Types of mothers

Our mothers are always complaining that we don't give them the attention they deserve. So after some research (?!) I managed to classify our mothers according to some distinct attributes. Therefore some of the common types of mothers are:

Sadistic mothers : Some people have the utter misfortune of having them. These sort of mothers love to yell and shriek as loudly as possible at their children if they step out of the line. Their shrieks sort of resemble the sound you hear when you step on a cat's tail. They also enjoy beating the hell out of their kids. Their favourite weapon is the broom. The sadistic mothers (in fact most mothers) have God-gifted broom-brandishing skills and they are always ready to use their broom on the kids. They also use other items such as coat hangers, spoons, umbrellas etc to beat the living daylight out of their kids. I am surprised that the AI (Amnesty International) hasn't yet charged the sadistic mothers for human rights violations.

Pampering mothers: They are just the opposite of the sadistic ones. These sorts of moms are true philanthropists. They give their kids whatever they want and completely spoil them on the process. They rarely, never even, scold their children, let alone beat them! They even defend their kids when they get into trouble. People having these sorts of mothers never have to worry about report card days and parent-teacher meetings. More often than not, the children of these overly altruistic mothers turn out to be spoilt obnoxious louts (can't blame them though).

The braggarts: Peculiar, not to mention disturbing, but true some mothers are the biggest braggarts. These mothers are a real pain in the neck. It seems as if their only purpose in this earth is to brag about their children. They ramble about their children's achievements by narrating tall stories such as my daughter got all A's in her O levels without studying, my son was accepted to MIT but opted for DU instead, my toddler learned calculus before he learned to talk, my daughter has an IQ of 200 blah, blah, blah………..

Sometimes their ramblings become too ludicrous. I know one particular mother who brags around that her son got A grades in 12 A level subjects Actually he had two subjects which makes 12 units.

Paranoid moms: These sort have the preconceived notion that their kids are going to be kidnapped, mugged etc any moment. They don't allow their kids to go out of the house alone and follow them everywhere. They constantly ponders about whom their children are mixing with and worries if their kids are getting into cigarettes and drugs. They think that there daughter being friend with a boy will result in her eloping with him. So they never allow their daughters to mix with any boys. They always keep track of what their children are doing in school and in the process drive the teachers crazy.

The know it alls: These sort of moms are found outside coaching centers giving expert (?!) advice to other moms on O level and A levels. They seem to (or at least pretend to) know all the private tutors and love to critically analyse each of those teachers. They have (or at least pretend to have) access to information such as which private tutor gives out the best notes, which private tutor take the most number of mock exams, which private flirts the most with his female students etc. They blabber about the pros and cons of the most popular tutors and sometimes dish out advices (unwanted usually) to other mothers on matters such as which private tutors should they send their children to, which subjects should their sons and daughters take etc.

Over demanding moms: It's just impossible to impress this type of mothers. They want their sons and daughters to excel in everything especially studies. Some of them are so damn over demanding that even if their sons or daughters come home with 98% marks in the exams they demand to know what happened to the other 2%! One of my friends is unfortunate enough to have such a mother. If the poor bloke gets 80% in his exams his mother uses the hanger on him, if he gets more than 90% his mother uses the broom and if he gets 100% his mother just slaps him saying that the examiner marked him too leniently and he did not deserve to get full marks. This friend of mine failed his recent math exam and I haven't heard from him ever since! God help him!

By AES

When you are the murderer

What do you do when you find yourself standing over a dead body with bloodstained arms and an ominously curved knife in hand? I guess you panic. You stare at the body and think: no, he mustn't be dead. You look at the knife and think; I didn't hit him that hard. Then you see the blood soaking your white shirt and you know you did it. It's a blow, a big blow that sends your mind reeling. You look at the knife, the blood, and yourself standing over the 'poor' soul and for that split second you imagine yourself to be the devil. You took a life. Someone's life. I don't know if that hits you hard, or the fact that the damage is irreparable. Because of you, the person will never walk again, will never talk, and will never blink. He's gone and you sent him away.

What do you do then? That's when your self-centred part screams into action. You're going to be in jail, you'll have a life sentence. Everyone's going to jeer at you. People will look down on you. What will they think about you? Will anyone ever talk to you again? You'll become a social outcast. This is the second blow.

Maybe the knife falls out of your hand, maybe you clutch it harder, but your analytical mind is turned on in full force and you're going to wipe off the evidence. You'll just clear things up so that it seems you were never here. You clean the knife for fingerprints. You burn your clothes; put on one of his, maybe. Who's going to know? There are millions of similar shirts. Sure, it's a bit too long, but no way you'll be caught wearing a bloodstained shirt. You check your shoes for any sign of dirt. Any sign that you were here.

You backtrack into your mind, suppress the guilty part pleading to surrender and tell the police the real story, then you come to the part when you entered his house. What did you do? No one saw you, that's for sure. You rang the bell. He opened the door and looked incredulously at you. Who were you to him? No one. He didn't even recognise your face. What a pathetic loser! It sends your blood boiling. You ask him to get a life. He's spoiled your life enough already. You ask why? Why did he crash into your car? Why did he turn your car into a mashed potato? Did he know that it was for him that you couldn't go where you wanted to? You were late. Did he even care? He should have stayed there in the parking lot and asked for forgiveness! He so should have. He didn't, though, and you're there to tell him you'll see him in court.

