2008: A Year on Wings

What better words to describe how wonderful 2008 was for me? The Almighty Allah has bestowed upon me so many good things in life and laid so much success on my path that I can never thank Him enough for that. This was a pivotal year in my life and in reminiscence I'd like to look back at a few memorable events.

Jan-Feb Despite whining earlier, I feel I'd given a decent effort in my MS studies, which resulted in an A+ in Computational Geometry. This was a big thing for me since I was the only non-buet-teacher masters student to have earned an A+ in this subject. I didn't fair in the other two courses but I don't want to consider that as failures since my efforts in them were commensurate to my grades. I completed the huge GraphApi rewrite job at the office single-handedly. Though this did not garner any significant contribution to our product but through this I became the sole programmer to maintain GraphApi and GraphPaint libraries for our product.

March Had a wonderful trip to Birisiri with Zaman. During BCM training at the office, once I got genuinely indignant at the idiosyncrasies and strongly dissented with Tajul Bhai over lunch. This was one of the rare times when I stepped out of my character and stood up for something, for this reason, I'll always remember this among my numerous office memories.

May 6th This date needs a special mention. It was CodeCrafters 1st year Anniversary. All of us, donned in new t-shirts bearing CodeCrafters logo were getting ready to go the Sheraton for a grand celebration. Just before leaving office, suddenly I received a phone call from Dad. He was very agigatated, demanding me to come home at once. Upon querying upon the cause of this emergency I learnt that a letter from American Consular Center is awaiting me. By some utter dumb luck (again all praises to the Almighty Allah), I won the DV-2009 lottery. Upon hearing the news I immediately shared the joy through hushed embraces among my colleagues and friends (obviously not informing my boss Ellis). Though it was my first visit to a 5-star hotel, I was not in a mental state to marvel the decoration or ingest the salt less (in some ways also tasteless) food. Finally I could no longer avoid Dad's berated phone-calls and had to ask leave from Ellis in the middle of lunch to come home and collect the winning letter. Imagine what this means to me! Not only does it open a gateway to go to US (for which I was wistful at that time), but it was also my first win in any lottery and how! Earlier I used to consider myself so distant from any date with the lady luck since I even used to lose the coin toss before a cricket match all the time. Now I consider myself one of the luckiest person of 2008.

June After school I became somewhat distant from a bunch of my schoolmates. By this time, I started frequenting to Imran's place and met a lot of old friends while cheering for our team in the soccer tournament. I also took part for one half in the last match which was one of the high points for me.

July Just half a month before Minu Khala's wedding, I got diagnosed with Hepatitis-A. I had to take intra-venous saline solution and had to remain glued to bed for almost a month. Again thanks to Allah I recovered rapidly due everyone's love and care. On the whole, it was a new feeling to take complete rest after quite a while.

Sept-Oct I scored another A+ in Bioinformatics in Masters and was busy most of the time in office to facilitate multiple Index feeds in our product - CIM. This was one of the very few occasions in my work life so far when I felt challenged by the problem before me and felt I was actually contributing something.

Nov I sat for TOEFL on the 1st. The experience was something I have not encountered before. Suffering from a mild fever I had to complete my exam and by some miracle (again thanks to Allah) I scored an astounding 114 (Reading=29, Listening=29, Speaking=26, Writing=30), which is so far presumed to be the highest among csebuet alumni. I had an austere but hearty birthday celebration on 6th, first sharing a small cake with my school friends and then enjoying a nice family dinner. I had a notable contribution in painting and refurbishing our home and after a long time, started studying like crazy for the upcoming GRE exam.

Dec Just 2 days after Eid-ul-Azha, I sat for GRE on the 11th. Again by divine intervention, my exam became an utter show of miracle. I encountered only a handful of words outside what I've studied from WordSmart and billions of thanks to Almighty Allah, scored 1420 (Analytical=640, Quantitative=780). I invited Joyee and Apurbo Bhaiya on the 16th to our home and had a heartfelt chat with my best friend on the 17th like the old times. I ended the year with a bang - a rocking 3 day trip to Cox's Bazar with Nashad, Piou, Shaila, Saikat, Saad, Redwan and Ashik. We danced, partied, boozed, jumped in and out of sea, bon-fired and above all enjoyed every bit of time amidst natural beauties and old friends. This will always remain as one of the most memorable journeys of my life. Other than all this, I enfranchised for the first time in my life on 29th.

