Musings of a White Haired Teenager

The One-Night Stand. I am entering into a very sensitive area in this post. Sex. We all know about it; most readers have partaken in the activity at some point (don’t blush) and have hopefully enjoyed it. Without sex we would not have a population problem in some parts of the World, and neither would we have the horrendous violence in the name of sex all over the World. It is essential for evolution and people spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about it. Some faiths guilt you into not having sex, others insist that sex is the answer – dear old Rasputin. As a global civilization we have codified sex into what is allowed and what is not. Allowed by mutual consent as a social system. And thus we have the one-night stand. The disallowed. Considered taboo in most cultures this is precisely where sex has the singular purpose of pleasure. You will never see the person again, but that moment of pleasure was sufficient to make it memorable. Institutions have developed to make it possib

Taan - the pull. The word is simple, "taan," a Bangla word that describes an attraction that holds relationships together. Where attraction must not be understood only in its sexualized terms only. This is a relational magnet that draws entities together. Sometimes one of the entities could be inanimate. Where a strange attraction takes someone back to a place because one cannot overcome the desire to return there. Or the unspoken connection between two people that draws them together so tight and close that separation is unthinkable. Where the taan is so strong that one loses the ability to let go, even temporarily. It is the glue of life. The taan that tells a child that a parent is not well. The often-unexplainable irrational moments when one feels like picking up the phone urgently because something bothers us, and we must talk immediately - lest we never talk again - taan. It is what is impossible to break and even if forced to break circumstantially - through relational

Shopno - the dream. In Bangla, the word shopno easily translates to the English word dream. We all dream. Physicians will attest to the fact that there are physiological processes that explains the dream we often experience when the brain is resting. There are other professionals who would take a lot of trouble to explain the dreams and provide interpretations of the dreams. But I dream when I am awake. It is what may be called a "daydream." I have bondhus who dream, not a pipe dream of some unreal future. They dream and they aspire. If we stop dreaming, then we are content with what we have. Contentment is statis. There is no more growth when you stop dreaming and aspiring. I know a bondhu who started with a beat-up old Toyota, but never stopped dreaming. Now the person owns a business, has prospered into the dream the person had, and as we chatted, I learnt of the next dream the next aspiration. Another bondhu dreamt of owning a business, breaking out of the stereotype, and