He still has the blank look. Maybe it wasn't him…but no way, you checked the records. You asked the passers-by. You did everything a police would have done and more. You know that person is he. His total rejection of your story is like a big embarrassing slap. Now you can't back out. You catch him by the collar and push him back. He yells. You yell. He pushes. You push. He punches. You punch. He thrusts you into kitchen table. Big mistake. The ominous looking knife rests next to the cubed carrots. You take it up. You're in the zone…and you hit back. Hard. Harder and harder until you find yourself standing with bloodstained arms over the dead body.

No, you better not get back to that part. With another sweeping glance over the overturned sofas and crumpled newspapers and the sloshed tomato juice on the floor with the carrots just about every where, you turn and creep out. Careful not to step on the blood, or the food, or the papers, or the ashes of your shirt. Thank god he didn't have a fire alarm. Gosh you hadn't thought of that.

Now comes the task of getting out. You press your ears on the door, but keep your hands behind your back. No fingerprints. No sound outside. With the edge of the shirt, you turn the doorknob, wipe both sides just for the sake of it and creep down. You won't take the lift. You hadn't taken it before and what if there is a lift-man sitting there? He'd know who you were. You couldn't risk that. You're much too clever. Come to think of it, you might make a pretty good investigator. Since you've done it once you'd know where to look and how to look and what to search for. Your ego's swelling. Only for a second, though. It kicks back in, the hurt guilty over-conscious side.

You're a murderer now. A murderer. You'll go to hell after you die. Well, that's a long time from now and you can repent. You're at the base now, the part where the collapsible gate meets with the grey streets. It's a busy neighbourhood. Thank God. Oh, why are you thanking God? Wasn't He the one who brought you into this place? Couldn't He have stopped you when there was still time? You know what you're thinking is rubbish, but you can't help it. You need to transfer the blame. Much worse than a social outcast, is an outcast to oneself. You'll never be free of guilt and you know it. And now you can't be forgiven. You can't claim your crime. You're a chicken, but a sad chicken.

Your eyes meet the eyes of the man slumped next to an old wall. He's wearing rags, but it takes time to realise he's asking for money. Damn, he's going to know you. You give him the money. He might feel softer towards you and not report to the police. Then you think, or he might say, there was this big guy who handed me a full dollar. Such a nice fellow, he was, sir, why don't you ask him? That makes you think you should have given him less. Not that you dare take it back. The old man will remember it if you did. He might even resent you. That's when the third blow comes. It's a punch, much harder than the previous ones.

The old man was sitting next to the gate the last time. He saw you enter the house with a big bad expression on your face. You're going to be caught. He's going to tell the police. The police will think you're a coward. A coward and a murderer. People will hate you. Sneer at you. No lawyers will come to your side. You'll be convicted. You'll be roasted in a gas chamber. You'll see the pitiful smiles of the onlookers on your last moment in earth. You take another look at the man. Say, does he want a drink? You could poison him to death. You turn three sixty degrees and see if anyone's watching. No one. Good. Tell me old man, you begin, how about a drink. A light shines on his face. He agrees and thinks you to be a saint. Maybe you are. You are going to send a grief-stricken old man who has never had the pleasure of anything, in a happy mood to heaven. Oh yes, you're a saint. The acceptance of what you've done will come later. For now, you're wiping off the evidence. A sad chicken. You are.

By OrGaNiSeD CoNfUsIoN

Cellular apocalypse

To be amongst the "In" crowd, I bought a mobile phone. Little did I know of what was to come…Just a few days later, after Benson increased its price from Tk 3 to Tk 4 per cigarette, my dad called on my cell and seeing my dad's name on my phone's display, I dropped my newly lit Benson. Can someone see via mobile? I don't know…I was a new user then. Why take risks?

My girlfriend called and asked, 'Jaan, where are you?” Being a sweet boyfriend, I told her, "Jaan, I am always close to your heart, but geographically I am far from you!" She replied, "Bill uthanor jaiga paona? Call me BACK NOW" With a hole in my soul, I dialled the number and put the cell to my ear. A sweet voice, not that of my girlfriend said, "Apnar accounte joma ache, shunno taka, shottur poisha. (You have Tk 0.70 saved in your account")

Now I am an old mobile user. Mom called, "Hello, Beta what's in your hand?" Now I know she can't see the cigarette on my fingers through the phone, so I took a long, lazy drag and replied, "Ammu, I am in a rickshaw in Elephant road, where are you?" Her screaming tone sounded, "Beside you!"

We all know of personalised ring-tones. Once I was in my English class, where I forgot to switch off my phone. Suddenly the phone rang. My teacher came towards me. I thought he would ask to me to leave. Instead he passed me and left of the class through the door next to me. He came back instantly and asked, "Did your phone ring?" I replied, "Yes sir, I am really sorry. It won't happen again." He said calmly, "Change your ring-tone, because yours is the one that I personalised for my lovey-dovey wife."

I thought to myself, enough is enough. I decided to sell the SIM first and the set later. So I went to the second-hand mobile hustlers. They offered me Tk 500 for it. I said, "Hey, I bought it last November for Tk 4500. At least give me Tk 2000" They replied, "Bhai, new SIMs are available with card for Tk. 1800. Do you want it? I left. What to do? Can't sell it, can't use it. When I dial someone nowadays, the cell says, "Apnar account bortomane sthogito ache!"

By Taskin