The little prince

“And at night you will look up at the stars. Where I live everything is so small that I cannot show you where my star is to be found. It is better, like that. My star will just be one of the stars, for you. And so you will love to watch all the stars in the heavens. . . they will all be your friends. And, besides,
I am going to make you a present. . .

“…That is my present. Just that. It will be as it was when we drank the
water. . .”

“All men have the stars,” he answered, “but they are not the same things for different people. For some, who are travelers, the stars are guides. For others they are no more than little lights in the sky. For others, who are scholars, they are problems. For my businessman they were wealth. But all these stars are silent. You– you alone– will have the stars as no one else has them–”

“In one of the stars I shall be living. In one of them I shall be laughing. And so it will be as if all the stars were laughing, when you look at the sky at night. . . you– only you– will have stars that can laugh!” And he laughed again.

“And when your sorrow is comforted (time soothes all sorrows) you will be content that you have known me. You will always be my friend. You will want to laugh with me. And you will sometimes open your window, so, for that pleasure. . . and your friends will be properly astonished to see you laughing as you look up at the sky! Then you will say to them, ‘Yes, the stars always make me laugh!’ And they will think you are crazy. It will be a very shabby trick that I shall have played on you. . . ”

“It will be as if, in place of the stars, I had given you a great number of little bells that knew how to laugh. . . ”

~ The little prince

BB gave me this book 5 years ago. I kept it, took it with me while I was away…but never read it. That’s all right,…this was the perfect time to read it.

There is a little prince in all of us, somewhere, fallen from the stars…one that knows the way back to his rose…Its just that all the ‘matters of consequence’ keep us away from him. I recommend this book to all grown ups; might help us see what’s truly essential…things that are indivisible to the eye…

What will it be?

পেছনে কেউ নেই, সামনেও নেই কেউ।
প্রবীণরা যে পথটি সাফ করেছিলেন বন্ধ হয়েছে সেটি।
এবং অন্য যে পথ, সকলের পথ,
প্রশস্ত আর সরল, যায়নি কোথাও।
একলা আমি - খুঁযে ফিরি আমার পথ।

~ ধর্মকির্তী

“No one behind, no one up front.
The path cleared by elders is no more.
And the other way, followed by all,
Wide and clear, goes nowhere.
Alone I, keep searching for mine.”

~ Dharmakirti

Some say that in walking a way, it may not be necessary to know where it goes; it is the walk that matters. It, however, could be worthwhile to know where its been…to know if its at all my way…So, I’m trying to look back…trying to know my roots…with the help of a Mexican poet,…In light of India…

Birth, Fornication, Death…
…Creation, Original sin, Salvation…
….Life, Karma, Nirvana…

What will it be?

The shackles and of Karma and its consequences,
Or the thoughtful, lonely quest for Nirvana?

An answer could be found in the conversations between Arjun, the mythical hero and Lord Krishna, the eighth avatar of Vishnu…Not sure if it’s the answer for you, but an answer no less…

Arjun, the fierce Pandav warrior was tormented by doubts and confusion before a battle. His friend and spiritual mentor Krishna told him to do his heroic duty, which would mean shedding the blood of his kinsmen. Arjun was surprised because it was Krishna himself who on previous occasions had told him that the impassive path of wisdom, which leads to freedom (Nirvana) is higher than the path of worldly duties, - Karma, which gives way to delusions.

Krishna explained that even though the previous is true, there are some Karma that can also free the soul. These are the deeds done impassively, keeping the self indifferent. He said, “I have completed these three worlds and have nothing to gain from these (the worlds have already been created, sustained and ended…for the timeless gods)…yet I partake in these activities…”. So, it is possible to achieve Karmaless Karma...doing for the sake of doing…not doing them for gain or consequence.

Arjun understood. On the battlefield he watched himself, detached from himself…he knew that neither the one doing, or the one watching, is him,…although they both are…him…He is Arjun but again not Arjun…but a nameless entity who is in everything.

gas 'em please!

Hearts of War. WHY o Why did I waste two hours of my life watching it! Compared to this, even sex and the city would have been better. These are troubling times, times when idiots think they can make a WW II movie and dish it out to people and they succeed!!! WHO the fuck paid for this movie to be made? Who was the asshole that read the script and decided to go for it! And the acting o m GOD! I'm a pretty peaceful sort of guy...at least I used to be before watching this crap. But the idea of taking the whole lot...the writer, director, producers and whole cast and crew to the gas chambers doesn't feel bad at all! Somebody please do it...and while you are at it...please take me with 'em too! I watched the whole damned thing...I don't deserve to live!

