Dhaka city. Some loathe it. Some hate it. Some have a love-hate relationship with it. Some have no other choice but to remain in it.
Dhaka. The city of dreams, of possibilities, of magic, of black magic, of shattered souls, of impossible goals.
Dhaka. I love thee.
Dhaka breathes life into me. Every morning the race to work, battling traffic and pollution, mesmerises me. I sit and stare at the patience of people, I am awed by their determination and resilience. I am taken aback by the amount of physical energy and emotional spirit these warriors spend for just a few thousand taka at the end of every grueling, never-ending month.
Dhaka. The concrete giants with their grey, washed away walls tell a story of every middle class dweller of this magic land. They might just fall down in seconds during an earthquake but for now- sky is the limit. They stand tall, might and proud till a June monsoon comes and shakes their very foundations.
Dhaka. Your limited sky I try to get a glimpse of- between meetings and phone calls or sometimes simply from the washroom window at office. You are blue, you are yellow and sometimes a petrifying dark. You are moody, you are cranky but you are joy- the 6 seasons of Bangladesh is a different painting in Dhaka.

Dhaka. I love you the way you love me back. Like that first love that happened to me 7 years ago. Innocent, risky- ready for a heartbreak. Dear Dhaka, I lose my breath over you like I lost my breath over that innocent first love.



Picture & words by me :) 

When I was 16, I did not know what I wanted in life. What I did know is what I did not want. And my life has exactly been the reflection of WHAT I DID NOT WANT. Ironically, I fell in love with life when the undesirable happened.

The last few sentences were extremely confusing. Life is full of surprises and my life has been the true depiction of surprises. When I was 17, the future was unknown to me. Absolute faith in the present was what led me on. But as I grew up, worry for the future, eradication of uncertainties, search for stability and guaranteed security caught hold of me and for the next few years I was thinking like everyone else. 

So if now, life flashes before my eyes in one jiffy- what will I see? Just another regular Bangladeshi woman leading just another regular life. What was the point of living as a human then? 

My life won't be worth watching if I don't do anything about it. 

N.B: Gerard Arthur Way (born April 9, 1977) is an American musician and comic book writer who was the lead vocalist and co-founder of the band My Chemical Romance 

"The clearest actions come from truth, not obligation."

I am spellbound. By words, alphabets and their magic. The power of a string of words can shake the ground below or cause a storm in the sky of your mind. I am not sure how good I am with words but whenever I get a piece of blank paper, I cannot leave it blank. The blankness makes me shiver and empty, like the empty canvas of an artist who wants to draw. Only if I were an artist.
My first love encounter with words happened when I was 10- Heidi by Swiss author Johanna Spyri. It was a book with tough, tough English words but I fell in love with the story and discovered my love for fiction and of course, for the Swiss Alps. From then, words are all I had. 
Just waiting for the day when words will by my spells and I would be able to bewitch the world with this blissful sorcery. 

N.B: Dean Koontz is an American author more known for his suspense thrillers. A quote I liked by him:
"Sometimes there is no darker place than our thoughts, the moonless midnight of the mind."

Move. That's something I haven't been doing much for the last few months. I remember the random rides in search of a river body around Dhaka. That actually led me to Mymensingh, somewhere I had never been before. 
Move. That's something I want to do. Something I think we all want to do. It's been too long that we found solace in the comfort zones of our stability and certainty. But how do we learn being confined in our own walls along with the walls our culture and society has imposed upon us?
Move. Let's just move. Let impulsiveness catapult us from our status quo into the unknown. And if the unknown is dangerous, that danger is a lesson that these walls would never teach us. 
Move. I am not being impractical. I am just thirsty for change. Let's move!