LIFE AS IT IS

The thought of a hearty meal over steaming white rice, spicy-crunchy hilsa, and a peppery preparation of smelly but scrumptious dried fish makes most Bengalis salivate, especially on the first day of the Bengali calendar. Whether they are at home or 9,000 miles away from their roots, Bengalis' undying love for their food, culture and heritage keeps them spirited on any given day, and gives their children one more reason to be appreciative of their lineage.  The Daily Star link  March 28, 2017  Not just within the borders of Bangladesh, Pahela Baishakh celebration is a huge affair among Bangladeshi communities abroad, too. Events coordinated by Bangladeshi associations take place at homes, school premises and even stadiums! Organised by Bangabandhu Council Australia, Pahela Baishakh celebrations held at Australia's Sydney Olympic Park, for instance, draw tens of thousands of Bengalis from all over Australia every year. Bangladeshi immigrants gather in Sydn...

We live and breathe in a consumerist world, a world where participating in the rat race is becoming the norm often at the expense of spending quality time in the company of people we love most. Today, the world is such that our children also grow up to compete against each other, rather than stand by each other or lend a hand to each other in times of need. The materialistic world is giving birth to future materialists, who obtain happiness from their material possessions -- toys, clothes, shoes and accessories. The Daily Star link  March 7, 2017 A 2004 report by the American Psychological Association on children and advertising found that American children on average watch 20,000 commercials each year. An alarming reality!  Although the above-mentioned statistic only applies to the U.S. economy, it is safe to say that if you live in Bangladesh and your child is a regular TV viewer, he or she is also exposed to a few thousand commercials each year. Even YouTube v...

I heard that I would hear people speak Bengali in its shops, restaurants, roads and alleys. I was told that I would see women shopping in sari and shalwar kameez, and men discussing international politics over shingara and steaming cups of tea. How many Bangladeshi expats would let go of a chance to experience Bangladesh away from it? I would never!  The Daily Star link  Feb 21, 2017 It was the summer of 2013, it was my first time in Jamaica, a neighbourhood in Queens, one of the five boroughs of New York City. I had heard so much about it from friends and relatives that I was convinced a summer vacation in NYC was incomplete without one trip to this diverse neighbourhood.  So on one scorching afternoon of May 2013, my family and I embarked on our exploration of Jamaica. As we left the subway station and began walking along its Hillside Avenue with our then nine-month-old daughter, I turned my head to see anyone who spoke Bengali. No language ever sounded sweeter ...

To a summer person, winter is perhaps the bleakest season of all, the season when Mother Earth gives up her vibrant shades to give way to copious amounts of white and grey. But if you live in a place where winter lasts four or more months, falling in love with winter is critical to your survival -- you teach yourself to love the wintertime. It could be challenging, though. Snowfall is a spectacular natural event -- absolutely one of a kind. I stood frozen with my mouth agape when I first witnessed a snowfall eight years ago; fresh snow resembling shreds of white cotton candy descended from the heavens above and turned a small city into a winter wonderland. The beauty around it was too much for me to grasp. I had seen snow before, but never in real life. I had seen snow in Hollywood movies, story book illustrations, photos, and greeting cards sent by extended family from faraway lands. As a child, I dreamed of scooping snow from the ground and hold it against my cheek....

If you love noise, laughter, clink of gold bangles, gossip, full-flavoured food, makeup, music, insincere praises, and have a skin thick enough to endure caustic remarks about your age, weight, height and marital status, a 'deshi' wedding is 'the' place to be.   The Daily Star link  Nov. 29, 2016 It is a place where you walk into people of all possible kinds – big, small, old, young, men, women, children - a microcosm of the society you live in!   Wedding season is here at our doorsteps and very soon you will be at the receiving end of one of those spendthrift wedding invitation cards calling you for a regal wedding consisting of thirteen functions and more. Consider yourself lucky if you have not been to one of those weddings but either way, royal or not, weddings are your free ticket to scrumptious meals and the Bengali circus where you will most likely encounter a diverse collection of people – some of them leaving you mentally scarred for life! You me...

Have you ever taken on any project to improve or repair your home? If not, you could probably give it a try because DIY (do-it-yourself) projects are not only fun, they are self-satisfying, too.  They also provide a rare opportunity for creativity, imagination and self-expression. The Daily Star link I myself never thought I could actually do something apparently as difficult as staining two staircases, not the steps, but the areas around them. We hired a contractor to do some household improvement jobs and staining the staircases were part of them. But our contractor had to go out of state on some work and the project of stairway staining had to be pushed back by a week. We grew restless. We did some research online to find out what exactly needed to be done for such a project. But we had never undertaken a DIY project before and therefore, lacked confidence. So we thought we should perhaps visit a home improvement supplies store first and consult the staff there; they are...