My Brother (Misbah-ul Islam)

My parents named him Misbah,

It’s an Arabic name,

it means light.

Like a light,

he showed us siblings the way.

Perhaps I didn’t realize,

how special he was,

Until October 27th,

he quietly passed away.

Memories of his affection,

troubles me,

what did I do for him?

My mind says nothing.

Today my mind echoes,

this is the money for

your next trip,

let’s go to the Sarees Center,

I will buy you a Saree.

And so many things.

Now I can only

pray to Almighty God,

that he will reserve a place for my,

brother in Heaven.

Goodbye my dearest brother,

may you rest in peace!

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Daily Prompt: When Childhood Ends

Write about a defining moment in your life when you were forced to grow up in an instant(or Instants).

After spending two years in the local college in Comilla my hometown in Bangladesh. I suddenly realized I was too unhappy to continue my education in the same college.I must look for a different  one, a girl’s college, but the only one I could go to was in the big city.

I packed my things and traveled by train at 3 AM in the morning to Dhaka, in Bangladesh. When I reached the college and met some of my classmates in the college dormitory, I realized instantly it was my time to grow up.

Mom and my siblings won’t be there to complain or talk about my new classmates, good or bad, I’d have to, ‘grin and bear it’ I had some help from a friend of my parents who lived in the same city, who did more than I could ask from a real uncle.

He invited me to go to his house every week-end. I was slowly getting used to living far away from my home. This is where my process of growing up was happening. Occasionally I felt a twinge of pain, I  tried to overcome it by starting a conversation with my uncle or  the classmates in college whoever happened to be there at that time, but  it was persistent, I tried to fight it off by concentrating on stories my classmates used to tell me, but it was not easy.

The only antidote for my pain were the songs I learned in school when I was in third standard, in presentation convent school, I used to sit by myself and hum the tune. Those childhood memories took me to a world where I had the most fun.

I grew up but it was not easy.

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Blogging 201, Day Seven

Day  Seven: Make the most of Events

Today’s assignment: Create a recurring blogging event on your site, and/or make plans to attend a blogging conference.

Blogging Event: In Other Words

In this weekly event draw inspiration from a well-known quote.

Recurring weekly Wednesday-

Today is Tuesday, but I will write a post today on quotes and another one tomorrow to follow the recurring  weekly   Wednesday.

The famous quote I picked today is : Let us sacrifice our today so that our children can have a better tomorrow-

A.P.J Abdul Kalam

Sacrifice is the key word in this quote. Our children need our support mentally, physically and financially. This is the reason we should sacrifice our pleasure by earning and saving for our children to enable them to have a better tomorrow.

Besides financial, mental and physical support is necessary too. Little minds at times can be confused by viewing the world by themselves. We can help by explaining things they fail to understand.

They need physical support in infancy, parents’  assistance enables them to grow up as confident human beings.

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Writing 101#3: One -Word inspiration

Prompts come in many different forms. Sometimes a single word is all you need to get your mind’s wheels turning. Here are six words:

Treasure

Regret

Home

Love

Uncertainty

Secret

Select one word in this list that speaks to you in some way.Have you always wanted to write about that wrong decision you made? Are you a long-term traveler looking for the right city to settle? Do you want to write about your relationship?

Regret is the word I feel speaks to me.

Although I think I’ve made right decisions in my life, my mind tells me I did not. Not working hard enough in primary and high school is one of the regrets, I have. I did not try to see what I could have accomplished if I were a little more careful in my studies earlier in life. I was happy getting passing grades without making any sincere efforts.

It is said,”Time and tide waits for no one” I heard it several times, I even loved repeating it. What I did not do is take a closer look and find out what message was  I getting from these few words.

I wanted to have a good education, I knew this was what  my parents wanted. I did accomplish this ambition. Still something tells me I should have listened to my uncle, who once told me, “Ranu you should study Philosophy.” I heard what he said but didn’t care enough to know what the subject was all about. I studied History instead, maybe I was good in remembering dates, which probably is  the reason why I opted to study   History.

