My Story behind Viva la vida and Amazing voices of Penn Masala

Have you ever had a special song?  Or a song that brought back a piece of sweet memory? I have many.  But at this moment, I want to share a specific song that brings back one of the sweetest memories i could possibly think of.  The funny part is, this isn't even a romantic gushy mushy kind of song, yet it's the tune that reminds me of that special day I had with my husband on my first trip to Sweden. It was the beginning of my new life.

We had our little family get together in Sweden back in August 2009, and had our personal tour of Stockholm (and let me tell you, Stockholm in the summer is like paradise!), and finally the engagement ceremony which was filled with so many different kinds of emotions that are so hard to express even now.  The day after the engagement evening, we (me, my husband and his brothers and cousin) reserved the entire day from early morning to late afternoon for a short cruise.

The beautiful ship took us across the small islands and near Finland, and it was an amazing view of the sea.  I remember every moment of me  and my husband (fiance at the time).  I was around new family members, but it was strange how it felt as if I've known them for ages.  We all enjoyed eachother's company.  Then there remained times when it was just me and him.  Those moments were priceless.  Even if it was just romaing around the ship, or falling asleep like a baby all exhausted from the engagement party the night before in eachother's arms, or laughing and joking, taking pictures...every small moment is worth remembering. 

I remember there was this kareoke place in the middle of the ship, right by the railing where tourists could enjoy the wonderful view of the water as people sang there hearts out for their loved ones no matter how good or terrible they sounded.  For a while, i started getting a little bored.  But it was a different kind of boredom.  The kind that you rarely experience nowadays.  The kind you actually want instead of excessive stress.    

This kareoke emerged..it happened to be a song i listened to quite often before coming to Sweden.  The familiar tune made me smile for some reason, and the next thing i know, this lady started to sing the song.  I listened to the lyrics and I started realizing how the time was changing in front of my eyes.  "I used to rule the world, seas would rise when i gave the word..."  a voice sang... "Now in the morning I sleep alone, sweep the streets I used to own..."  It was my time now, and knowing the continuity and reality of life, I know that there will be a day when I will lose everything that I once had...All my treasures...all my loved ones.. so all i can do now is live the moment and be so thankful for what I have.  My life was only missing one thing, and now I got that too.  The man that was right in front of me completed my heart.  What more could I have asked for?  Time was flying..my life was changing..and to consider that one day, I will have to let go of it all, really hit me as I listened to the song and saw his twinkling eyes looking at me with a smile slowly appearing on his face.

Viva la vida - Coldplay :)

but since im a desi girl, I'm in the mood of listening to this little mix of viva la vida and jashnebahr (jodha akbar) another amazing song sung by Penn Masala (the first hindi a cappella group).  A very talented group of desi guys who use only their voice as musical instruments.  It's amazing how a human voice can be expressed in so many different ways!

The Story of Aryan: part 4

Dhaka is a loud city.  Constant horns, men yelling out from the top of their lungs in the streets to buy their vegetables, fruits, or fish, gramma or aunt yelling at the maid for tea and breakfast at 7am..it was impossible to sleep.

Good morning Aryan!

He didn't call this vacation.   Not to mention the wonderful things he would unexpectingly see the minute he opened his eyes..

MOMMY !

he hated the hungry blood-suckers that aimed for ONLY him

Well, he liked how he would get the royal treatment.  Getting stuffed with food, not doing the dishes, infact, not even having to get his plate off the table himself when he was done eating,

But he hated the daily diarrhea.

His parents finally found the perfect girl for him.  The girl he knew since childhood, the only one that he got along with well every time he came to visit Bangladesh. His distant cousin.

Thanks to mommy and daddy, there emerged an akwardness between their friendship.  He hated the thoughts he had sometimes of thinking about marrying the girl that he always looked at as his sister!

 That was just wrong. He really needed to get out for fresh air. 

Knowing that his parents wouldn't ever let him roam around Dhaka all by himself, Aryan somehow managed to sneak out of the house during the big "nap time" after lunch when the house maid was too busy flirting with the neighbor across the roof while she would hang the washed wet clothes to dry.

