Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

The Fiction of Life Dear Readers, This is an invigorating interview of Azar Nafisi published in The Atlantic this week, who is a writer of a stimulating book titled, Reading Lolita in Tehran. She has touched the very basic foundations of freedom’s definition. What does freedom really mean? Even in the West, many finds Nabokov’s Lolita as “repulsive” and “scandalous”, even in many circle it is still considered as books for the “bad tastes”, a single search on this particular book would provide hundreds of links on positive and negative criticisms, cracker jokes and religious prohibitive prep-talks. And there are admirers of Nabokov who finds it one of the masterpieces in literary world. In a free world people have choice. They have the choice of not reading Nabokov’s controversial work, or they can choose whatever they love to read. In a free world people do not have to worry about their ventures in library or bookstore, or they don’t have to look behind to see long bearded M...

A Trap of Their Own Making Dear Readers, Anatol Lieven who is a Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC, has written a good piercing article in London Review of Books this week. He tried to provide answers in several burning questions of our time. The neo-conservatives want to conquer the world, but there are elements in the Bush administration that are clearly at odd with this miasma filled crudeness. There is always the danger that any imperial ambition may find unconquerable is the growing resentments among the locals that may very well turn into continuous resistance. The old proverb says that war incites more war. Even if a “strong man” being installed for a palatable indirect rule from thousands of miles away, the complexity of our world may make the entire process quite unpredictable. In the smooth circle of war, revenge and terrorism, what could the neo-conservatives and terrorists achieve in the end? Anatol Lieven say...

Anil’s Ghost – A Book Review By Mahbubul Karim (Sohel) April 26, 2003 I was hesitant reading Anil’s Ghost when it was published. Sometime the overreaching popularity and fame of a writer can become the cause of avoiding reading his works. And I confess, it was a mistake. Michael Ondaatje is a familiar name in the literary arena. After his Booker winning novel The English Patient was memorialized by the superb direction of Anthony Minghella, artistically given life to by Ralph Fiennes, Kristin Scott, Juliette Binoche and other unforgettable casts, the urge for reading the original novel was there. I wanted to forget the theme and intricacies of the movie so that I could rediscover it years from now, but the memories of love and gloom are still remaining. Perhaps a few more years require before embarking to that appealing trek. Anil’s Ghost is set up in different settings. Michael Ondaatje, a Sri Lankan born Canadian writer revisits his country of origin, painting throug...

Argentina's Luddite rulers Dear Readers, The workers’ rights are trampled and battered wherever the slightest opportunity exists. The big-bucks lawyers’ festooned owners and their showmanship spinsters are constantly devising impudent methods in cheating and exploiting labors of the poor. Argentina is no exception from this cold hard reality. Their election is near but people’s suffering are soaring amid same old false promises by the leaders of “poly-tricks”. All over the world, mostly in poor nations, the trend is stunningly similar. A nation is built and breathed through the endless drop of perspiration by the workers. And they remain at the bottom rung of economic ladder despite their constant efforts in maintaining and moving forward the society battling the not-so-kind nature in every struggling step. Naomi Klein’s the following article, “Argentina’s Luddite Rulers” published in The Globe and Mail is a moving piece. Regards, Mahbubul Karim (Sohel...

Argentina's Luddite rulers Dear Readers, The workers’ rights are trampled and battered wherever the slightest opportunity exists. The big-bucks lawyers’ festooned owners and their showmanship spinsters are constantly devising impudent methods in cheating and exploiting labors of the poor. Argentina is no exception from this cold hard reality. Their election is near but people’s suffering are soaring amid same old false promises by the leaders of “poly-tricks”. All over the world, mostly in poor nations, the trend is stunningly similar. A nation is built and breathed through the endless drop of perspiration by the workers. And they remain at the bottom rung of economic ladder despite their constant efforts in maintaining and moving forward the society battling the not-so-kind nature in every struggling step. Naomi Klein’s the following article, “Argentina’s Luddite Rulers” published in The Globe and Mail is a moving piece. Regards, Mahbubul Karim (Sohel...

Burn a Country's Past and You Torch Its Future Dear Readers, Robert Darnton’s following article is well written. “Do libraries really matter for nation’s sense of its self?” Darnton invokes the various historical examples spanning thousands of years. He comments: “The loss of a library or a museum can mean the loss of contact with a vital strain of humanity.” For many, history is perfectly presented in the boundary of lavishly jacketed or paper bounded historical texts, as if everything we need to know about past is already been uncovered and described in popular history paperbacks. Darnton clearly disagrees. His following comment is profound: “Few people appreciate the fragility of civilizations and the fragmentary character of our knowledge about them. Most students believe that what they read in history books corresponds to what humanity lived through in the past, as if we have recovered all the facts and assembled them in the correct order, as if we have it under ...