:: Tanvier's Time Machine ::

Today is the last day of the Ekushey Boi Mela 2007. And today is the first day I've been there. It was a great experience. I also came accross another book fair while I was in Kolkata few days ago. The book fair in Kolkata was bigger. Nevertheless, the Dhaka Ekushey Book Fair was a better one in terms of collection of books. I bought couple of books from the fair. I also went to the 43rd Convocation of Dhaka University, where I met a lot of friends from school and college. It was good fun.

Time for shopping in Kolkata. After a long lecture from the hotel receptionist Sanjukta, we went to Garirarhat Kolkata Bazar for shopping. From there we went to Sriram Shopping Arcade next to Kolkata New Market. We did most of the shopping from there. We then went back to the hotel for lunch. The hotel staffs were amazing- they gave us a room for free. We rested for a while, took some picture with the hotel staff and then headed back to the airport for our flight back to Dhaka. The flight was delayed by one and half hours, but we watched movies in the airport, so it didn’t matter much. Arrived at Dhaka Airport and to my astonishment, I found out that Dhaka Airport has undergone a massive cosmetic surgery and now looks like a mini version of Dubai Airport!! I was really glad!!

We hired a car for the whole day. First of all we went to Bakharkhand Road of Connaught Place to reconfirm our flight back to Bangladesh. Then we went shopping for a while. After that we went to see the Red Fort. Then went to the historic Delhi Jama Masjid. We went to the Meena Bazaar beside the mosque. After the zohor prayer at the mosque we went to see the India gate, the parliament, and the president house. then we went to the Green Park shopping mall for lunch and shopping. After a little sight seeing we decided to head back to the airport. We got the flight for Kolkata with Spicejet. We arrived Kolkata and went straight to Park Inn again.

Woke up early in the morning. Then decided to go and check out the city. Went to Chowrangi. I was really disappointed to see the city centre. We then went to Biman office to change the flight to Bangladesh for wednesday night. Went to some shops and was disappointed to see their collection. We decided to go Delhi in the afternoon to make our journey worthwhile. Coming to India just to see Kolkata proved to be pointless. We went to the airport straightway and booked tickets for Air Sahara to Delhi. Luckily flight was delayed and we managed to get the flight. We then had to phone Biman office again to change the flight back to Bangladesh to Thursday night. We arrived Indira Gandhi Airport of Delhi at 7ish and went to India Tourism office. They booked us a hotel and got us a Taxi to the hotel. On the way to the hotel I was having a chat with the driver in Hindi. I was really surprised to have realised that, I was speaking in fluent Hindi! My friend Miraz was shocked and couldn’t believe h...

Finally I am in India. Arrived at Netaji Subhash Chandra Basu International Airport of Kolkata at half past eight in the evening. Hired a pre-paid taxi from the airport to Park Street where we had to roam around for an hour to find a good hotel. The Taxi driver who claimed to be a Bangladeshi who migrated to India 25 years ago tried to con us by taking to hotel of his choice and get his commission from the hotel. We managed to fool the guy and after a long search managed to find a hotel of our choice. The hotel owner was a muslim, therefore, we were able to eat the meat from the hotel’s restaurant. Miraz and I went for a walk on the busy Park Street of Kolkata after dinner. I must say as a city, Dhaka is lot better than Kolkata. On the way from airport I was nearly throwing up from all the smell on the street. Although the streets are cleaner than Dhaka, the drains make the roads really smelly. The roads are really narrow and hardly have any footpath. Looks like the Kolkata has been ne...

I have just been reading an article on www.mukto-mona.com . I have long been an admirer of the website for promoting free thoughts. But after reading the article on http://www.mukto-mona.com/Articles/akash/Ayesha.pdf today I was really furious. I always promote and encourage fear free journalism and literature. But the time has come today to define free literature. To me, no one has the right to hurt another person’s feelings in the name of freedom of literature. The article we are discussing today has portrayed an imaginary interview of Hajrat Ayesha (R) who is the wife of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). The content of the imaginary interview is satirical and is bound to hurt the feelings of practicing Muslims. The Muslims believe that, no human being has the right to criticize or defame the Prophet (PBUH). The love for the prophet is absolute in every practicing Muslim’s mind. And it’s termed as an intolerable offence to defame the Prophet (PBUH). Most of the Muslim countries would have t...

It was purely a coincidence- I watched the movie Salam-E-Ishq on the eve of Valentines Day. Despite the bad review of the movie, I thought the movie was quite good. A bit too long, though. Stories were quite good, but I think they messed up in the end. Typical Bollywood finishing touch. Salman Khan, Akshaye Khanna, Govinda, John Abraham, Vidya Balan were brilliant in the movie. I heard that Salman Khan got Nikhil Advani to make the movie after watching 'Love Actually'- which was another brilliant film. But the stories of the film were totally different. Stories were more Indian. I would rate the movie 7 out of 10. And yes, Happy Valentines Day to all the people who love me and don't love me. ( I think the latter group will have more members !!!)

Booked ticket for my travel to India. Miraz is accompanying me to Goa. We are going to fly to Kolkata by Biman. Then catching train to Goa Inshallah. Getting Air India flight for the return trip Inshallah. Hoping for a memorable trip Inshallah.

Joint forces of Bangladesh Army, Police and RAB arrested at least 12 political leaders in a series of raids in Dhaka early Sunday. The political leaders are from BNP, AL and LDP.The leaders include former home minister Mohammad Nasim, former communications minister Nazmul Huda, former prime minister Khaleda Zia's parliamentary affairs adviser Salahuddin Quader Choudhury, former home minister Mohammad Nasim, former state minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir, Awami League president Sheikh Hasina's investment adviser Salman F Rahman, former state minister for power Iqbal Hasan Mahmud, former state minister Mir Nasir Uddin, former state minister Amanullah Aman, former deputy minister Ruhul Quddus Talukder Dulu, Pankaj Devnath and former lawmaker ANH Mostafa Kamal popularly known as Lotus Kamal. Former finance minister Saifur Rahman's son Naser Rahman was also arrested. Bangladeshi people are absolutely ecstatic at the news of the mass arrest of the well known corrupted big shots of ...