Trippin

Today I’m high on something but
00000Not sure what.
Granted, it is a good day
The sun is up (and will stay up)
People will make merry… dancing around trees…
and later in the night it’s all about the birds and the bees
…(if u know what I mean)
00000Glad midsommer!
As for me, if nothing else, there will be free booz!
0000000000But its none of that

It could be the blackout,
00000God knows how I missed ‘em!
And the midnight sun and candle lights
00000(even if scented vanilla!)
Might have played a part
0000000000But its not that either

In the end, it was just a dream…
00000Tripping on sleeping pills…
An impossible, silly li’l dream…
with not much happening
no happy ending,… nothing at all
00000and still,
0000000000- A good dream!

I reached the end of my journey (for now)
00000There is nothing to report
The puzzle is still unsolved…and perhaps
will stay that way forever
the pieces r too many…far too many
And multiplying by the minute
00000…degenerating, decaying, losing relevance, ...
0000000000(But at least,...now I know how it rolls)

So there, thats all there is
00000No triumph, no glory
00000No salvation, no story
0000000000not even the faintest promise of any
Just a stupid li’l dream,… tripping…
00000with u in it

And all the rest can go to hell

Recalling the lizard king

[Came across these while browsing through play lists in Spotify...didn't want them to get lost.]

"You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on and individual level. It's got to happen inside first. You can take away a man's political freedom and you won't hurt him- unless you take away his freedom to feel. That can destroy him. That kind of freedom can't be granted. Nobody can win it for you."

"Most people love you for who you pretend to be. To keep their love, you keep pretending- performing. You get to love your pretence. It's true, we're locked in an image, an act- and the sad thing is, people get so used to their image, they grow attached to their masks. They love their chains. They forget all about who they really are. And if you try to remind them, they hate you for it, they feel like you're trying to steal their most precious possession."

"A hero is someone who rebels against the facts of existence and seems to conquer them. Obviously that can only work at moments. It can't be a lasting thing. That's not saying that people shouldn't keep trying to rebel against the facts of existence."

Source: http://www.thinkexist.com/english/Author/x/Author_3276_1.htm

Face-off

Its been a while since I sent anything to a news paper...like 12 years or so. Hate to admit it but its always nice to c your name in print. :)

http://edailystar.com/index.php?opt=view&page=10&date=2010-06-01

Its the entry titles face-off. I actually gave it a much boring title...some guy with sense did me a huge favor in changing it. Thank u guy, who ever u r. :D

stone...d

sometimes it happens
somewhere along the way
someone finds it sitting there
sitting there on a chair
one's very own
stone
stone cold, stony...stone!
stone, u rock!

so i come and sit
sit by my stone,
(or sometimes,..right on it)
all right there
just sit and stare
starin at my stone...
my cold, old ancient stone.

all stones r ancient
as r all souls
so the story goes
C'est la vie...

so come, sit
get stoned with me

overrated

If you ask me, going after the truth is like
Trying to tackle a crab without the proper utensils
Too much work for too li’l meat
I’m done with all that
Truth is overrated

You heard the story about the three blind guys
Going to check out an elephant?
The one catching the trunk called it a snake
The one finding a leg called it a tree and the one
Tugging on the tail…well, you get my drift

But let me just ask you people
You who think u know your elephant
What if the thing u c standing over there,
The thing u call the elephant,
Is not really there
OR
Its being there,
Is but of li’l consequence


Anyhoo, all of that bores me now
Knowing, not knowing, half knowing
All truths r half truths
All lies r half lies
Like crappy intrigues of a badly made soap
(is there any other kind?)
that goes on and on and on
to keep the mass of stupid fucks drugged
and when it finally wears off…
this is how u go thru withdrawal -
make a fuss about nothing
and then wonder
what am I on about anyway?

no worries, sooner or later we all find
the next fix

voice of honest indignation

"Isaiah answer'd. 'I saw no God, nor heard any, in a finite organical perception; but my senses discover'd the infinite in every thing, and as I was then perswaded, & remain confirm'd, that the voice of honest indignation is the voice of God, I cared not for consequences but wrote.'
Then I asked: 'does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?'
He replied: 'All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains"

~ William Blake
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

"the doors of perception"

[stumbled onto these while looking up an old friend]



"The ancient tradition that the world will be consumed in fire at the end of six thousand years is true, as I have heard from Hell.
For the cherub with his flaming sword is hereby commanded to leave his guard at the tree of life, and when he does, the whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy whereas it now appears finite & corrupt.

This will come to pass by an improvement of sensual enjoyment.

But first the notion that man has a body distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal, melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite."