Off he went! He didn't even bother to bargain with the rikshaw driver, he told him to keep the change and head to the 5 star restaurant where he was hoping to find the waitress.

With the bad luck he had, he got the old hairy waiter instead.

And so Aryan tried pretending he knew the girl and asked the waiter about her where-abouts, but the stinky waiter only nodded his head and said no personal information can be given out about employees.

 

so Aryan got so desperate and bored that he wondered if he would get a straight answer through bribery, and so he gave him one hell of a tip

and in return, he got a very nice answer indeed.

"what an asshole, thought Aryan.  If i was him i would have never done that!"

He gives an evil smirk and leaves.

The waiter gave him a napkin with an address that lead to this place here.  Apparently this was where she lived.  In one of these floors.

to be continued...

Art of the Day: Prospering City

I got a sketch pad, finally.  From now on, I can keep all my drawings in one place and never lose them like I did in the past. 

You can take this picture in many ways.  A ruler watching over the land, a young man enjoying the view, a storm coming it's way, state of peace, anything really. 

Dawn

Night



Difficulty for a Desi Wife

Once you start a task, never ever expect it to get easier.  It took my stubborn self a very long time to admit that.  As time passes by it becomes even more challenging as a woman to handle everything around me.  Many Bengali women (as well as other nationalities) go through this stage of adjusting with their husband's family.  With comparison to many other circumstances, I am a lucky girl to be welcomed so easily into an open-minded family.  That is however not always the case for everyone. 

Desi in-laws assume that the wife of the house knows it all.  What I mean to say is, they are expected to know all the domestic work and have this ability to read people's mind, cook the right way, clean the right way, know a great deal about their mother country, culture, and so on.  That's why many parents prefer a girl form Bangladesh for their son instead of Western countries, because they assume all desi western girls are lacking many obvious things..that they're just bad girls.  Anyways, let's save that topic for another time.  The worst part of all is even if the girl knows a great deal about most things, they are still underestimated.  Why? 

Usually a girl around her early to mid 20s gets married and is brought to the man's house.  From this time on she will be closely observed by her in-laws on a 24-hour basis. 

Let's say this woman knows how to cook, because she would occasionally cook back home when there was nobody around to cook in the house or just to help her mother around.  Now she starts cooking for her in-laws and ofcourse she will not be alone.  After all, it is her fírst time cooking in her husband's house, and even though she is pretty much an expert with giving the right spices at the right time she will be strongly criticized over how wrong her quantities are, how she cuts her onions, or how her style of cooking is not the right way.  So from then on, she changes her way (indirectly, her mother's way) of cooking that she has grown up eating and learns the NEW STYLE whether she likes it or not.  Then she has to get used to the meal timings.  She would have dinner at 7 in the evening at her house, but now, her new dinner time is 11 at night, something she really needs to get used to.  She get's the "Are you crazy" and "you don't know anything" looks when she tells her new family that she thought dinner was at 7, which was why she started setting the table so early.

This whole adjusting thing goes for not only cooking but everything else.  Every little thing from waking up in the morning to going to bed.  

There is this really bad habit that many desi parents have.  I respect all responsible parents for their hardwork to raise their children and get them settled, but it is very nerve-wracking for a person to hear "What did your parents teach you?"  So you screw up on something, instead of the blame going to you it goes straight to your parents.  Which might lead to why desi parents always try to force a certain mentality into their kids just so "people won't talk".  People talk either way, that's something they still haven't grasped.  I've heard and seen many situations where a bride goes to her in-laws and after a few days of working the inlaws would give the classic line, "How can you not know how to do this? Did your parents not teach you before?  It was their duty to teach you!"  For once they do not put themselves in the same position and think about how clueless they were 30 or 20 years ago?  Then i see a new wife going back to visit her parents and so the parents say, "What did your in-laws teach you?" However nowadays a girl's parents hardly ask that..but it still goes on in many parts of Bangladesh. One of the biggest insults one can give would involve the blaming of one's parents.

