Life, Dreams and Reality -- Sohel's Blog

1       What does compassion mean? Its dictionary meaning is: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. 1 A more concise definition: a sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it. 2 Human beings are social animals. We laugh at humour, frown at one sided criticism, and cry at agonies, of ours and others. In funeral, we gather together, hugging and reminiscing the memory of the departed. In a birthday party of a friend or family, our genuine cheers, claps and singing the chorus with others wishing a happy birthday lighten the mood of the birthday boy or the girl. In a wedding we celebrate the beginning of a marital life of a couple with hearty gestures and smile. When our favorite sports team win a vital game, soccer, cricket, football, or any other thrilling sports, we jump up and down and scream with the loudest and shril...

x221&freeWheel.siteSectionId=nws_offsite&closedCaptionActive=&addThis.playerSize=5000x340&closedCaptionsOverPlayer.fontsize=18" style="border: 0px solid #ffffff;" width="460">Unfortunately your browser does not support IFrames. This is one of the best speeches I have heard in a long time. The urgency in Michelle Obama's tone and the simple connections that she made with her anecdotal stories from her and President Obama's life, did not feel like I was listening to a political speech.  True that economy is still not recovered for millions of many (mostly because of Obama's predecessor's squandering from wars and tax mishap), and  there are other unresolved domestic and international issues, however, comparing to 8 previous years, from 2001 to 2008, of dismally darkened ages of constant fear, suppression, tortures and many "casualties of wars", and fomenting distrusts among the world populace, Obama administrat...

Recently, I have read two books. First one is Ian McEwan's Solar, and the second one is Michael Crichton's State of Fear. No similarities in overall plot structures or the characters between these two books, but both of them have Global Warming as a part of the main stories. When Michael Crichton's State of Fear came out in 2004, I almost bought it, however, reading the negative reviews in prominent newspapers and magazines, I decided not to. This year, while browsing my old reading wish list, I came back to this book again, and this time I decided to give it a try. And I am glad that I did it so. Like Crichton's other fast paced novels I had read many years ago, like Sphere, Jurassic Park, Disclosure, Lost World and Prey, I found State of Fear was an entertaining and quite absorbing read. 798 pages length of this book that includes the main story, and the appendix containing the writer's explanation why he had written this book in a very controversial theme, a...

Years from now when  election's usual trade crafts will be thing of the past, perhaps Clint Eastwood's speech at Republican National Convention will be remembered in fond recollection. He looked a bit disheveled, and it seemed his delivery was unscripted, but funny nonetheless. His empty chair talk is being mocked around the net, but his message I found to be neither democratic nor republican as he mentioned: "Politicians are employees of ours.. will beg for our votes every four years". I've loved his movies for many years, including two of his last ones, Million Dollar Baby and "Grand Torino". At the end of another not so humoring workday, Clint Eastwood's humorous unscripted speech made my day!

The following are few extracts from Jim Holt's existential detective book Why Does the World Exist? "The problem with the science option would seem to be this. The universe comprises everything that physically exists. A scientific explanation must involve some sort of physical cause. But any physical cause is by definition part of the universe to be explained. Thus any purely scientific explanation of the existence of the universe is doomed to be circular. Even if it starts from something very minimal— a cosmic egg, a tiny bit of quantum vacuum, a singularity— it still starts with something, not nothing. Science may be able to trace how the current universe evolved from an earlier state of physical reality, even following the process back as far as the Big Bang. But ultimately science hits a wall. It can’t account for the origin of the primal physical state out of nothing. That, at least, is what diehard defenders of the God hypothesis insist. (Page 5-6)" My Comment: ...

James E. Hansen's article in The Washington Post is  a plea. A plea from the writer who directs the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. His credentials seem impeccable. This coming week a study will be published by the article's author and his colleagues containing a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures revealing "a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for out present." Of course there are doubters who may say that all these extreme weather events like severe droughts in some parts of our world, scorching heat waves in exceptionally hot summer in North America, are all part of the natural rhythm of our planet. James E. Hansen observes that the "odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills....

I came to know about Gore Vidal's writing from his non fiction book titled United States: Essays 1952 - 1992. It was a borrowed book from my local library. His writing was clear, erudite and written with sharp observations and without fear. During the time of increasingly more global turmoils and misplaced paranoia, especially after 2001, this writer who had literary honesty and universal vision in his core, was not to be sidelined by yellow journalism masqueraded as benevolent subjugation. By the time he was well in his late 70s and approaching 80s, Gore Vidal came out with some of the most pointed articles of the time to describe what the wars and violence are really about and its devastating effects on forgotten victims, the casualty of wars. Gore Vidal died today, July 31, 2012. The world has lost one of its greatest freethinkers, literary critiques, and novelists. He understood the cosmic significance and albeit insignificance of human existence, and said even in his last y...

