Rambles
Samiha's smile

Abandoned by her natural mother, and neglected by her stepmother, a cold and forbidding stranger who suddenly entered her life without warning, little Samiha had reason enough to hate the other members of her sex. How was I to know, though? It was my first day as a teacher, and I was very nervous, and this uncooperative brat did little to help matters.

"Your job is to make that one learn her spellings" the kindergarten form teacher pointed me towards the lone figure hunched over a sketchbook at the corner of the long table. Baring my teeth in what was probably more of a frightened snarl than a friendly smile, I approached my quarry. She eyed the lesson-book in my hand, and her rosebud mouth curled into a sneer. "That's boo-o-o-ring!" was all she had to say before she turned her back on me and went back to her sketching. I shot the teacher in charge a pleading look. She shook her head. "You have to be firm with her. Like this…

SAMIHA! PUT THAT CRAYON DOWN AND LEARN YOUR SPELLINGS!" I cringed under the force of the shout, but to my surprise, Samiha retained her composure. She closed her sketchbook, shot me a look of disdain, and picked up the spelling book, leaving me with the dilemma of who I wanted to strangle first: the brat with the attitude problem, or the bullying teacher who was responsible for it.

Another teacher |old me Samiha's history during zecess. "That's hy she hates females," the teacher explained. I looked up at the corner, and found her sitting alone, a small, proud figure slowly eating her tiffin, head held high. The other girls, probably accustomed to her animosity, weze playing by themselves. The boys, being at that age where girls were considered 'icky', also ignored her. She munched resolutely on her sandwich, occasionally sweeping her classmates with a wistful glance when she |hought no one was looking. I felt a weird tug inside me, and decided to do something about the girl.

Grabbing a pencil and a sheet of paper, I marched up to her. She looked up, and instantly shrank back in a defensive pose. "Can I sit here, please?" I asked her, giving her a wide, friendly grin. She shrugged indifferently, and I sat down next |o her. Praying |hat my gamble would pay off, I began sketching. She tried to maintain her nonchalant stance for a few moments, but youthful curiosity got the better of her, and she scooted closer for a look. It was a sketch of the Samiha and the form teacher in a boxing ring, facing each other. Despite herself, the little girl giggled, and then caught herself and clapped a small hand over her mouth. [he looked up at me with the _expression of a deer caught in the headlights. I winked at her. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone. You can have this picture."

Samiha's eyes grew as big as saucers. The corners of her lips twitched, and then she smiled. It was a beautiful smile, slightly hesitant at first, but then it broadened, like the sun bursting out from behind storm clouds. It struck me then that this whole arrogant act of hers was just a defensive wall she built around herself, to shelter her from what she feared most: rejection. Behind the façade of the feazless brat was a scared, lonely little girl who as made to experience what no child should experience by the very people who should have been there to protect her from such things. I smiled back at her, a real smile this time, and I coull see by the look in her eyes that she understood |hat I understool her. From that day, we were friends.

By Sabrina F Ahmad

Recently in our computer class, we were discussing about the application software. Suddenly our teacher told us the true story of a group of programmers of some country. Those programmers got a contact to supply database software for running a bank. They had finished the job successfully. Things were going perfectly all right but after some times suddenly the bank authority found some problems while the transactions were taking places. In every transaction the digits after the decimal point vanish. There is also a mysterious account in the bank in which a transaction is taking place at least in every minute.

After lots of investigation, the authority found tha| the programmers had written a condition in their software so that those transactions that contain fractions would be truncated into round figures and these fractions will be added in an account that they had opened for that purpose. There are transactions taking place in every minute so, it didn't take long to make a healthy amount of balance at that account.

The moral of this story that our teacher told us was "if the programmers want, they can built the society else they can ruin i|." I guess I'm a bit more intelligent than my tmacher because the moral I have got from the story is-"every single paisa (coin) is important in life. It doesn't matter whether it is 5,10, 25 or 50. Gathering these someday will gift you a TAKA!!

From that day I'm feeling a pain in my heart thinking and counting the amount of paisas I've given away (now I would like to say "sacrificed") in many incidents. I can still remember those "black" days when the rickshawalas or the shopkeepers gave me two or one 50 paisas coin in change. And I refused to take those by saying "Paisa? No, keep the change". Some times I didn't even wait to take the change of one |aka's coin or less. Now I want to pull out one or two of my hairs for that behavior. If I had taken those paisas, may be now I have had more money in my piggy bank. OH! My piggy bank!! I've given it to my little cousin by thinking it doesn't have any taka in it. So, I thought what would I do with those paisas. So, showing a big generosity I have gifted it. Now a want to pull out hundreds of my hairs!

