all excited about our trip and we were in the mood. It didn't last long.

The customer service at Jamuna resort was disturbingly spectacular. We had our long hairs flying with extreme disapproval and our colors rose with distaste when our "booked" room turned out to be a shower room instead or what looked like a shower room. It was wholly unexpected and non acceptable since we were being charged for Standard Rooms. And here I must say, it’s not the money but the audacity of the receptionist to think we could settle for it on the excuse that all the rooms were booked out. Whatever happened to honesty and customer service to corporate clients?

As this episode was similar to when we had gone to a Mexican restaurant in town and they served us Doritos when we had ordered for Nachos we decided that we would not accept this behaviour. Specially not when we were all in such high spirits. We decided that either customer service really needed to spruce up at certain places in the country or the receptionist really believed there are people who would stand for this kind of treatment.

It’s imperative to mention here that since we were all corporate people dealing mainly with clients and customers and we could all completely identify the sub-standard service we were being offered. So, we politely huffed and puffed and blew the place down, refused to take the room that was given to us in blind fate and went to Elenga resort for lunch instead which was really nice, especially the fish dishes.

The day proved to be a mixture of adventure, fun, realization, excitement and lots of laughter.

Moral of the trip: “Do not settle for less than what you truly think you deserve. You owe it to yourself to be treated nicely and justifiably.”

The Crow

I awakened at dawn with a bird singing outside my window, the bird in question is named the “Crow”. They are a breed of birds which are loud, noisy and a complete nuisance to mental peace, not to mention ugly to look at too.

In Bangladesh, I feel that crows could replace the “Doel” (Magpie Robbin) in being the national bird because there are so many of them around that it’s crazy. Our neighborhood hardly had any crows inhabiting it even five years ago. But today, I think I heard about a thousand of them happily “cawing” away to glory. Just like the traffic, even crows are becoming congested, denoting phenomenal growth in population with growing human habitats, terrible garbage management systems and clutter in the neighborhoods.

Crows have always intimidated me ever since I had watched Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” when I was 10yrs old. It wasn’t the first horror movie I have watched but it was unduly one of the scariest. I do not love watching horror movies in general simply because I prefer not wasting time and energy in putting myself through that ordeal. So, while my friends are welcome to squeal in glee while watching horror movies to satisfy their own masochistic pleasure I prefer happy feel good movies, drama, thrillers and comedy with happy endings.

"The Birds” was undoubtedly one of the greatest movies ever created. Major parts of the world still associate the crow with superstition. My mom used to think that if a crow caws right outside your window, it’s a death call. Scary, but if realistically viewed, the country is doomed if that was true. My friend Rica said that there were different cawing techniques of the crow which each might denote something different. Perhaps, if she is right, the first time I got a promotion can be associated with a crow cawing loudly directly over my head as I was walking through the gate with a pace of 1s of cawing interspaced with 2s interval. Calls described in the scientific literature can be explained only as a language of crows. But, how and when they got connected to human superstition is still a part of mythology.

The great majority of the world still believes in superstition. I myself believe in an existence beyond this one and of superstition but that’s not reason, it’s faith. Asians tend to be syncretism in their approach to change. Thus Taoism absorbs previous shamanistic beliefs; we should not be surprised to see that people now still believe in ghosts and spirits. I personally do not feel that it is a sign of mental backwardness, but rather evidence of the resiliency of a continuum of beliefs.

In modern life, some individuals, not otherwise involved in the practice of a tribal religion, have chosen to adopt a personal spirit animal helper which has some kind of special meaning to them and incorrectly call this a totem. Beliefs regarding these animal helpers can vary, from merely adopting one as a whim, to adopting an animal that a person sees representing favorable traits reflected in their own behavior or appearance, called a power animal by the Foundation for Shamanic Studies

According to that belief, a crow totem is supposedly an “Omen of Change”. It is stated that “Crows are messengers calling to us about the creation and magic that is alive in the world today and available to us”.

So shall I belief that totems really work just because a crow cawing has signified a promotion at work just once? For someone like me, here is something that’s far for scarier than having a crow cawing or watching a horror movie.

The media reports fueling superstition in South Korea where the free tabloid recently ran a story about three popular Korean celebrities who were filming a television show in Phuket, saying the stars reported hearing voices at their hotel that they believed were spirits.

Not Just a Regular Day at the Office

Today, we shifted into the new office building after the merger between the two great companies. It’s in a new building situated right next to my old office, so there wasn’t much hassle during the shifting process for the entire team.

We are spending the entire day rearranging desks. There are more people situated on one floor now than it was initially meant to be. For the moment, we are all piled into the top floor while the other floors are getting furnished.

Surprisingly, the shifting process worked faster than expected. I was even surprised to find that the IT and the Admin department had done such an excellent job during the weekend on the PABX, intranet and ID cards punch-in machines. The lifts are not operational yet so I guess until it does; climbing up to the fourth floor (which actually feels like the sixth) should help me loose those calories I have been willing to shed for a while.

The place is possibly as great as I had initially expected it to be, but the excitement has deemed somewhat. The cubicles and the rooms have been enacted so close to each other due to the cramped-up piling of people onto one floor that the spaces between the cubicles are less comparatively. Even though this is just a temporary situation, it's leading to the effect of being cooped up like a pack of birds. The entire shifting process was quite thrilling nevertheless. It was a whole new changeover, like having a haircut or something. My sitting area is situated in front of those huge windows so I now have a lovely view of coconut trees until the blinds are plugged in. It’s refreshing and nice and spacious for me compared to the others, so why the nostalgia?

I guess I can only say that some things are hard to control. Mentally and physically I am situated in the new office building but my feelings are more honest: "no matter how flexible a person I claim to be or how exciting a change, there will always be a part of me that will take just a little longer than a day to adjust, its all just a matter of time". The initial kinks during a shift have to be worked upon and like always, without fail, the familiarity will finally set in. And than, life shall move on until we have to shift again when the entire building is completed. And I shall write this line again with excitement, thrill and nostalgia.

"Today is not a repeat performance but a debut"