Two news caught my eyes early Sunday morning. One is in BBC and another one is in Discovery News. The BBC's one talks about the universal yearning to live forever. And the Discovery News points to a Russian media mogul who has started taking initial steps to achieve cybernetic immortality for humans by 2045. Is this possible? Is there really a modern elixir that can be devised through digital technologies? It may seem too far fetched at this point, but possibly is a good step. Good diet and exercise can, theoretically, prolong life, but the certain upper longevity limit perhaps cannot be crossed for mortal human flesh. This 31 year old Russian media mogul, Dmitry Itskov, has even created a non profit organization named  2045 initiative . Here is his plan in summary: "The main objectives of the initiative are: the creation of a new vision of human development that meets global challenges humanity faces today, realization of the possibility of a radical extension of human ...

There was a time beyond iPhone, tablets, laptops and ubiquitous personal computers. Ah yes, no video games either. Those years were not before the first or the second world wars, not even before Beatles, ABBA, Ali, Jackson, Elvis, Madonna or Diego Maradona phenomena. Some of these were many years before I was born, and some of these were in my lifetime. Having fun did not mean striking the XBOX, Play Station or Wii's console pounding with frenetic speed, or the near absolute attachments with fabulous social networking tools of today. Relative to present days' and moments' of never ending virtual interactivity, those days and nights of computer-less light and darkness were awash by sunlight or the moon beams, not the afterglow of a massive or tiny LCD screens. It was playing soccer or cricket in mud and rain soaked field until the twilight hour, climbing trees to pluck the ripened guavas or mangoes, and running toward the fly away kites in the sky brought the pure thrills a...

Like many grieving readers, Humayun Ahmed's writings had impact shaping my thoughts and life. His protagonists from everyday life, mysterious and mystical, sometimes magical, and sometimes realistic to the core, Himu, Misir Ali, Baker Bhai, and many other now forgotten main and side characters of his skillfully crafted novels, their fights against the odd, wins and defeats, selfless sacrifice, and passions, these all made up the sum total of this great Bangladeshi writer's tremendous contributions to Bangla literature.  His sentence structure was simple, but in combination had powerful meaning. I have not read his writings from the last decade, but can reminisce still those unforgettable moments that came alive from the crisp plot, economic usages of words, and ending that had left me craving for more of his story.  I remember the universal messages in his stories. Love, humanity, this mortal life, and the possibility beyond belief and imagination. At that time when I w...

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." Mark Twain

Video link: http://bcove.me/dxen7j36 These 80, 90, 100+ years old are keep plying the game. The game of ping pong, the game of life. Their defiance and fierceness shown in every vigorous smash or spinning of ping pong balls in front of the inevitable aging can put to shame many like me who takes life as granted, and don't live to the fullest. A good quotation from an article in The Atlantic :  “When I saw Dorothy being pushed up to the table in her wheel chair, I thought this was going to be an easy game. But then she pushed away the chair, stood up and beat me three games straight.”   Easy game? No way! The fighting spirits in this table tennis World Championship in ping pong can never be called quitters, as these are the winners, soaking the essence of life in every breath and every move around that smooth table tennis table.

This video documentary from a photojournalist Ami Vitali gives a description of grim and slow motion catastrophe in action. Beautifully rendered, telling the stories of lives not talked about in urgency as it demands.  Video Link:  http://bcove.me/551u7xxo The following is an extract from an article in The Atlantic where the above video was posted. "The village of South Tetulbaria in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh, relies on fishing but climate change threatens this way of life. In November 2010 Mamtaz Begum, a young widow from Barguna, stood up and demanded justice for vulnerable communities near to the Bay of Bengal at a ‘Climate Tribunal’ in the capital, Dhaka.   The climate tribunals are developing the idea that those responsible for climate change, can and should be held accountable through the law. Specifically they explore the possibilities for using national laws to hold governments and other private actors accountable for the impacts of the changi...

"Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little. -- Epicurus, Greek Philosopher, 341-270 BC Last night I read Mary Hunt's book "7 Money Rules for Life", and it was the third rule that I found to be known to me, but still not absorbed, even all these years after treading, seeing and reading about miseries and distress.  The writer did not use voluminous examples, or hundreds of pages to present her point. She writes with conviction and as a reader I found her words sincere.  It is never enough. Every flashy gadgets, clothes of impeccable finesse, shiny shoes, dining at restaurants declaring prosperity from its every polished spoons and glitzy interiors, demand contentment to be roughed and snubbed by bolstered greed. If my friend can buy the brand new car, why can't I? If I bought the New IPad just a few months ago, why can't I get the shinier Surface with fantastic Ultrabook specs? BMW? Hmmm...wait until you see my cuddled Bentley.  M...

This news article in The Globe and Mail has caught my eyes. Scary news, but all concerned folks should read it at once.  "...more Canadian households could find themselves underwater with their debt payments if unemployment were to spike, and that banks and the wider economy could suffer through close ties to countries like the United States and the United Kingdom that have tighter links to Europe." Why did this so grim warning came from the Bank of Canada? It is the apparently no end in sight debt crisis in Europe making many nervous in this side of the ocean.  New York Times has published an article written by Nikos Konstandaras, who is the managing editor of Greek daily newspaper Kathimerini. He argues that both the right and the left political parties in his economically struggling nation have failed his fellow countrymen by their ineptitude inability to find a common ground resolving this terrible crisis. The writer's following comment is vivid and provides a...

Adrienne Rich died on March 27. She was 82. She was a poet with fierce courage and remarkable honesty present in the core of her works. Here is a quote from The Washington Post describing the writer: Unlike most American writers, Rich believed art and politics not only could co-exist, but must co-exist. She considered herself a socialist because “socialism represents moral value — the dignity and human rights of all citizens,” she told the San Francisco Chronicle in 2005. “That is, the resources of a society should be shared and the wealth redistributed as widely as possible.”   “She was very courageous and very outspoken and very clear,” said her longtime friend W.S. Merwin, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet. “She was a real original, and whatever she said came straight out of herself.” One of the famous poems by Adrienne Rich is The Burning of Paper Instead of Children, “an indictment of the Vietnam War”. A good informal explanation of the poem can be found in this link where t...

Stephen King’s 11/22/63 is quite an unusual title of a book. Still in beginning chapters, but already I’m hooked to King’s irresistible writing, as I was in his Under the Dome, The Stand, and many more past ones. Maybe some other day I will write about the story when I read the very last chapter of this hefty book. But like the protagonist of this story who goes back to 1958, yep, time travel, don’t laugh, Stephen King always knows how to craft the most implausible story into a believable one, and making it entertaining but also weaves it with moral dilemma, the good, the bad and the ugly, just like Clint Eastwood in his Western movies, perhaps a few degrees more intensity, but again just like this time traveling protagonist, I felt so antiquated not adopting the electronic version of book reading earlier. Such an instant gratification! You click just one button, and bam! The book is auto delivered within a few seconds in all the possible devices one may possess, phone, pc, e-reader, ...

“Never, never be afraid to do what's right, especially if the well-being of a person or animal is at stake. Society's punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we look the other way.” ― Martin Luther King Jr.

This is the first book I've read written by Chris Cleave, and found his crisp writing to be highly readable, entertaining, and at the same time Little Bee has that unmistakable power rekindling reader's interest exploring the painful reality that many fellow human beings go through every single day around the globe. The central character Little Bee, whose real name is Udo, meaning peace, recollects childhood memories with her family, adventures with elder sister, and horror in the forms of boots and guns that came to their village, robbing her childhood innocence, while fleeing to a promised land does not bring that very promise of sheltering persecution from the paid thugs. Involvement of a family of journalist, the 1 meter height "batman", gives this tragic story another dimension and perspective, from the eyes of a protector, who feels so helpless protecting a refugee child from the onslaught of endless bureaucracy, and bullets. Amid the gloom and waves of sor...

Their realm of influences might be different. One was the innovator of aesthetically pleasing and albeit useful computing devices, making life of many better, and the other soothed the spirits of music lovers with his memorable melancholic songs. Steve Jobs and Jagjit Singh, died within few days of each other, bur their contributions to the world may last for a long time. Death is indeed the common denominator, the ultimate destiny we all share. Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford commencement speech was so poignant illuminating this very brief existence that we traverse, while Jagjit Singh's songs invoke that nostalgic and beautiful moments of life, from years past, reminding the mortals to cherish every precious moment of life. Two great men. One common destiny.