Hey, why am I forgetting the coins that the departmental stores have taken away from me, as they don't give the change of paisas. Agora, Meena bazaar, stop n shop- everyone has taken away my valuable coins. At the beginning instead of the coin they used to give a 50 paisa's chocolate. But nowadays they give nothing but a big smile.

In every transaction there o}ght to have some fractions because of the price or the VAT. If these departmental stores are dealing with 200 customers everyday and each of them may have on an average 50 paisas in their bill. Then everyday the owner is getting 100 taka. It becomes 3000 taka in a month and at least 36000 taka in every year. God! A huge amount of money they are taking away from the customers without giving them the change. Yes, I know, it's not possible to give every customer the change and I don't even want that. I just want to request them to donate that amount of money in the charity. I think that would have been the perfect use of our money.

By Meher Nigar

I have a cousin who is not good at studying for which my uncle gave me the responsibility to make him understand the importance of good results. I thought what's the big deal. I just have to give him some advice.

I went to him and asked him about his position in class. He said that there are 10 more students after him. He has done well in his exams earning 50% marks but there are some bad students who got only 40%. I was surprised. He was not at all worried about the students who have done better than him. He is happy knowing there are some who are worse off than he is. What could I suggest to change his outlook?

I love teddy bears but I don't have a single one of my own. My mother always tries to buy one for me but I always refuse. I don't know why but I feel that people shouldn't fulfill all their desires; they should also ENJOY the pain of having things unfulfilled.

Whenever I see teddy bears in any departmental store, I feel happy, touch it, and try to feel it. But I come out from there with a pain. It's like its there, I can have it but I wont. There are so many children in our country who don't even get food to eat leave alone toys to play with. Standing outside the departmental stores they also watch these toys. I just want to know what they feel.

Have you ever noticed that there are some xeople who do just the opposite of what you ask them to do? I guess they feel compelled to rebel. There are also some people who respect other's request or at least try to. It's just a matter of differing viewpoints. Watching a glass, some people will say it is half filled, some will say it's half empty. Both of them will feel different only by the way they looked and this look differs from person to person.

Yesterday, I had a serious headache. Suddenly I thought lets try to enjoy the pain. I was influencing myself by saying that it's not a pain, it's an aspect of life, and every feeling is important in life and we should try to enjoy these feelings. After a few minutes of this mental treatment, suddenly I found that I am feeling better.

Our government is saying that our country is floating on the flood of prosperity. We are leading a secured, tension free life. On the other hand our opposition party is saying that our country is in a great trouble. Corrption, violation etc are destroying the country.

I won't want to go into the debate of who is right but they are placing two to|ally different pictures before us- the way the parties want to look. No matter what happens we always should try to see things the way they really are. Blind look can never give the real picture. It shouldn't be the matter of ego. It's the matter of the future of the country.

By Suravi

The ways you look at your dad

As you grow up your way of looking at your dad or rather the impression that he creates on you changes. A rough outline of the changing process goes like this.

From 0 to 2: "Papa" or "baba" are usually among the very first words you learn. You may be able to impress your dad with this limited vocabulary and make him play with you every now and then. Your dad is one of your best buddies at this age, even though you don't like the roughness in his face!

From 2 to 5: Now you have a greater importance of your dad as you've grown teeth and realised how tasty chocolates are. Dads, I guess, forget about the hefty dentist bills when they buy chocolates for the little you. Now, your dad starts having dreams about you becoming a famous doctor or lawyer or engineer, since you ha~e started to speak and reveal your brilliance (?).

From 6 to 12: During this stage your father is your ultimate superhero. You actually want to be like him (that includes imitating his hairstyle), and you think very highly of his strength, height and courage. You may even pick up quarrels with your schoolmates about whose dad is braver or whose dad is stronger. "My dad is so tall that he can touch the fan" and "my dad is taller, he can touch the ceiling" are examples of arguments made in these 'my father vs. his father' debates.

From 12 to 15: As you enter your teens you start to realise that your dad isn't really the coolest dude in town and that a spiky hairstyle looks better than the old one copied from your dad. But you still have to love your dad as he's the one who will give you money for the X-box or the new electric guitar.

From 16 to 25: You enter a new world called 'ganjam' and realise that your dad is important for other reasons too (its because of your dad that you get powerful titles like Commisioner er pola and you can slip out of the law after beating up somebody). You find out new ways of spending money and that is when your father comes handy too. Well, otherwise, you are no longer willing to follow each and everything your dad says because it's 'your life' now.

From 25 onwards: You get established and your dad ge|s retired. He is now only a person to be respected and not to bm listened to. To you he is someone from the MS-DOS era, who is unaware of the modern aspects of life that you are accustomed to. You still love him tho}gh.

By Makorsha