Some in-laws don't give any importance on the wife's education.  So they don't allow her to go out in the real world and let her study and become successful  because they have this paranoia of her realizing one day how limited her choices are which might lead her to run away from her married life. 

Then they nag and nag about small things around the house and soon they start rotting the wife's ears about grandchildren.  I turns out that they end up controlling her entire life, and so one day, when this wife becomes a mother and then a mother-in-law herself, one of the 2 things will happen to her.  1, by the time she is a mother-in-law, she will be completely brain-washed by her in-laws and have the same beliefs and values as them, leading to her trying to teach the same exact doublestandards to her children or 2, she will have this negative effect towards desi tradition and inform her children about only the negative biased things about our culture.  Both results are bad.

There is no point picking on the wife.  Especially in this generation where in most cases the girl is well-educated which means she has knowledge of not just our culture but other cultures around the world as well, broadening the horizen. 

Dropping the weight of the world on the woman's back is not the fair way to go.  It's hard for a woman to survive in such a mixed society where there exists both extremists and libertarians. 

The worse part is the desi husbands find it a bit difficult to understand sometimes...that it takes time for a woman to get comfortable with a different lifestyle.  The wife never has intentions of hating the in-laws at first.

Much appreciation is needed for all the women who are married into a desi family.  Desi family is filled with a crap load of drama that a woman has no choice but to put up with. 

Nowadays, in-laws outside of Bangladesh are pretty easy-going.  They actually want their sons to move out and be independent to support the wife.  There are still some really traditional people in Bangladesh where they think it is mandatory for the girl to live with the entire family for life.  Why is it mandatory? The people that think it is obligatory can't even come up with a logical reason.

The Story of Aryan part 3

It was time to go to Bangladesh after 5 whole years. 

After traveling for 2 whole days from one transit to the other, getting the weird look from every white person in the airport who checked Aryan's passport and saw his last name Mohammed, hearing babies cry in the plane, waiting in the 5 different airports and watching all the boring movies in the plane....

They were finally here!  Now it's time to wait for the other 5 huge almost-overweight luggages to arrive in the baggage claim area until they can finally relax.  3 of the 10 luggages consist of their belongings, the other 7 were filled with presents (really NICE presents) for the overflowing list of relatives who were jumping up and down to see their gifts the family. After all, settled people from America are very very rich.  It's a piece of cake to buy expensive gifts...right?

Aryan was enjoying his newly built home in Bangladesh in a place called Bonani.  He stood out in the crowd.  In America, he was the average computer geek looking kid.  In Bangladesh, he was the tall, fair, "prince" as some relatives put it. He loved the attention.  He didn't mind the stares.

Did i mention Aryan gave his parents the green light for arranged marriage?

This was the scene in every "family of the girl's" house.  Aryan's job was simple.  Sit, give friendly smiles to the aunty and uncle, eat mishti, and answer the common questions: "Where did you study? How long have you been working?" even "How much you get paid?" was one of them.

one time while mom was bargaining with saree prices in the market, Aryan was told to wait to meet with the first candidate.

Aryan was a shy guy.  He only blushed and the girl blushed more.  Didn't go anywhere.

but then he started getting used to the flow...he met many kinds of girls. 

Some were bubbly and naive, some knew a little too much, some were stuck up, most were way too spoiled, rich brats, some didn't even want to get married but did not know how to express that to their parents and some already were in love...with someone else.

Some just talked too much.

He was getting tired.  He never knew how hard it was to get just a normal bengali girl. 

He went through all the faces and names of the girls he met but not a single one was his choice.  The only girl that caught a bit of his attention was that girl at the 5 star restaurant...

The waitress.  Pretty ironic.  He hardly saw bengali girls work at restaurants.  Afterall, it was bangladesh..perverts out their wouldn't let a girl work as one.

but there she was...

part 4

To Ammu and Abbu. . . .