Being a believer (cannot term myself a pious or a devout yet) I've realized to accredit all the good things in my life to God's benevolence and all the hardship to His tests in this year. This is a lesson I hope to nurture in me throughout my life. One other important lesson which I've learnt may be put forth in a filmy way- Agar kisi chiz ko dil se chaho, to puri kayenaat tumhe usse milane to sazish mein lag jati hain (quoted from Om Shanti Om, dialogue picturized on Shah Rukh Khan. I later read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and found out the original quote). No one but me can fathom how profoundly this have come true in my life in 2008. This is a year that I'll always remember as one that has reaffirmed my belief over fate and has taught me to dream big again.

26

Happy Birthday to me. I've turned 26 today. Millions of thanks to the Almighty Allah for blessing me with a comfortable year and for showing me the signs of a new path. It feels like the first year of the second part of my life is gone. The new year in my life comes with lots of uncertainty and hope. I don't know what the Almighty Allah has in store for me but have firm belief over his benevolence. I don't know where I will be a year from now but I expect a number of significant pages will be turned in my book of life. Let's just say I want to ride the journey of hope and land at a more auspicious shore.

My Playstation Portable

After months of yearning, I finally have a PSP in the palm of my hands. My long research on the net and continual poaching on www.clickbd.com during office hours finally paid off. Today I've bought a modded PSP-2000, a.k.a PSP slim and lite from two young fellows at Gulshan for Tk.11500 only. Thank you ClickBD for providing us with ebay like (actually this website is a complete ebay rip-off) service. My heartiest thanks to Neaz and Mushtakim, from whom I received a beautiful silver PSP, Sandisk 2 GB pro duo memory stick, a handy carrying case and above all UMDs of Spiderman-3 and Smackdown vs Raw 2008 - the key reason behind my buying a PSP. Soon I'll start drooling all over this blog doting about my new toy. I'm already downloading ISO of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008. My recent ventures may not provide me with much playing hours but I plan to update this blog with my experiences from now on.

Ubuntu Tips

All tips mentioned here have been applied to my HP 520 laptop, using Hardy Heron.

• Changing default boot option- edit /boot/grub/menu.lst
• Using Nokia phone as a usb EDGE modem- see Shihab's Blog
• Location of downloaded packages- /var/cache/apt/archives
• Change options to "Open With" menu- edit ~/.local/share/applications to add/remove .
• Update Firefox. Fix "Offline Mode" at startup bug.
  
• VLC Media Player skins directory- ~/.vlc/skins2/

My Football Match

Everyone is hyped about Euro 2008, discussing the exuberant gameplay of the Turks and the Russians and wondering how the unimpressive Germans and typically hapless Spaniards reach the final. My schoolmates are still ruing over the fact that our team, Batch-99 have conspiringly been prevented to advance to the semi-finals of Gregorian Football Tournament 2008. But for the last couple of days, all I had in mind was that I was going to take part in Batch-99's last league match against Batch-95. Though it'll sound unbelievable to many, but at the age of 26, this was going to be my first major appearance in any kind of competitive sports, let alone football.

Before this, all I ever did was cheering my team from the sideline. Once in class 6, I was sent to play as a defender and was immediately (may be after 3 minutes) substituted after I made a mess of receiving a regulatory backpass and gave away a corner for that. In class 7, I was used as a substitute fielder once in a cricket match and cost my team heavily in defeat by dropping 3 simple catches. This was all I could contribute in any sports competition during my student life. At that time I was terribly fat and had no knack for moving or running at all. So my senior years in school saw me as a spinner and occasional big hitter with a lousy pair of hands in friendly cricket matches only.