~ William Blake
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

fire cholo...aponar deshe

The Bauls are a sect of mystic singers roaming the far-flung tracts of rural Bengal. These songs never fail to mystify the mind of an average Bengali. We are deeply moved by them, even if we don’t really know why.

declaration

I’ll play your game but on my own terms. I come and go as I please.
I’m behind schedule but thats okay; this is just the way I roll.
And you can burn that score card in your hands…Your rules and rewards
mean nothing to me.

Make no mistake; I got nothing to prove,...to you
or to anyone else.

Dead bird at the foot of Constantine's arch

Dead bird lying at the foot of the triumphal arch of Constantine.

Constantine, the Great

Great ruler of men

Builder of grand things

Shifter of great tides

A Great maker of history!

And the great arch stands tall,

telling the story of the man’s thriumph

for thousands of years

and the bird dropped dead right at its foot.


Nobody wants to know the bird’s story

He must have had one.

He could be a fallen hero,

A general,

A king!

Stupid tourists

Blowing the chance to take pictures with a king!


The bird and the emperor

Are equally dead

Equal in death? Perhaps not.

One things for sure though

The emperor never knew how to fly.

the future

"This is the old American Dream, cosmetically made over but with its foundation still in the idea of super abundance. How is global humanity, already starving by the millions, to emulate this lifestyle? Will all the world's people drive energy efficient cars? Will the entire planet, then, be paved to accommodate them? Where are the resources to build large houses, swimming pools, and air conditioners for the planet's growing billions?

It is absurd, of course, to propose the American standard of living, no matter how efficiently managed, as a global model. How then can Americans set themselves apart morally from the rest of the world, in terms of how they live and use the planet's resources?"

- Trevor Burrowes, Does The Third World Point To The Future?

Read the whole article at
http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC26/Burrowes.htm

a wonderful something

[Where and how to begin?
just so much there to say
And as declared, in my last confession
Its rather difficult these days, to hold it together
Yet, I must make an effort, I must…
Cause this,…this…’thing’… its…
Well its driving me…
Heck! That’s no good. I’ll start afresh,…
Don’t know where to begin
There’s so much I want to say]

Its not a mad passion burning up the soul
Or a craving of the flesh
Or a timid plea for love, Its not!
Its something more…subtle.
Something that actually spreads
When the alcohol wears off
Its something quite unlike I’ve ever known.

‘Love’ and ‘Lust’ and ‘Passion’
- these words I now dread
For they now stand in my way
Conspiring against me
Not letting me speak my heart!
They want to creep into my mind,
Tie the tongue into a knot,
And make it spit out foolish, meaningless words
(as they have done on so many occasions in the past)
But this time, I wont let ‘em!

For now its sanity I seek,
clarity I crave,
a cold hard slap I want
to snap back to reality
to clean up the cobwebs in my mind
to take the load off of my chest
And to untie my tongue
So that it can ease into the truth
And the truth, my dear, is quite simple…

I’m having trouble accepting
That its done
That I wont ever really know u
And accept the fate of strangers,
passing each other by on a supermarket isle
- one quick glance, and then moving on.
In all fairness, why should it not be so?
After all, what is there to expect?
A couple of more chance encounters?
Exchange of polite greetings?
And ‘friendly’ smiles?
(O how I hate that word!)

And that’s just it! I expect nothing!
I want nothing!
None of those dreaded words
(and of course not the silly one I so regret!)
But it still bothers me
More than it should
That I wont ever really know u.

Cause u see, I’ve seen but very little
(and understood even less when I did)
But now that I’m sober,
and am thinkin it over
Its all so clear to me!
(Never thought I’d say that!)

I see myself for what I’ve been
A fake!
A poser and a loser
A clever vender of catch phrases and clichés
While you’ve been true all along!

You held your wine well
And anybody could tell
You’re as sharp as u r pretty
As modest as you’re witty
But kind to a fault!
(While you endured all my BS and let it slide!)

But even so, I cant but hope
That those bright, deep eyes
(despite the influence of wine and martini)
saw something in there too
something that your perhaps recognized,
something that you knew
from a story in your book,
the pictures on your wall
the dreams you’d chased
or the demons you’d called
I don’t know, what it is…
And it sucks that I never will

Pro(baash) Jibon(?)

Aneek
ami friday sondha thke vabi der sahate boisha gibot kora suru korbo

Adit
Baal!
ekhono korish nai?
baicha asos kamne?

Aneek
ses hobe sunday sondhay
amar sara bochor er routine boli....

mon- friday bikal porjonto fataiya kamla dei
friday sondha- sunday bikal bengali gibot
ere 52 dia guun de

Adit
lol
valoi to
maal e boshar lok pas nai?

Aneek
ei khan e aisha notun exp. hoise... biatta gula irretating... bachelor gula aro beshi

Adit
bura bachelor na changra bachelor?