This one's for mom and dad.

i miss
how she called me for dinner several times while i was in my room busy with other things like studying or just talking to a friend.

i miss
how he always greeted me with so much love and warmth even on his worst days, even when i disappointed him, even when i hurt him.

i miss
how they would never miss my calls and give me all the time in the world while putting aside busy work at their job or ignoring the crap their bosses would say about no phone calls during work.

i miss
how she made and stitched my clothes for me even though her eyes would burn, hand, bones would ache, but she still would continue sewing my dress the one whole day she was off from work.

i miss
how he would bring a brand new blockbuster movie energetically each night after a tiring lousy day of work just so we can enjoy our time as a family

i miss
our long family road trips to philadelphia, texas, canada, florida, new york where we would bring home-made pitas as snacks.  Though i don't miss those deadly tornado storms during night driving in the highway.

i miss
our small stone mountain trips, even though half of them were not successful due to the huge summer thunderstorms which would cancel the stone mountain laser show.

i miss
the evenings we would cheerfully go to see a new bollywood movie of shahrukh khan in the movie theater with our popcorn and samosas and not regret a single scene of the movie.

i miss
his neverending depressing bengali songs he would make up and sing out loud while he did the dishes or showered.

i miss
her wonderful contagious laugh that lit up the entire house.

i miss
how he never ever would sound like a bengali when he spoke his southern style english

i miss
my childhood favorite bengali-style tomato soup with rice whenever i got sick.

i miss
how they never ever told people my weakness but instead, told everyone what a wonderful smart lady i had become and that not a single one of my decisions would ever be wrong, because they trust me.

i miss
seeing their priceless expressions on their face whenever i played simple music on the piano for them.

i miss
how much they would appreciate the way i truly am.

i miss
the late night chocolate dipped icecream i would have at my parent's workplace before we all went home.

i miss
the strawberry milkshakes she would bring for me along with the yummy burgers, sandwhiches, applepie, pizza, hot wings.

i miss
how he brought a couple things home like my favorite junkfood, snack, drink over and over and over again even after i would get tired of it.

i miss
the pizza nights

i miss
the Shab-e-barat nights when we all prayed together for hours.  Those were by far the best most peaceful nights for me.

i miss
our family talks which would start out normally during dinner time and end with roars of laughter after doing all the dishes.

i miss
when they would run to the pharmacy in the middle of the night to get medicine for me due to my unexpected fever.

i miss
the mother-daughter shopping weekends.  I never wanted those moments to end.

i miss
the father-daughter smooth talks, where he would always be optimistic, take my side, and come up with a fair solution (fair for me at least).

i miss
when he helped me do my math and physics homework with his weird complex equations and my english and social studies papers with his great opinionated thoughts.

i miss
how she massaged my painful leg all night when it would frequently hurt like hell from playing or jumproping or exercising, maybe even dancing?

i miss
the trip to Disney World 1996.

i miss
when i would run to their room in the middle of the night to be with them because of the scary nightmare or the horrible storm.

i miss
that perfect sweet and simple life (it feels like a dream now)

i love
how simple this man thinks of this world despite knowing the horrible complexities of life.

i love
how honest and hardworking this woman is and never once bragged about her amazing qualities.

it's shocking
how they never yelled at me, never in my life..

it's amazing
how much they love me.  Only I know that.

Just some small incidents that i will always cherish.  The bigger incidents puts me to tears..
I love my parents more than anything, and this feeling will never ever change. 

Successful Desis in Sweden

It's quite motivational to see some of these noted people to be desi or even part desi since i hardly see any in Sweden.
I only hope for this list to grow over our time.

1. Ishtiaq Ahmed - Political Scientist, Pakistani
A very well-known political science proffessor at Stockholm University.  Also concentrated on politics of South Asia.  He takes great part in many other Institutions outside of Sweden as well.

2. Barun Kumar 'Bicky' Chakraborty - Indian, big entreprenuer.. owns a chain of hotels and pubs across the country.  Rich guy.  Elite hotel, Bishop's Arms pub, those are all his.