More than a decade had passed from that time and I lost a couple of pounds here and there while I grew up. I gave up my addiction to fast food and soft drinks and the strenuous BUET life made me strong both physically and mentally. During my last year in BUET, I participated in football matches between friends, bunking classes a number of times. Since my CSE-mates did not know of my disastrous sports background I could easily get to play there. Playing there I finally understood a couple of basics about "the beautiful game" and it helped my stamina tremendously. I still own a pot-belly (result of 8-hour-a-day desk job), but it's no way as round as it used to be and now I can run a bit in the field also.

Our team, Batch-99 had already lost both their matches by 2-1. Let me not go through the long saga of controversy, bad-refereeing and bad-luck that caused our advancement to semi-finals of ongoing Gregorian Football Tournament. Yesterday (June 27, 2008, Friday) was our last group match against Batch-95. At first, our friends were very hot-tempered and everyone was speculating about giving walk-over or losing by a huge margin purposely. Finally, we agreed of fielding our second team, play with a free mind and accept whatever result we could achieve. I always had a deep desire to represent my batch in my school in any kind of sports. I repeatedly requested our captain and my very good friend Abir, and he agreed to give me a chance in the match.

Yesterday was also Shantu Mama's (youngest uncle from my mother's side) first death anniversary. This made my plans a bit tough. But I could duly take part in the ceremony and very tactfully managed to prevent anyone from serving me a large helping of Tehari as I didn't want to play in a heavy stomach. I reached Saint Gregory's at 3:15 and roamed around in the playground a bit. I didn't have my own jersey or shorts, so couldn't make the starting line up. At the half-time break after 25 minutes we were leading 1-0, thanks to a crafty chip by Abir over the goalkeeper's head. Borrowing shorts from Kana Abir and jersey from Kawsar, I finally joined the center of action, replacing Shawon (nicknamed C-Vit among friends) as the left back.

The time I spent in the middle of the pitch was one of the best moments I passed this year. I saw Abir score a hat-trick, a beautiful set play from Abir to Kawsar resulting in another goal, and the funniest of all, our own players protesting to the referee after being awarded a goal for a probable handball by Kana Abir. Playing with good humor and complete disregard of the consequences, we had a thrashing 5-1 win over Batch-95, who used to be considered as one of the most formidable sports team during my school life. Regarding my personal contribution, I think I did pretty well as per my own and our team's expectations. I blocked a couple of shots, stole the ball once to thwart a attack before forming and most of all provided sound marking to the opponents' right forward. So fed up with my game he was, in the middle of the pitch he told me, "Brother, you haven't played yourself and haven't let me play either". With a broad grin in my face I confessed to him at that very moment that I was a complete newbie and just came in to have some fun in the middle. The fun I had playing for the whole second half, was not dented at all by the blow I received near the right eye, due to coming in the line of a strong shot by the opponent. My glasses flew off my nose that the player was very sympathetic in finding that for me. Abir was concerned and wanted to sub me, but I was having too much fun in the middle. So I denied and left the field a couple of minutes later along with the whole team. It was a fitting end to the tournament for us, since we secured the second place in group after Batch-97 lost to Batch-82 in the next match.

I had spent twelve years concentrating on nothing else but study. In my BUET life I had come to contact with Shabuj Bhai and my thrive for performing in stage fulfilled during CSE Day 2004 and 2007. The thirst for performing in a competitive stage in sports was left to be quenched and now I've finally had the opportunity to show everyone (also myself) that I can do it to some (though very limited) state also. After the beautiful match a day ago, now I'm sitting in front of my home desktop, blogging, with a slightly purple eye, looking forward to further challenges in sports and music, whenever I get a chance.

Too old for computer games?

I wouldn't rate myself as an addict but I do have some deep affinity towards computer games. Whether I get a chance to play them or not, I never fail to buy the new releases of FIFA, NFS or Cricket when they get released. Apart from that I have a deep desire to play WWE games. But their scarcity in the PC titles have made me buy the same edition of RAW modded by different people 3-4 times and each time I had to repent on wasting money over them. Playing Smackdown Vs Raw is one of the strongest reason why I wish to own a PSP or a PS2 some day.

