Of Cars & Boyz
The Need for Speed

“You know, sis! Yesterday, I actually touched a Lamborghini Diablo. And oh!!! There is this hot Lexus car in town that I am head over heels in love with. I'd do anything, anything at all, to drive her just once."----and thus wrote my cousin brother from Georgia, USA.

Relax, bhaiya. I thought to myself. Its just a car and not Angelina Jolie. Also, having a taste of my brother's driving, I pray to God, that no dumb owner hands over his car to bhaiya for a test drive. I know car freaks like my brother may contradict to my saying so, but, admit it---a car is a car and not something to die for.

Its not just my brother though. Cars and Boyz, in general, is synonymous to cola on ice. I go to this teacher for Economics where O-level, A-level, and regardless of whichever levels, boys of all shapes and sizes would turn up with cars at his classes. Be it the handsome Premios or someone's-father's-rejected TX90s, it is the presence of cars that is the ultimate status-quo for guys. Poor sir would at times have to move away his own car from his own garage to accomodate the 'Car Haat' at his premises while grumbling about the 'Latshahebs' he teaches.

Cars and Boys, the awesome twosome, as I prefer to complement them is never to be trusted. When a guy takes over the controls of a car you very well know what the duo creates mostHAVOC. Tyres screeching, loud music blaring out, horns honking at anyone and everyone (cows, especially) behind or in front of you, tell you that a His Highness is behind the wheels of the racing car. Caution to all and sundry (especially cows)---the speed at which these untrained underage Michael Schumachers drive, you would never get to know what and when something hit you. However, the decency to dump you at some hospital may be expected from these people but to which hospital you would be dumped depends on your gender, age and display of wealth. If you are middle-aged, say for example, one of those desperate housewives who frequent roads at all times of the day for 'chat-walk' discussing a worthless gossip. Well consider yourself lucky to find yourself outside the 'Gonoshastho' Hospital. Younger people, boys especially, may discover themselves on the threshold of the Central Hospital or Shomorita (guys tend to feel a certain responsibility towards their fellow species). Girls, on the other hand, especially if young and good-looking, may literally be carried into the Apollo Hospitals (provided that you pay the bill and are free to go out afterwards). However, cows 'moon-walking' on roads, CLEAR OUT OF THE WAY, as I cannot vouch for the treatment you would receive.

To be brutally honest, you have to be born a guy, to experience the fun of reckless driving without the constant fear of hitting something or someone. I wonder how such guys put up a 'not-a-car-in-the-world' kind of an attitude, when blocking the roads and creating traffic jams, with innumerous people shouting obscenities at them from behind (which mainly includes rickshaw-wallas and drivers). It is cool though, a freedom worth rejoicing. The key to the excitement beingLive and take no account of what or whom you hit.

Guys do get a bit cranky about their cars at times like going out of class every five minutes to check whether the cars still have their rainguards or has it been stolen. My brother used to put his servant on guard to monitor his car downstairs from the kitchen-window of their apartment on the 5th floor. Also, the servant would accompany Bhaiya in his car everywhere and would literally be locked inside the car, when he, would go out to attend classes. Sheer fanatic, ain't he?

The latest addition to such ratty-ness is the beautification of cars. The result of it---the monster cars you see these days everywhere. Cars painted on the outside with motifs of the Royal Bengal Tigers, or 'Iceland', decorated with lights here and there and with the addition of God-forsaken 'parts' (I have no idea what they are called).

Girls, have you never experienced the sinking feeling of having thought the guys behind you were complementing you, and then realizing that you weren't the 'she' being referred to, it was the car parked next to you, being admired! What audacity! Imagine a car being termed as 'she'.

Lastly to all you girls who can decipher not a word of the speeches you hear on cars considering it mere gibberish, can make out neither head nor tail of Formula One and had not till now known the spelling of 'Schumacher' (I came to know of the spelling after a lot of research) --- JOIN THE CLUB.

By Reesana Sifat Siraj

Monsters Unleashed
(Written by a different monster this time)

Just a little scary….

Filling in for Knafice man this week, folks. I think our Monster Man got an overdose of the creepy critters with horrific appendages and is hiding away somewhere while he gets his courage back. I'll ease off this week by talking about what Blink 182 would call 'all the small things": the mini monsters.

Leprechauns
Our first mini monster hails from Irish folklore. The name "leprechaun" comes from the Irish Gaelic word luprachán, meaning "half-bodied": like other mythological races in the Irish tradition, leprechauns are considered to be partly real, physical creatures and partly spirits. An alternative source for the name may be leath bhrogan meaning shoe or shoemaker - the leprechaun is known as the fairy shoemaker of Ireland and is often portrayed working on a shoe.