3. STand-up comedian David Batra..pretty well-known around the Scandinavian countries.. dad indian, mom swed

4. Daniel Chopra - famous golfer - also half indian

5. Another half desi guy - Robin Sukhia  runs the Sweden-India Business Council

A very intelligent woman told me once that no matter what you choose to do in life,  show the world your passion for it and the outcome will always be rewarding.

Art of the Day: Sweet Surprise

Sometimes the little things count.  You never really forget those.  Heres a girl whose waiting and waiting...and waiting for her husband who is obviously very very late for whatever occasion they have to go to.  She keeps calling him but there's no answer.  He's too busy about to surprise her with her favorite roses.

A Thought of our Loved Ones

When you are living abroad and have family back home, an unexpected late-night phone call is the last thing you want.  My parents are all alone in the US now, and i have the rest of my family scattered in the US, Bangladesh and Belgium.  I miss my parents terribly, especially since I am the only child. 

Though I was strangely tired last night, I had the hardest time falling asleep.  When I finally did fall asleep, I had this hazy dream of my parents..it was an ordinary dream of my ordinary life before marriage.  Something I miss extremely.  Then suddenly in the darkness I heard constand vibrating.  By the time i woke up, my husband started mumbling half asleep, telling me to pick up the phone.  It was around 4 in the morning and the only places that the calls would possibly come from are Bangladesh and the US.  I picked up but they already hung up.  I went through the call list and it was Mom.

Semmeldagen 2011 - Semlas are my new craving

Back in Georgia I had this huge obssesion for Caremel Macchiato and fresh warm brownies.  I can't find the yummy macchiatos anywhere!  I had one in Sweden once, but it wasn't the same.  I hated it!
I miss STARBUCKS!  There is no sign of that in Sweden either :(

Good news is i found my new favorite treat in this country.  The heavenly semla.  Yesterday was semla day so I've been seeing all these people here buying pairs of semlas to take home.  Since i wasn't able to have one yesterday, I treated myself today. 

The Hava Java Cafe strangely reminded me of Saxby's in GSU.  Everything looked so familiar (except for the people, ofcourse).  I started missing my friends a lot.

Sarmila Bose the Culprit

Since it is National Women’s Day, I would like to share something with all of you guys.  I want to talk about a very educated woman who is in denial of a specific genocide that took place in Bangladesh.  With the amount of accurate and valued information from the time the war in 71 started to the respected writers who have written books of the factual incidents, along with sharp statistics, nobody can bend history.

If you're not familiar with the whole 1971 scene in Bangladesh then let me inform you.  You can relate it to Nanjing, Indonesia, or Rwanda.  This actually outnumbers Rwanda and Indonesia.

Before the independence of our motherland in '71, it was a part of Pakistan, known as East Pakistan.  During the fight for liberation and our mother language (Bangla), a mass number of young students, civilians, and soldiers died.  Many were killed grotesquely, most of which were women; women of all ages who were Bangladeshis and Refugees from India. 

Let’s go into further detail.  The genocide was taken place in East Pakistan (Bangladesh) by the Pakistani Army starting from March to December 1971.  The things that happened within these 9 months to the innocent East Pakistani Civilians resulted in a death toll going from 300,000 to 3,000,000 people.  Many men were taken by Pakistani soldiers and shot on the spot.  Many of you have respected family members who had been through this.  Out of the total, 200,000 to 400,000 women were RAPED.

The Story of Aryan part 2

2 years later. . .

Aryan has started his new job last year. Still not married.

After work, he does his daily routine of working out to stay fit and impress the girls.

"The chics always go for the bad guys."  Poor Aryan.

Indian drama serials - the new drug

The evil jealous sister-in-law, the possesive mother-in-law, the cheating husband, the really dumb but tolerant wife...and it goes on and on and on.  Really plays with a person's emotions for nothing.

This whole drama serial business is just as popular and serious of a matter as drug addiction.   