I also collect first-player shooter or different movie-based games from time to time. The growing system requirements of the new releases has kept me shunned from playing them for a while. Still I was happy as I could play my most favorite titles FIFA and NFS with my Intel 945 built-in graphics chipset. But recently the water has grown over my heads when I discovered that Pro-Evolution Soccer, NFS Carbon and NFS Pro-Street are failing to run on my PC. Borrowing some money from my Dad I finally bought an nVidia GeForce MX 7200 graphics card. Being a football enthusiast I also bought a dual-shock usb joystick to perform the cool dribbles.

Graphics in my PC changed like night and day. I was so eager to experiment with newer titles that I tried Driver4 - Parallel Lines, Brian Lara International Cricket 2007, Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb all in one fine weekend (last Saturday, 14th June to be precise).

After 2-3 hours of gameplay, I felt the world was spinning. I was having trouble standing still. My eyes were trying to roll to the back of my head. I guess I broke my optical system tolerance by a fair margin moving with Indy in the ancient runes and handling the steering for the frivolous youth in Driver 4. I don't know why, but I felt my eyes couldn't match themselves with the high res 3D world of now-a-days. Don't take me as a relic, once upon a time I spent frequent sleepless nights playing Max Payne or Delta Force. But 3-4 years of graphical revolution and 8+ hours of computer work everyday took its toll over me. The next day I confided in my situation with my friend and colleague Imam who used to be a game freak once upon a time. He told me that he's also had a similar experience after gaming overnight a couple of months earlier.

I guess my 3500 tk investment on graphics card and joystick has gone to dogs. I may still have the same enthusiasm but my aging(!) body doesn't like taking this type of stress any more. Suffering from this unfortunate situation, I'm thinking of going back to my safest titles FIFA and NFS again. But the CTS (Carpal Tunnel Syndrome) disease on my hands is also creating problems against using the keyboard with so much pressure. I guess I have to keep myself restraint from playing too much till I master the joystick. I have also grown doubtful against buying a PSP because of this situation. I feel like getting too old too soon... sigh. Is the age of 26 really too late to enjoy computer games?

Birisiri

Since I've uploaded the pics of Birisiri in my facebook account, I've received lots of praise about the photos and mostly blunt admirations about the beautiful scenic setting. A lot of friends have asked me about the directions to go there, the boarding facilities, the places to visit, etc etc. This post is basically a discussion about the key facts of Birisiri tour and also a reminiscence of those sweet two days that I spent there.

Birisiri is located near the border of Bangladesh and India and almost straight to the north of Dhaka. The border adjoins Netrokona district of Bangladesh with Shillong district of Meghalaya state in India. The calm nature of the place will readily appeal to any city dweller as soon as he sets foot in the place. The place is quite secluded from urban life and the difficulty to reach there has made it hard for people to explore. But in my views that is the greatest asset of this place. Tourist facilities has not yet been developed and the road from Mymensingh to Durgapur is just a bit better than a minefield. As a result the place has escaped the poisonous grip of urbanization and is standing proudly with all her unadulterated beauty.

A common view in Birisiri - Rich green paddy fields spread to the hills in the horizon.

Birisiri is mostly about calm life and Someswari river. The broad river originates in the mountains of Meghalaya and flows into Bangladesh separating Birisiri to the mainland of our country. The river, falling into Brahmaputra, is the main attraction of this place. Anyone going there will fall in love with the crystal clear, pebble bedded, Someswari.

A view of Someswari from Bijoypur hillock, at the Bangladesh-India border.

The best way to go to Birisiri is to take the direct(?) bus from Mohakhali. It's funny that the bus owners have formed a syndicate and there is no variety of buses to choose from. In the Mohakhali Inter city bus terminal, go to the left most wing where they sell tickets to Mymensingh and go along the wing a bit farther. You'll find a couple of services for Susong-Durgapur. Book a ticket with any one of them as every hour one bus with the combined passengers of all the services will start for Birisiri. Due to the bad condition of the roads nightly routes are not allowed so the latest you can board from Dhaka will be probably 1pm at best. The bus journey will not be pleasant for people who are used to ride in Scania or RM2 to go to Chittagong or Benapole. Even it was not pleasant for me where I'm accustomed to ride in public buses in Dhaka city for my daily commute. Yes, I feel very iritated to sit or stand in a bus for 1/2 to 1 hour, jam-packed with people on all sides; but now, imagine such a journey for 6 hours at a strectch. The fare is 150 tk which I would certainly not mind giving 200 if someone offers me a better service. Don't get me wrong, I am not discouraging anyone to go to Birisiri and enjoy the beautiful place as I did. This is just a mere caution of what's coming your way.

