ব্লগরব্লগর

I was raised in a moderately religious family where education was given priority. We attended religious events and participated in religious rituals but it was never imposed on us. It simply became a part of life for me that I didn't give much thought to. I am a logical person so there have been many occasions in my life when I have questioned my faith.

Cancer is a short C-word with a heavy, cold and lonely feeling. Cancer survivors live with that feeling every day of their life.

Life had its twists and turns, yet you had a life before cancer. At least, you were allowed to have dreams about life. Cancer puts a sudden end to those dreams. Cancer turns you from a “woman” to a “survivor”.

[NB: This piece is taken from a diary entry from 2010 when I was briefly interning for a charity. Sadly, the contents still remain relevant.]

I'm drafting a consultation paper for DFID (Department for International Development) on maternal mortality. Doing the research has been difficult. It has been pretty damn awful really. I've basically spent the last couple of days going through a catalogue of all the horrific atrocities inflicted on women and young girls across the world, all in the name of tradition, custom, honour, religion. There may not be much in common between the troubled Somalia and the up-and-coming-nearly-developed India, but one thing that connects the two is the fact that women and girls of both the countries continue to face violence. The forms may vary wildly from female genital mutilation to sex-selective abortion, but the victims are the same group of human beings - women.

All we can send the following letter as protest against the article published by Economist.

You can also edit it before sending. Path forward, we can with help of law-years take the matter to the press council of UK and USA.

Let us work to make Economist say Sorry for their article.

Shahbag movement believes in people’s power, believes in democracy, believes in peaceful protest, which we have successfully demonstrated since last month. We will continue this protest until every single war criminal is brought under justice.

Another unique dream last night...
One every few months...
Woke me up so Early in the morning... and couldn't go back to sleep..
I shivered in the cold.. and closed my eyes trying to picture what it was all about ...

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Premonition

A city somewhere out of Asia...

Religion makes us feel special. It comforts us with the idea that we are superior than other species on earth. It gives some fancy misconceptions about reality and physical world. We like to think ourselves special. We like to think that we have a greater purpose in our life. We fantasize about afterlife. That hallucinates us from the very truth, the reality.

What are the things you do when you procrastinate? Here is a list (incomplete, of course) of what I do while procrastinating:

1. check gmail, yahoo, facebook for new updates/messages, every five minutes
2. watch youtube documentaries on Kubrik and his movies
3. write poems
4. listen to TED talks

My two-and-half years old son is the most vivid reader in the family (his mother usually picks not less than ten books for him each week from the library and every one of them is new, each week). The alphabet books are full of pictures, those he reads by himself. We read the storybooks while he browses through the pictures, lying on his bed at night. Its a shame that I am the legitimate card holder of the library, but so far I have picked only two books as loan to read at home. I am just an average reader for my age and I regret for that. I wish I had read more! But as they say, better late than never. As my leisure times are shrinking day by day, my appetite for reading books are growing exponentially.

It was 2009, and the decision was made. I had to leave my family and friends. I had to leave the campus that I had been dreaming about being a part of. I had to leave the highest educational institution in the country in order to go to a just one year old institution. I had to leave the place and environment I know like my palm to place I had never been to.