Aneek
sobai

Adit
lol
valo

Aneek
bachelor gula khali koy tk kamay, rate koto eigula nia kotha koy

Adit
mejaj beshi kharap joile hal maal khaya dekhte parish
majhe moidhdhe
mood valo thake

Aneek
sei try obosso kori nai.... but asar por deshi gular upor birokto hoya ausiee howar chesta korsilsm

Adit
ki hoilo?

Aneek
posay nai..... ami deshi gavi... din ses e ghas na khaile pet kharap kore

When people speak of great men

"When people speak of great men, they think of men like Napoleon - men of violence. Rarely do they think of peaceful men. But contrast the reception they will receive when they return home from their battles. Napoleon will arrive in pomp and in power, a man who's achieved the very summit of earthly ambition. And yet his dreams will be haunted by the oppressions of war. William Wilberforce, however, will return to his family, lay his head on his pillow and remember: the slave trade is no more."

- from the movie Amazing Grace

a lucky mistake

Ended up watching Outlanders (2007) instead of Outlander (2008). Wish I'd make more mistakes like these.

And oh, did I mention I managed to fall in love (again) in the process? She is Alexis Raben, the actress playing Anna in the movie. She is absolutely brilliant and extremely beautiful (sigh...) and has a double major in Film studies and Psychology! I'm sorry Naomi, but I would have to take you down from the desktop. I love you too, but there is just not enough room there. I'm sure u'll understand. :)

Signs?

Just finished watching the 3rd season of Dexter. (No I don’t have anything better to do in the summer.) It’s a popular show about a serial killer who kills other serial killers. Like all shows of this kind, its strangely addictive. I mean…u get to watch a guy slicing other guys and get away with it, without feeling any guilt whatsoever! And if even that doesn’t float your boat, there’s the sex scenes with ample nudity. TV’s never been better!

I mean…its simply brilliant! It takes a lot to cut it with the viewers these days. Violence has to be taken to this whole new level. And the hero here is freaking amazing! He just doesn’t kill people, he cuts them up into pieces, wraps them in bundles and feeds the fishes. And today’s viewers cant be too naive…I mean…nothing is black and white u know…its all gray and today’s viewers are kool enough to handle it. I mean…after all, he is just killing the bad people, and not like he can help it…he is putting his need to kill to good use, to clean up the streets! And not like the show says he’s okay…it makes it clear that he’s a monster and not all can handle it. Bull shit!

No matter how nice the monologues may sound…its all bull! The thing here is pretty simple…all of it is sick. The idea of the show, they way it can attract us and the fact that we have gotten to a stage where this can be openly dished out says a lot about how we r evolving as a race. Heck its not just the killing bit…the show is dishing out some other fantastic ideas too. For example, it’s a ‘scientific fact’ (?) that serial killers are born to be serial killers. Cause they have a specific type of brains! (Yep, that’s right, it’s apparently a gene thing, so, yeah, a serial killer’s relatives are also likely to be serial killers!). And oh yes, we should understand that serial killers are just…different u know…may be even better…like they are supreme predators...like the Lion! Fucking fantastic!

Wonder what else we can expect on TV? How about a little incest? Nothing like a li’l guilty pleasure to make your day. U know…it doesn’t have to be all bad…after all, it was quite okay in ancient times…it keeps the blood pure. Any may be it would be something that’s absolutely necessary for the survival of the species after a messy war or global disaster or something like that. Heh…there could really be a show like that one of these days…and we’d be watching that too. Wonder if these signs mean something...

Anna Karenina

I finally read Anna Karenina. And I'm very glad that I ignored a good friend's warning in doing so (he told me its nothing more than a soap opera and I'll be sure to ignore his comments on literature in the future). Anyhow, I don't want to write a book review. (I don't think I would be able to even if I wanted to.) Its an amazing book and I liked it and thats that. What I wanted to write about is that films that were made based on this. The 1st was in 1938 starring Greta Garbo, then there was one in 1948 and finally, the one released in 1997 starring Sophie Marceau. And they are all terribly bad!

I understand its difficult to make a 1000 page classic into a movie. The directors would obviously have to have some liberty with the screen play and the charecters but that hardly means they have the right to murder a work of art they way they did - all of them! They have been rather callous with the whole thing - the casting, screen play writing and of course, the acting. None of the leading ladies did justice to Anna. Almost all of the films ignored the strength, simplicity and spirituality of Levin. They also ignored the sincerity and innocense of the lovely Kitty and the rightousness of Karenin. This is especially true for the 38 version that made all the charecters look like complete idiots! If someone tried to watch this movies to get an idea of what the book is all about - oo boy!

Anyhow, like I said, its probably not the easiest book to make into a movie. However, I'd hope someday, someone would do a better job of it.