The Streams

Went to Lake Louise and Banff today. It was a beautiful day with occasional showers and a generally overcast sky (which makes me happiest!). The mountain ranges on both sides of the road mingled with the clouds at the mountain tops to form a unanimous whole. They were all covered with evergreens and other trees as in all parts of what I have seen so far of Canada, giving the mountains a whole pallette full of hues ranging from greens to blues in a flawless mixture till it gets lost in the ash and white of the clouds. Some of the tallest mountains were covered in snow at the top giving birth to streams and waterfalls rushing down the mountainsides. Amazingly it took me back to trips in Sikim and Sylhet.
The Sangu lake, high up in the mountains of Sikim, emerging from the mighty Kanchanjangha, was sorrounded by high peaks which were covered in snow all the year round and melted a little daily to gather in the lake which then overflowed to give birth to the Tista river - beautiful, clear greenish blue waters rushing over rocks and stones sorrounded by trees on both sides till it sparkles and giggles and makes you laugh out loud as if you have had a little glimpse into heaven! Lake Louise was similar but somehow not the same. Perhaps I am not so much in love with the crowds that infest tourist spots. Perhaps I like the untouched and rugged beauty of nature as I found in Sikim but not in the well developed lakeside of Lake Louise.
The thin streams on the mountains on our way to Banff reminded me of the numberless waterfalls we saw descending from the mountains in Sylhet under the influence of the monsoon rains. The human mind is like a stream too and does not follow any particular direction. From streams I was suddenly lost in the memories of our journey to Jaflong with Mawla Bhai at the helm. God bless the man! Allah alone knows how many songs he knows by heart and under his skillful and humurous leadership we all sang and joked as one, the whole busfull of people had turned friends who could share their thought with everybody! Yet as we passed by the mountains running down in waterfalls with torrential clouds and shower drops hanging overhead, he led us all in a praise of the One Almighty Allah who had created all this beauty, Tabarak Allah!
That reminded me of our trip to Madhabkunda where I felt something unique for the first time but could not perfectly express it (as I always found it difficult to bare my soul) though Mawla bhai thought there was somehting more to what I had begun to express and abruptly stopped. I was sitting on a rock (like a villain as Riaz Bhai took photos to prove to everybody later on!) and watching everbody in their various pursuits in the lap of nature (God bless the man who invented sunglasses, particularly large ones!). What overwhelmed me was how the people I knew to be important or selfish or proud or with some such disease of the heart were all cured by the proximity to nature. I knew it would be shortlived (what good thing in life isn't?) but it felt good for those few moments to see everyone in their prime quality - innocence!
That reminded me of my second trip to Sylhet which was not as colourful but two incidents made it meaningful.
I could not sleep the whole night as various people were passing through a bogey full of girls whose parents had entrusted us with their safety. After Fajr, looking at the beautiful sunrise which Fahmida text messaged me not to miss (as if I would miss it for the whole world!), I felt quite sleepy and pulling my shawl over myself, dozed off. When I woke up, I was feeling quite refreshed, warm and comfortable. I saw my girls quietly scurrying around, talking in a hushed voice and myself covered in at least four more shawls! My students thought I looked cold and took care to give me a few hours of perfect sleep! May Allah bless them all!
The other incident I remember is going to the kitchen of the hotel where we stayed to cook for my few months old son. On the last day there were some complications with rooms and the eleven rooms we were occupying were reduced to four for the remaining day. My room was also axed. As I could not go out for the day's trip with the rest due to illness, I decided to leave the room at twelve as required. I went to inform them at eleven that I was ready to be removed to one of the four remaining rooms. The staff came frequently and talked and inquired about our wellbeing and brought lunch at one, but nobody showed any interest to vacate me. I fell asleep waiting for someone to get me out. Woken at three by a clamourous group of girls, all desperate to use the bathroom ( imagine 75 girls with 3 bathrooms to share between themselves!), I went to ask them what they were doing about what was technically no longer my room and guess my own desperation when they said I could keep the room till I left that evening! I did not have enough money to pay for it! They said they would not charge me which was even worse. I could not let IIUC pay for my room beyond the budget! Then they explained to me that they were giving me this facility for free because they liked the way our girls were polite and well trained! They were all there to say goodbye with tearful eyes when I was leaving (how can people be so generous to strangers they met for no more than three days?) and they took special care to bring my son's food to my room before we started off in spite of the pressure of packing food for all of us for the train unbidden and unexpected! They called me on occasions from Sylhet after that till I left Bangladesh to ask about our well being.
It all makes me believe, people are naturally good. It is only when there is a conflict of interests that Shaitan lends us a hand and makes monsters of us. If only we could defeat him at that point ............. if ...........

