Laff lines

Fame awaiting
Speedy Morris was the basketball coach at LaSalle and they were having a pretty good season. One morning, he was shaving and the phone rang. His wife answered it and called out to him that Sports Illustrated wanted to talk to him.

Coach Morris was excited that his team was apparently about to receive national recognition in this famous sports magazine. As a matter of fact, he was so excited that he cut himself with his razor.

Covered with blood and shaving lather and running downstairs to the phone, he tripped and fell down the stairs. Finally, bleeding and bruised, he made it to the phone and breathlessly said, "Hello"?

The voice on the other end asked, "Is this Speedy Morris"?
"Yes, yes!" he replied excitedly.

Then the voice continued, "Mr. Morris, for just seventy-five cents an issue, we can give you a one-year subscription to Sports Illustrated.”

Reverse analysis
As a doctor completed his examination of the patient he said, "I can't find a cause for your complaint. Frankly, I think it's due to drinking."
The patient replied, "In that case, I'll come back when you're sober."

Brain gain
"According to a new study, ladies and gentlemen, you can improve your memory by watching less TV, doing crossword puzzles, eating more fish I can't remember all that."
--Dave Letterman

Bill-ated
A lawyer sent an overdue bill notice to a client who had fired him. A note was attached that stated: "This bill is one year old!"
By return mail the lawyer got his bill back. To it was attached a card which read: "Happy Birthday!”

Paintings are illustration of vivid emotions on paper, drawn from the very depths of their hearts. The product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that…ah what the hell! When kids these days are drawing like Michelangelo, why bother messing with large words? The second Meridian Ananda Alo Children's painting award took place on Monday, 1st December 2008 in Channel I Bhabhan, Tejgaon.

132 kids were chosen from all over the country, and the sorting round began from Rajshahi. The kids started painting at three in the afternoon, and it ended at near four thirty. Their paintings were wonderful, and their abilities made me say, 'I was not this talented when I was a kid!' Afterwards the prize ceremony began with a speech from Mr Rezanur Rahman, editor in chief of Ananda Alo, followed by Mr SM Kamal Managing director of Meridian Foods.

Afterwards, performances were made by Shubeer Nondi, Bappa Majumdar, the sixteen 'Khude Gaanraaj' and many more. Choreography was made by a children's theatre group called, 'Shishu Chalachitra Shanghshad'. There was dance choreography and a magic show, and then the names of the winners were announced. The winners of 'Ka' group were: Naveed Anjum Raadh from Narayanganj (First), Asil Ahsan Mubin from Khulna (Second), and Ibnel Mahmood (Third) from Dhaka. And the winners from the 'Ga' group were: Nazmus Sakib(First) from Rajshahi, Lamiya Anjum (Second) from Khulna, and Jannatul Ferdous (Third) from Dhaka. Looks like there are more talents outside Dhaka…

The paintings of the kids were put on display, and the happy faces of all the kids were shinning up the atmosphere. All the kids were given certificate, and 32 of the top winners were given crests as well. The happy grin on the faces of the kids could make anyone go 'aww' while they were taking the awards! 'I liked the part best where they brought Mr Meridian man when we were drawing,' says Lamiya, one of the winners. The winners got prizes such as Chidren's furniture from concept furniture, a lot of gift hampers, money, computers, and the best of all, a Dhaka-Bangkok-Dhaka ticket! Every kid that participated got a gift hamper too! The main sponsor was Meridian Foods Ltd, along with nine other sponsors.

Encouraging children to draw better and excel in their future is a very important step of their lives, and more people should come forward to make a change in kid's lives (I wish there were events like this when I was a kid, though). The whole event for the kids was to have fun, and draw their ways towards fame!... (Children taking over the world, every adolescence and adult's fear)

By Raida Kifait Reza
Photo by: Sohel Mamun

Shooting Star

And it is flooding Facebook. Friends who knew you once upon a time and friends who had been with you all the time and friends who were looking forward to seeing you some day are all under the same spell. No one knows what to say or think or do, except maybe wish this way. What they wouldn't do to turn back the clock, stop the bus, stop you from crossing the road. What they wouldn't have done or said to hold you back, so that they could keep you with us longer.

It is the same reaction all around. Disbelief. Shock. Grief. Devastation. We all wonder how. We all wonder why.