Now when I look back I feel I did not make the right decision. When I read about Philosophers I find so much joy knowing, how they  entertained us with their knowledge and are continuing to do so despite the fact they are no longer among the living.

I have realized what I could have done when I was a student, the fact that I didn’t makes me unhappy sometimes.

I am happy  I got the opportunity to study about Iqbal  through online courses and Tagore,when I started blogging. Both were great philosophers in their time!

Dear participants and blogger friends, I’d love to get your feedback about my post. Thank you!

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Daily Prompt: Golden Age

If you had to live forever as either a child, an adolescent,or an adult, which would you choose– and why?

I don’t think living forever is an option for me. If it happens by chance, even if I don’t want to. I’d prefer to live forever as a child.

There are countless reasons for my decision. When I recall my childhood there wasn’t a day in my life when I was unhappy. It was a perfect childhood in my mind.

I had my loving parents, I had the security every one needs and unbelievable siblings except one. You cannot beat this feeling.

My days were filled with school, play and delicious food my mother cooked. I wasn’t worried about going hungry, or lack of shelter, or shortage of people to play with, God the Almighty provided it for us.

It was like the old song, “where never was heard a discouraging word and the sky is not cloudy all day.”

It was not the case with adolescence, or adulthood. These two stages were encompassed with sorrow, fear, and everything else that my childhood did not confront me  with.

Comparatively childhood was the best years for me!

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365 Writing Prompts: Morality play

Where do your morals come from — Your family? Your faith ? Your Philosophical worldview? How do you deal with those who don’t share them,or derive from a different source?

Beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior, in my case came from my parents, especially from my Mom. She spent a lot of time telling us how to behave with our elders, guests, teachers. We were always discouraged to say anything negative about these people.

My Mom always believed that teachers have a special place in our lives. They are the ones who give us knowledge, take time to explain things we do not understand, after our parents they look after our well-being for we spend most of the time during the day with them. Someone rightly said,”they are your second Mom.”

They (the teachers) deserve our respect, to not show respect to them is morally wrong.

I think we learn morality from our family and also our faith and educational institutions, to me it is a combination of all these that builds our character.

Our faith tells us to treat everyone equally regardless of their social status, we are created by God , who expects us to be kind to all His creation. While we all try most of the time sometimes we fall off the wagon because of outside influence which can make us ignore certain things which is inappropriate. Some of us do realize that inappropriate behavior towards anyone is wrong, we try to correct it because our conscience reminds us bad behavior makes us inhuman.

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Five sentence fiction: Waves

“Did you ever see such high waves”, Nadia said out loud, she  was visiting Malta with her parents, the waves fascinated her and they were so noisy, she couldn’t go too close to the shore, she was afraid she’d be drenched by the water the waves were spraying out.

Mom and Dad were having a great time watching the noisy Mediterranean sea  waves and soaking up the gorgeous sun, it was a perfect day to have outdoor picnic.

Mom made arrangement with the hotel chef to prepare a delicious basket of food, the chef’s assistant brought the food basket, Nadia couldn’t wait she dragged her parents to a spot which she had planned ahead of time.

The three spread the sheet they borrowed from the hotel and sat down, while Nadia was busy checking the food, she overheard her father say,”Hi Harry fancy seeing you here, come join us for lunch!”

Nadia was disgusted, she mumbled not him again he is such a show off, the thought that Harry would engage her parents into a conversation enraged her, she wasn’t hungry anymore, she took out a book and began to read, some picnic she said under her breath!

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Image from Wikipedia

365 Writing prompts: I want to know what love is

We each have many types of love relationships_ parents, children,spouses, friends. And they are not always with people; you may love an animal,or a place.Is there a single idea or definition that runs through all the varieties of “Love”?

It is true there are many varieties of love, such as: people, place, and animal. I’m not sure one definition will be enough for all of them.

When I think of love for parents, I feel it is not the same as love for the spouse, children or friends.

I know my parents would do anything for me to see me happy, whatever they do they do it unconditionally. They are never selfish, their whole world revolves around their children, they’d be devastated if anything bad happened to their children.