These apparently aged, diminutive men are frequently to be found in an intoxicated state, caused by home-brew poteen. However they never become so drunk that the hand which holds the hammer becomes unsteady and their shoemaker's work affected.

Leprechauns have also become self-appointed guardians of ancient treasure, burying it in crocks or pots.

If caught by a mortal, he will promise great wealth if allowed to go free. He carries two leather pouches. In one there is a silver shilling, a magical coin that returns to the purse each time it is paid out. In the other he carries a gold coin which he uses to try and bribe his way out of difficult situations. This coin usually turns to leaves or ashes once the leprechaun has parted with it.

Watch out for the leprechauns in the upcoming Potter movie Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Gnomes
A close cousin to the leprechaun, the gnome is a mythical creature characterized by its small stature and subterranean lifestyle. According to Paracelsus, gnomes are the most important of the elemental spirits of the earth element, and they move as easily through the earth as humans walk upon it. The sun's rays turn them into stone. In other traditions, they are simply small, mischievous sprites or goblins. Some sources claim they spend the daytime as toads instead of in stone.

Often featuring in Germanic fairy tales, including those by the Brothers Grimm, the gnome often resembles a gnarled old man living deep underground and guards buried treasure. Because of this, Swiss bankers are sometimes disparagingly referred to as the Gnomes of Zurich. Gnomes feature in the legends of many of central, northern and eastern European lands by other names: a kaukis is a Prussian gnome, and barbegazi are gnome-like creatures with big feet in the traditions of France and Switzerland. In Iceland, gnomes (vættir) are so respected that roads are re-routed around areas suspected to be their homes. Further east, tengu are sometimes referred to as winged gnomes.

Individual gnomes are not very often detailed or featured as characters in stories, but in Germanic folklore, Rubezahl, lord over the underworld, was sometimes referred to as a mountain gnome. According to some traditions, the gnome king is called Gob.

Goblins
Probably the most malevolent of our mini monsters, the goblin, in some theories, is an inferior descendant of the gnome-king Gob.

Goblins feature a lot in art and literature. Remember Christina Rosetti's poem "Goblin Market", where goblins represent earthly desires who tantalize and nearly destroy a girl who falls under their spell? They also make frequent appearance in fairytales by the Brothers Grimm. Author George MacDonald, in The Princess and the Goblin, portrayed goblins as malevolent, subterranean creatures. The book is said to have been a childhood favorite of J. R. R. Tolkien, who populated his Middle-earth with goblins, but later preferred to call them Orcs in order to distance them from fairy tale characters. In The Lord of the Rings, the term "Goblins" is usually used in reference to the smaller breeds of Orcs that live in the northern mountains.

These Orcs and goblins also made it to popular video games like Dungeons and Dragons, Warcraft Universe, and Magic: the Gathering. I guess Le Chupacabra will be able to tell you more about those.

Goblins, gnomes and leprechauns. Small, but powerful, since they've managed to survive between the pages of legends for years. Size doesn't always count, does it?

By The Girl Next Door

The feelings I have for you

It's time to let you know
My true feelings towards you!
I need you more than I need myself
I am never gonna let you down
Always gonna be ground.
And I'll be waiting to know
If you need me.
I can cry for you,I can die for you
There's nothing I wouldn't do for you
This isn't a crush;
It might be something else!
Which starts with the alphabet'L'
The feelings I have for you
Is driving me insane!
I am going crazy for you
Because I can't sleep, I can't eat:
I just think about the things that you do.
I know I can't express my feelings
To you the way I want to
So I guess my song can express
All I want to say to you!
But I know it very well
That letting you know about my feelings for you
Won't make you talk to me again
I know you"ll be walking out of the door
Not knowing that I'll feel sore.

By Ammeta Hafiz

Paean to Death

Oh treachery of life, the feared one
The mother of immortality,
Yes it is you upon whom I call.
I may not have come of age
To question your darkened soul
But what a fabulous anonymity you are,
No one questions you; no one crosses your path,
The power you have been bestowed with
More powerful than even life itself
For it is you who bring the longer life, eternity,
And you elicit sympathy, fear
From even the wasted souls
And force them to believe, have faith in God
To satisfy them, to give them an answer,
To show them a perennial path.
Cold and callous as you are
Antonym and impudent to life,
Myths, stories, legends, tradition
All arise just to greet you an answer,
For you never answer the worldly question
Of whom you really are.
I envy you, I pity you,
Your power that has made you blind
To your ironic suicide,
You kill only to die.
You amaze all by your simplicity
And yet you, none can defy
And you deplete hope by incessantly repeating,
"Ye mortal! You are to die,
What is the purpose of your life?"

By Adnan M. S. Fakir