Your friends, they remember you. They remember cheering you on as you burned the famous red court of our school, chanting your name as you sunk shot after shot. They remember calling out to you, saying 'good game, good game.' The friends who shared not just random basketball games with you, but let you become a part of their days and their lives. They remember making promises, jokes and banters about maybe outshining you some day. When you played, you set the court on fire. And if this Saturday hadn't happened, who knows? Your friends at the dojo think you might have gotten a black belt some day. You were that good, Nehal.

You friends, they remember the jokes you made, the good-natured jabs at rivals from other schools. They remember your enthusiasm, how fired up you would get to organize basketball tournaments. They remember you, not just as the phenomenal player that you were, but as the phenomenal friend you became. Bunking classes with you, sitting with you at coaching lessons and explaining pure math to you, sneaking out of the house for clandestine rendezvous at God knows where…no one can let you go. So many of your friends, they are stunned by the conversations that no one had thought would be your last. They write of how they talked to you, the night before it happened, the hour before it happened, the ten minutes before it happened. They wonder when it happened, where it happened, how someone so loved as you could be taken in all of three seconds. Crossing the road…why, so many people jaywalk all over the streets of Dhaka. Why did it have to be you?

Our heart goes out to your family. Friends of your sisters, people you saw you at school or on the court or while chilling at your house, they cannot take this. Your best friends, people who spent many hours of many days with you, they cannot take this. Your sisters, they cannot take this. The people who crowded the door to your house and watched you be carried away, they cannot take this. Your friends have buried one of their own. Young, vibrant, loved from the start. Your friends have seen them put you away. They have dropped soil into your grave.

Where are you now, Nehal Fahim Zeeshan? We hope God keeps you safe.

In Memory of Nehal, who passed away on Saturday, November 30 2008

By Shehtaz Huq

Anathema

It has gathered dust over the last eleven months. Shoved between the few books I managed to sneak into my suitcase, it lies buried but not forgotten. I try not looking at it. Looking at it leaves an unpleasant taste at the back of my mouth. It makes me think of yesterdays. I can't deal with that.

That little paperback is a movie reel of memories all by itself. It takes me back many months in time, to the first time we ever had this conversation, to that day in the bookstore when I caught sight of this particular book and said to you, 'I wish I could have that', to that one cool January evening when you slipped a gift-wrapped package in my hands and said not a word. It takes me back to the quivering anticipation of my fingers as I tore through the wrapping and discovered this. The cover page bore no inscription, no 'to' and 'from'. It had just one line in your familiar slanting handwriting. For moments lost and never returned. I remember how the inscription rendered me speechless and made me ache with a longing so painful for the moments you and I had been too foolish to let go. I remember how hard and fast the tears had come.

I carried your book with me, through customs and transits. I read it while waiting out the delays on my way here. The spine, sadly, has cracked, and the formerly crisp pages are dog-eared. The single dried rose I used as a bookmark has lost all its petals, from all the times I pulled it out from in between the pages. It got me through the many hours in air, through the panic of landing in a place where I would start off life as a non-entity. It is funny how much meaning one can attach to something.

Now, though, things are different. You've moved on and I've moved on and we've both gone our separate ways. There is nothing, save for this book, to remind us of our brief time together. And, to any other person, this book is just a book. The inscription is gone. I tore it out the day I heard you had moved past 'us'. It was a silly and childish thing to do, I'll admit. But I did it. I tore out the cover page, a tear so smooth no one can ever tell it had been there in the first place. I didn't leave any frayed edges.

I wish I could say the same about my heart.

By The Trick is to Keep Breathing

Exam Syndromes

You start taking pleasure in the things that seem most boring to you, so much so that people start glancing at you weirdly and wonder if everything's alright

· Your appetite begins to wane. The most delicious food in the world don't taste so good anymore. They only taste good after the exam, provided the exam has been good by your standards

· When you think you should pull an all-nighter or at least a half-nighter, sleep suddenly begins to look very very appealing. You doze off, and on the next day, wonder whatever went wrong and why you didn't stick to your original plan.

Time has a personal vendetta against exams. Have you ever noticed how fast time runs when you have exams? You have a weekend to prepare for the hardest mid-term exam of the hardest subject in the hardest year of your life, and suddenly it's the evening before the exam and all the time you visualized about has just flown away and the dreaded morning appears.

By Anika Tabassum