The children on the other hand will love their parents up to a certain point. When they feel that they are self-sufficient they’d either forget their parents or will have very little to do with them. This love I call “selfish love”, e.g A daughter sends an email to the mother which says ,”I only want to have a courteous relationship with you”. A parent will never dream of writing this to her child.

This  is a  comparison of love of the child and love of the parents.

Love for friends is different, if it’s your best friend you confide in him/her everything about your life, and hope it will be kept a secret.

With animals love is the reason we have them anyway, the animals on the other hand have no selfish motives like humans, their love for you is unconditional. Our love for an animal will always be the same,pure love.

Love for a place can change if you find some other place better or you can easily visit. I used to love a  place for a very long time, the distance, the difficulty of visiting it, is the reason I don’t think about it anymore.I do have a very fond memory of it.

Human beings are different , not everyone will treat their parents like the one I mentioned above,which happens to be a true example.

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Writing 101 Day Eleven: Size Matters (in sentences)

Today’s Prompt: Where did you live when you were twelve years old? which town, city and country? Was it a house or an apartment? A boarding school or a foster home ” An airstream or an RV? Who lived there with you?

Today’s twist: pay attention to your sentence lengths and use short, medium, and long sentences, as you compose your response about the home you lived in when you were twelve years old.

Situated in Punjab, Pakistan is the city of Rawalpindi.It was restored by Jhanda Khan after the devastation by the white Hun. This was the  place where I lived when I was twelve years old.

Our house was located  on Peshawar Road. At the front, close to the main road were three majestic Eucalyptus trees, the scent of their leaves awakened the passers by who looked curiously at them.Behind the trees was a  fence  built with bricks, it was a tottering one , ready to collapse any moment. The herd of buffaloes obliged us by leaning on it. The fence came crashing down which made extra work for the gardener and the servant.

The house was a large one, it had to be, to accommodate fourteen living souls, Mom, Dad, and the kids.

In all there were twelve rooms, four larger, eight smaller with attached bathrooms.

Mom and Dad occupied one  large room. The bossy older sister wanted one large enough to entertain her friends,one was designated for our parents’s  friends, and the left-over for us unimportant kids.

Kitchen was a separate building where my mom cooked and the two servants, prepared the vegetables and washed the dishes.

Hi all I’ll appreciate your feedback. Thank you. 🙂

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365 Writing Prompts: Freaky Friday

If you could be someone else for a day,who would you be,and why? If that seems too easy try this one: Who would you like to have spend a day as you and what do you hope they’d learn from the experience?

The second one to me has a lot of possibilities. I would therefore like to choose the second one.

Who would I like to spend a day  as me? It would be  with the  little boy I met at the mall,and what I hope he’d learn from the experience? How to grow up as a happy person.

Yesterday I was sitting on a bench. I was waiting for my daughter to get her shopping done, so we could head home.

Without warning a little boy, came and sat next to me. He could be three, four or five, it’s not easy to decipher their age when they are that little. However I looked at him and wondered what made him sit so comfortably beside me, given the fact children are always cautioned by parents not to talk to strangers.

I was a total stranger to the little tyke, he looked at me and swayed his legs to and fro feeling completely at ease. Mom said something which I thought was scurry on or I will leave you behind. He got up extended his tiny hand to shake mine. I was overjoyed and was only too glad to oblige. He left making me realize I still am able to attract little ones as I did when I was a teacher.

If it is at all possible ‘d like to spend my day with this sweet kid. At first I’d tell him how happy I was to meet him. I’d ask his name, where he lives,after the introduction, I’d invite him and his parents to my house, will serve some beverage and food to get better acquainted .

My main interest would be to tell the kid some interesting children’s stories, after this  depending on the response I may spend some time doing a bit of Art. I know kids are naturally interested in drawing when enough time is spent in this activity , we  will use  some  time watching cartoons on TV.

I’d  see how much interest he has left. If he tells me he’d like to write some letters of the English alphabet I’d get paper and pencil, after writing his letters when it shows he wants to do something else. I’d see if he can write his name using some of those letters, if he succeeds,I’d give him some treats and ask him what else he’d like to do.

If he is unable to tell me and it seems his interest is waning, we’d call it a day promising to do the same at a later date!

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