Have you heard of Hazrat Abdul Qadir Zilani (R)? When he was eight, his mother sent him abroad to study in a famous madrasah. For his expenses she sewed 80 dinars inside his shirt. On the way, robbers got hold of the caravan and took everything from everybody. Just to joke they asked, 'does anyone have anything else?' The little boy stepped forward and said, 'yes, i have 80 dinars'. They were surprised, how could they miss such a large amount? They searched him again and found nothing. Just when they were about to leave thinking these were the ramblings of a little boy, th eboy tore off his shirt and showed the baffled robbers where the money was hidden. They asked him, 'you could easily save that money from us, why did you tell us about it?' He said, 'because my mother told me never to tell a lie'. The robbers felt ashamed in front of the little boy. They asked Allah's forgiveness for what they had been doing, returned everything they took from everybody and thereafter became good muslims.
So, you see, it is never too early to learn to assume responsibility for ones actions. If you read the chapter that describes how Heathcliff was first brought in by Mr. Earnshaw, you will see how Mrs. Earnshaw indulged Catherine and Hindley to illtreat the little child. Catharine only grew close to Heathcliff after her mother died and her brother became distant. They were brought up without any moral training but they were not interested in morality anyway as you will remember, Cathy used to kick her Bible when the curate came to teach. She never had any moral considerations and even when Nelly discussed the pros and cons of her marriage prospects, Cathy was more concerned about the advantages and disadvantages of each match than she was about what was right and what was wrong. We cannot excuse Catharine for what she did, Heathcliff could not forgive her either because she did it consciously. She wanted the name, wealth and status of the Lintons and the love of Heathcliff all at the same time. So, excusing her actions is out of the question. Just as you cannot excuse a little child who likes to beat other children and you have to punish them in order to correct them, you also cannot forgive Catherine for making a choice that ruined everybody around her and not even trying to make up for it.
Let us learn to take care of our actions for this life and the next.

Wuthering Heights is my favourite novel because of its experiments in unbridled human nature, its poetic prose, its technical excellence and its affinity to nature.
The point of Wuthering Heights is to show what can happen if one gives importance only to emotion without the restriction of reason or morality. So, it is not the point whether Heathcliff is right or wrong; that is quite obvious. What is important is that human beings should have moral and rational considerations in their actions. Otherwise inspite of their circumstances, they become monsters. Because even when you look at the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff, you cannot justify it by any standard. They felt united in spirit, yet they married other people and ruined their lives! So, what we learn from the depiction of Heathcliff is what Shakespeare said, 'It is all very good to have the strength of a giant, but it is dangerous to use it like a giant'. This is why you feel sorry for Heathcliff's sufferings but you cannot stay with him in his revenge plan to the end. Revenge ultimately destroys the avenger and this is why Heathcliff ultimately loses in spite of winning and this is where his tragedy lies. He lost the purpose of his life behind revenge and lost the positive human qualities which he could have shown (as in his love for Hareton) to a devillish image. This is why we sympathise with Heathcliff inspite of what he turns out to be. Because we too are imperfect and we too would have done what he did if we had the power and the means.
But, you see, winning is not always a victory and losing is not always a defeat. The better human being wins under any circumstance. The worse succumbs to the circumstance

