LIFE AS IT IS

The mighty Mississippi is flowing once again. The trees lining the river banks are growing new leaves; soon their bare branches will don a green coat. The lakes, which were frozen even a month ago, now have ducks swimming in them. Spring has given new life to fields, gardens and parks - the grasses glisten as the sun pours over them its blazing, yellow light. The days are becoming longer – the sun now sets well past 8 o’clock. I enjoy the last few minutes of the daylight while I have my supper. The splash of red on the evening sky is a pleasure to the eyes. The sky reminds me of a blank canvass and the splashes of red an absent-minded artist’s strokes of a paintbrush. As the school bus crosses the bridge over Mississippi, I stare in awe at the river, which was white and icy even a month ago. The trees on the Mississippi banks were leafless; they stood crooked, withstanding the biting cold. But Spring has given them a new life. Fresh leaves sprouting from the branches of decidu...

These days I wonder if I have really become a shopaholic. I go to the stores and there are too many things that I want to buy, some of which I do buy and the rest I dream of buying someday. However, when I am alone at home, I wonder if I am really becoming a compulsive shopper. I have always loved to shop. In Dhaka, I used to go from one boutique to another to choose a single dress. Even looking at and feeling the fabric was a pleasant experience. A chunk of my monthly salary was spent on clothes and shoes. But I could bring with me only three of my shalwar kameezes when I decided to travel some 13,000 kms to the U.S. for higher studies. While packing, I realised that I had other more important things to carry with me to America than shalwar kameez, sari…in short, clothes. Today, when I calculate the amount of money I spent on clothes, some of which I never wore more than once, I feel guilty. The money could have been used for a better cause. What a waste! I thought that the ex...

I, who hardly ever stepped into the kitchen in Dhaka, now cook regularly here in the America. Life changes, and so do we! Many chores that a person never does or did in his or her home country become a part of everyday life in a foreign country. And, cooking is just one example. When I first stood in front of the electric stove in my one-bedroom apartment, I knew for sure that I wouldn't be able to cook the fried mixed vegetables that I was planning on cooking, even though I called my mom earlier for the recipe. I stood in the kitchen with hands on my waist. I was scared, for I thought I would end up burning my hands. I was worried, for I thought that all the vegetables and spices would go wastes - there was no way I thought I could cook something suitable for eating. In the first days of my life in the U.S., cooking simple things like bhaji and daal required long-distance phone calls to my mother. An aunt living in Florida was a saviour, who helped me adjust to this new ...

THOSE of us who were born in the independent Bangladesh, for us, it is often difficult to fully fathom the meaning of words like freedom and independence. Those of us whose ears never heard a splatter of gunfire, whose eyes never saw a woman lost in the horror of her captivity at the army camp, whose nose never smelt the stench of decaying human bodies, whose mouth never tasted tears mixed with blood, and whose hands never felt a wall riddled with bullets, for us the Liberation War is often about stories heard from family's elderly members, books written by intellectuals, patriotic songs, TV dramas and heavy talk shows and paying homage to martyrs on 26th March. Many of us miss the true meaning of the Independence Day, the cause for which millions of people gave up their lives. Many politicians, who fought the War of Independence, have eventually turned away from realizing their 1971 dream of building a prosperous Bangladesh. It's amazing how these people have changed over the ...

I wished, I so wished that I were there in front of the U.S. Capitol when history was being made. I am not an American citizen, yet the electricity that swept the country on 20 January had not left me untouched. An eloquent speech delivered by Barack Hussein Obama, the 44 th President of the United States, carried messages of hope for Americans as well as people all over the world. I am lucky to have lived this historical moment when the first African-American president of the United States was sworn in. "I had been planning to be at Obama's inauguration for the last one month, and my visit to the National Mall on January 20 was completely worth the effort,” said Tejaswini Madabhushi, an Indian student at George Mason University in Virginia. “There were huge applauses for Obama, his family, Hillary Clinton, and Jimmy Carter. Bush and Cheney were booed rather loudly - an experience that couldn't have been properly felt on the television screen. I screamed and danced...

The other day while going home from office, I was stuck at the traffic signal of Gulshan 1 for a few minutes. I wasn't looking outside, for my ears and mind were glued to the popular songs that Radio Foorti was playing that afternoon. Suddenly, a teenage boy of say about 18 or 19 years of age walked to my car window and started begging for a few takas. I looked at him and figured that he was showing me his twisted hand to earn my sympathy. The deformed hand shook my inner being…and I took my wallet from my handbag to pull out a Tk.10 note. In the process of doing that, another young man of his age came running toward my car, screaming, "Apa taka diyen na, heroin khaibo taka diya (“Apa, don't give him any money, he will buy heroin with it.") It was at that time when I took a keen look at the fellow and noticed his red eyes, his stained teeth and his almost-black lips. I knew in an instant that he was one of those vagrant drug addicts who spend their days and nights on ...