Lets talk about the boss behind this sweet disaster, Ekta Kapoor.  She produces a countless number of dramas that you will come across while you are flipping through the musical and colorful indian channels.  Usually after 17:00 it all begins.  One serial after another.  The wives and mommies take some time out from their long tiring day and give their full attention to it.  The best part is that all of these never-ending dramas have just about the same story.  The slightly different beginning with the same old climax, and the same freakin ending.  Most of them at least.  Let's not forget the classic overdramatic, noisy sound effects (which are also the same) accompanied with the classic over-exaggerated look of betrayel on each character's dumbfounded face (again, lacking originality) that tend to slow the storyline down day after day.

To sum it all up, it's a big blob of crap, which the audience LOVE.   

The Story of Aryan part 1

This is Aryan.  He graduated engineering school today.  Now he's got nothing to worry about.

Time to move back in.

Art of the Day - Women who gossip and the Woman who tries to survive

This is during a party when 2 well-dressed rich women gossip about whats going on around them.  Who divorced who, who got pregnant with who, which girl or guy dressed the worse, who got bankrupt...and so on.   They care about others way too much.

Here is a woman hasn't eaten anything for 4 days.  Her child has a high fever and her husband is dieing.  The daughter behind her has only one single dress to wear which is almost tearing.  The woman only wants to survive.  More than herself, she wants her kids to survive. She cares about her family.

Desis and their Expected Body Type

When my mom first got married, she was quite young, 18, the average age when most bengali girls got married in the 80s.  She was a beautiful woman and i wish i had those same characteristics of her's that she carried. She was 5'5 and slim.  Slim. 

Twenty years ago, most bengali women hated slim.  They never used skinny in a positive sense.  Instead of complimenting, people would just think she starved herself, resulting of her having no meat. 

When she was pregnant with me, she obviously had to gain weight.  However, right after she had me, at the age of 19, her tummy went back to normal.  Flat and plane.  She went back to her normal skinny self and oh how people despised that.  My mother got critisized day and night for the way she looked.  The look that every women tried to have in the western countries. 

When i turned 2, we left Dhaka and moved to the states.  When mom started working, she got a whole different outlook out of the people there.  The Americans would say, "you are so lucky to be so fit even after having a child!"  All her married life she kept hearing how ugly she was for her "boney-ness" and now it was all upside down.

Bengalis hate skinny.  I my mother was not exposed to all the different perspectives people have on looks, she would have eventually thought the same - that skinny=ugly. 

Sometimes even now in parties, she would get the classic bengali line "bhabi, you got even skinnier.  Is your health ok?"   It's fine if a close friend says, because that means she honestly cares about her, but this comes from random people.

I've also heard, in the same parties, critisizm of women with a little extra.  Except that one is said behind the back.  "Have you seen her size? She can't even move with her fat!"
I don't think it matters how a person's body shape is.  There are better things to do than critisize a person's body the entire time.  Seriously, there are so many different kinds of people in this world.  There is no same ideal woman.  Everybody has a different picture of how a beautiful woman should be.

Now comes my story.

My whole entire life, I have recieved 80% negative critisizm of my body, the other 15% never really said anything (because they find it least important to discuss), and the remaining 5% compliments came from my family members, closest friends, and strangers.  Yes, i actually thought about all of the percentages and they are nearly accurate.

So much pressure.
I had very low self-esteem from all the judgements i got.  So there were times when i ate so much, but i never gained a single pound.  Not until i hit 23.  After getting married, the pounds (kgs) started to add on.  I was happy at first, until I realized i needed a completely new wardrobe.

Now i get people warning me about gaining weight.  They say i better watch out.

People in Sweden are so thin, that suddenly i am having trouble fitting in.

When i go to Bangladesh, everyone will tell me how i shouldn't gain anymore weight because it will make me look fat in comparison to my height.  What the hell.  I thought they liked "healthy" people. 

I will go insane one day from thinking of what the ideal body type is in this world.  So it's better for women to just be comfortable with the way they are.  Beauty comes in different shapes and sizes.

We should all think of the big picture of life instead of thin waist, big ass, large breasts, and perfect face.

 One day, we will all become old with our wrinkly skin sagging and eyes getting smaller, height getting shorter, bones rotting... body will always change.  What will remain the same is our soul.