It was Radia's birthday on 27th March. You know well we do not celebrate birthdays but my family is different. My fupu announced a week in advance that she was going to come with a cake and she came the night before at 11.30 to decorate my small house with balloons and ribbons. My neighbour too wanted to come as they take Radia to school everyday and I bring their son back with Radia. So, there was no other way but to arrange for some food. I cooked morog polao, achar gosht, khashir kolija, kofta korma, ilish and begun bhaji, chhuri shutki and shadabhat for dinner and two types of pakora and chicken fry for nasta, of course with some help from Mr. Hafiz. My fupu made shemai for dessert and she had to cut the cake too as we do not cut cakes! You must be wondering why I cooked so many dishes. It is not because I am an expert but so that there would be enough to serve in case some of the dishes turned out to be inedible. Surprisingly, Alhamdulillah, all but the shutki turned out very well! I cannot imagine how I cooked all that and vacuumed the whole house and rearranged all the furniture and redecorated all the rooms all in one day! The whole of the next day I was dozing like a sick chicken, what we call a 'jhimainna kura' in Chittagonian! Amma would never believe I could do all that and my family would certainly think my husband did all of it! I can hardly believe it myself. I guess, I will make a good housewife after all!

Lest we forget

I was at Presidency International School for lunch after completion of my classes at IIUC. One of our teachers Mrs. Jamaluddin was leaving. She was going to pick her sister, arriving from America, up from Dhaka Airport and visit her parents at Pabna for a glorious family reunion after a long time before joining her husband at his new army posting.

A few days before she had hosted the most luxurious Class Party for her students with real china dishes to serve them despite our warnings that the children might break them, her husband helping generously. So, with her eye for details and her zest for life, we could only imagine what the reunion would be like. So, the farewell was bittersweet. We were going to miss her but we were all very happy for her.

As we proceeded with lunch and chattered on, I noticed she dipped the beef in the dal before she fed it to her daughter, Shaptarshi, a student of third standard. I appreciated it though I was not interested to emulate it. I am one of those mothers who believe in bringing up my children to be hardy and adjustable, a tough world waits beyond the limits of my protection and I do not wish my protective nature to make them weak. I admire mothers who feel they can shelter their children from all the evils of life, but I do not feel so strong about myself.

A few days later, Daisy Apa, one of our seniormost teachers, called to say that Diba, one of our junior teachers was frantic as she recieved a call from the scene of an accident but she could not determine who it was as she did not have caller ID service. We called all our teachers and found them all safe. But the nine o`clock news revealed all. Mr. and Mrs. Jamaluddin and her sister had died on the spot in a terrible car accident on their way to Pabna. Diba was the last person Mrs. J. had called from her mobile. so, the Police thought she could identify the victims for them. Shaptarshi had survived four more hours with her brains spilled out, calling out for her other to comfort her. All that was left for us were their graves, in Dhaka. We could not believe it.

But as it all settled in, we came to realize how we fool ourselves into believeing we are going to live forever and that we can always protect our loved ones. We realized we should make use of each and every moment as we do not know what is going to happen the next moment. We should also prepare those we love to face the world here and hereafter on their own with courage and self reliance. this is the greatest gift we can give to our children.

I pray to Allah that the happy little family is happy after death as they were while they were alive. And we are thankful to Him for reminding us about our real purpose in life by examples like these.

Yesterday was warm and sunny, so sunny in fact, we had to close the blinds. Last night it began snowing and already snow has piled up in my balcony, the railing, the rooftops of the houses, an umbrella in a verandah across my window. The trees are all cloaked in snow already and it is still going full swing. It is all a pure, immaculate white. So pure and white you hardly want to step on it. You just wish you could sit at your window and watch it all day. Do you like snow?

If you got an opportunity of a lifetime to visit a country and wished to make the most of your journey, what would you do? Get a guidebook of course that would tell you about the interesting places to visit and the locations to stay at and the food to taste.
Likewise we are visitors on Earth visiting only once and we need a guidebook to guide us through this one time opportunity so as to make the most of it. Qur'an is that guidebook for us. So, read it everyday. Even if it is only one line, no problem. Read it with meaning and if Allah wants that line will contain sufficient guidance for you for that day.
You do not need any elaborate preparations. Just take five minutes before you leave the house or after any salat and open a page and random and read one line with meaning. And then watch as your life transforms!