I wouldn't encourage someone too much if he wants to take his own car since the condition of your car is surely gonna take a toll after this trip. Also, I think you need to fill your car's gasoline from Mymensingh as I don't think there are any more gas stations after that. If you have a nice strong SUV then you're good to go. Otherwise, private car owners make sure you have a very skilled driver for your journey. One other reason for my aversion against cars is that most of the roads in Durgapur are too narrow for your car and the muddy road will do you no good either. Also, most of the notable spots are across the Someswari river, so you wouldn't be able to travel a lot in your car also. The main advantage of taking a car from my point of view is that you won't need to stay in Durgapur at all. You can stay overnight in Mymensingh and then take your car to Birisiri in the early morning. There is not much to explore so you'll surely be done by 4pm and return to Mymensingh/ Dhaka.

The main hassle in Birisiri is that the only decent place to stay there is the YMCA guest house. People picky about their lavatories will find even this a bit difficult. But at 200 tk per night for a two single-bed room is more than a bargain. Problem is they don't offer early booking because they are virtually unreachable through any cell phone number that they publish. Suppose you've started from Dhaka at 11am like we did. Upon reaching there, if you find the place full with people, your'e simply out of luck. The only refuge then is in some tin-shaded hotels in Durgapur bazar which I know none of the readers will be willing to stay.

YMCA Guest House

Don't be too picky about your food either. One good thing is, everywhere in Susong-Durgapur or in Birisiri, I found mineral water and soft drinks available. Also, if you inquire about restaurants, don't go with the local people's choice. The bus stops at Utrail bazar. YMCA guest house is just to the right of it. This bazar is simply the best place to eat in Durgapur. Don't go to Durgapur bazar as your rickshaw puller will be very much willing to take you there for want of extra fare. Food is absolutely crap at that place. In Utrail bazar, go to the restaurants maintained by tribal people. You'll enjoy their cullinary expertise a lot.

Now about travelling. One painful experience is that the rickshaw-pullers and boatmen tend to ask a high price from the tourists. In our journey, we crossed the river by boat and then contracted a rickshaw to show us the whole place for 200 tk. We also met some rickshaw-pullers who'd ask 500 tk if you hire them from the other end of the river, so be careful. You can opt to roam about in boats also. They will also ask something around 200 tk so it's upto you. My inclination to rickshaw is because it's a hassle to stop the boat at every nook and corner and then you'd have to walk on foot a lot. But we could easily do it with our rickshaw. We stopped wherever and whenver we liked to take pictures or for a cup of tea.

View of Gopalpur Hill from the top of Ranikhong Christian Convent

One other must see in Birisiri is the blue lake amidst colored hillocks. Local people call it Lal Pathor-Nil pani (Red rocks-Blue water). Nearby, there's a small monument of the Hazong tribe. Apart from that, you can visit the Christian convent and school at Ranikhong and the BDR (Bangladesh Rifles) guarding Bangladesh-India border at Bijoypur. I don't feel like talking much about them as I want to leave some exploring for the potential travelers. I guess you can take an idea from the photos.

Red Rocks-Blue Water, the best site in Birisiri

What attracted me hugely to the place was the miles long green paddy fields and gentle breeze blowing over them. The beauty of the scene is simply ineffable. The calmness of life had a great impact upon me. All the hardship of travel and lodging gets vanished instantly when the beauty of the place sinks into you. I guess you'll also feel that the beauty of the place should remain unaltered, without the touch of tour entrepreneurs and travel agencies. Let Birisiri and Someswari stay as they are, without the touch of urbanization, unaltered in their glory.