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In the name of honour In the name of honour Mukhtar Mai Publisher: Virago Price: Tk 800 Available at: Books Express, Banani, Dhaka To say that Mukhtar Mai is a hero is an understatement. To have lived through what she lived through, to have come out of it with grace and dignity, and to go ahead and proclaim it to the world sets her apart as one of the bravest women in the history of womanhood. A simple, devout 30-yearold woman from the southern Punjab village of Meerwala in Pakistan, Mukhtar Mai made international headlines in 2002 when she was gang raped on the orders of a village council for a crime her brother was accused of.    With single minded determination, this woman, who had no education, no idea that courts of law existed, took her rapists to court. And, with the help of human rights groups, won the case. In a conservative village ruled by Shariah laws, where women are supposed to provide four witnesses to prove a rape, this was obviously no easy task, and the dangers that lay in wait for her family even after her rapists were put away, was something she had to face with quiet dignity and courage.    With money donated by the government, Mukhtar Mai then went on to set up the first girl’s school in the village, in a bid to ensure that women, at least, know about their rights. One of the most touching parts of the story is when she writes that after her rape she was surrounded by the media, by the police, and by people who wanted to showcase the incident to the world, but the actuality of the rape, and how it crushed her body and spirit, was something nobody understood or talked about. That was, until a young woman, a law student, and the daughter of one of the policemen delegated to protect Mai became her friend. And then Mai could talk about the atrocities committed, the brutality that left her shattered, and ‘things she could not even tell her mother.’    It was with the strength of this friendship and the support that she got from the media and her family that Mai took on the feudal establishment. She not only picked up the pieces of her life and moved on, but she did it in a way, which will inspire women for years to come.    – MRH The Art of Being By Erich Fromm Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group ISBN-10: 0826406734 Available on Amazon through Dhaka bookstore Etc If psychologist and social philosopher Erich Fromm had ever imagined that his books would occupy ‘self-help’ shelves in bookstores, rubbing shoulders with How to Win Friends and Influence People for Teen Girls, he would surely have committed intellectual hara kiri and taken up dairy farming.    The Art of Being—one of Fromm’s lesser known works, published posthumously—is not for those who want to be more popular, more successful or more outgoing. It does not even attempt to answer any of the elusive questions of life and existence that dog the more philosophical in our midst. Far from it, in The Art of Being, Fromm makes a strong case that the answers to those questions cannot be found without intellectual perseverance and effort, and the book can only point the individual in the right direction, but that he will have to do the hard work. Indeed, Fromm argues that inner completeness or the state of being can only be achieved if, at the individual level, we are willing to radically change our aspirations, from a culture of having or owning, towards a culture of experiencing.    Cybernetic man, says Fromm, is so embedded in a culture which sees difficult, sometimes impossible, ends achieved with the push of a button (think electric lights or television), he is programmed to expect great rewards with little effort.    He exposes how we pin all our happiness on our ability to consume larger portions, and wider varieties, of products that symbolise happiness and prosperity in modern society. So tight is the grip of this culture that spiritual well being has also become a mass produced commodity in the twenty-first century, ranging from wellness drinks to exclusive ashrams for the rich.    Like his more well known titles, The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness and To Have or to Be?, this book is only as good as the individual’s ability to see the truths of our lives and the illusions of modern society exposed.    And in order to do this Fromm builds on, and draws from, the philosophies and thinking of the great masters from Buddha to Freud. In a nutshell: brilliant and life changing!    – MH Mad as Bangladesh Mad_e in Bangladesh, a film by Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, starring Zahid Hassan, Tarik Anam, Shahiduzzaman Selim and others is playing at the Star Cineplex Theare at Basundhara City, Dhaka. For those who have seen film-maker Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s Ekannoborti and Bachelor, his latest production Mad_e in Bangladesh could have been better. ‘It’s worth seeing once at least,’ say his fans, comparing it to Bachelor, which they say, they could watch over. But, if you are experiencing Farooki’s work for the first time, then he is the best thing that happened to Bangladeshi television and telefilms since Humayun Ahmed from his Brohubrihi and Ayomoy days. Farooki is original in his sense of humour, taking elements right out of the streets rather than relying on formulae. His settings, plots, and acting styles capture the issues that fascinate the urban youth of our generation. His cinematography capture the streets they traverse, his dialogues and jokes taken out of our conversations and clichés, his stories take, at times subtle, and at times direct, digs at the people, institutions and laws that govern our lives. But at the end of the day, his movies are fun to watch.    ‘Mad_e in Bangladesh’ is a hilarious film. The story starts with the main protagonist Zahid Hassan, a resident of Ratanpur, coming to Dhaka looking for a job after finishing his graduation. During his brief stay which defines the first part of the movie, he encounters a greedy uncle who is a political activist and with whom he stays, the ‘boudi’ next door with whom he has a flirtatious and very suggestive affair through windows and across rooftops, and a group of street punks who show him the ways of Dhaka.    The movie then suddenly turns to Ratanpur where Zahid Hassan takes the District Commissioner and his spineless assistant hostage with a gun and a briefcase bomb, with a specific set of demands to be addressed by the government, citing national issues prevalent in recent times. Soon, other people, including the SP and ASP of Police, the ADC, chairman of municipality, the local opposition leader, a female vice-principal, a shilpakala official, a student leader, and a college professor are lured into the office in the name of the meeting. Much of the movie is made up of the circumstances in which each is lured to the office, and their shock in being there.    Some of the scenes in the movie will find you in stitches. The mama turns sweet on his nephew as soon as he hears he has a job. The boudi throws her daughter’s toys through the window to attract his attention and later lends him money from her husband’s kitty. The opposition leader and chairman give bhashans at every opportunity and the chairman and shilpakala man make sleazy passes at the vice-principal. The DC’s assistant shifts allegiance to Zahid Hassan and does his job better than him, using his newfound courage to take revenge on an old enemy. The ASP faints in fear when he rushes to attack Hassan, the families of the hostages huddled together, reminisce how they were fine only a while back in the manner in which people speak of the dead. The student leader inspires his girlfriend to elope and the teacher preaches at every opportunity.    There is too much shouting in the movie, though, and Zahid Hassan lands some real kicks on the senior citizens in the cast, quite a few times.    Outside the DC office, a few more characters, a politician’s younger brother who was supposed to meet the DC instead of Hassan, the police official always on the walkie talkie, a shawl-wrapped passerby, real-life journalists J E Mamun and Santosh Mondol make for hilarity.    The casting and acting has also been done to perfection. Nobody could have better done the role of simple small town hick-turned-terrorist better than Hassan. Shahiduzzaman Selim plays the perfect sidekick surpassing his master in his threats. The DC is played by Tariq Anam, Tania plays the vice principal, Marzuk Russell the student leader and a host of other well-known actors play their parts to perfection. The characters, to the credit of the script-writer, are also bizarrely realistic.    The only weakness in the movie, though a significant one, is that the movie never clearly establishes the relationship between Hassan’s stay in Dhaka and his later actions, though you can decipher that it emerges out of some deep resentments about the way Dhaka, and the country in general, operates. And thus, he takes hostage a representative of each of the influential fields in our society exposing them through their stereotyped behaviour.    A must-watch.    — MSK Chart that mood, musically! For a few minutes, keep aside those playlists or mental maps on your mundane Windows Media Player, iTunes or Realplayer. They are just too, well, mechanical! Music is about mood. Here is one French site (www.musicovery.com) that keeps that in mind and mixes up your playlist according to a flow of mood. On the basis of your preference that day, which you can specify or even let the site steer you through the moods, ‘select a point along the continuums and energetic/calm tempo and dark/positive mood’. Specify genre, era, or for that matter be adventurous by discovering unchartered pathways through the wormholes of musical melancholy. The twisty charting and colourful blobs compounding mood intensity makes the journey quite fun. So, go ahead and chart your mood with music!    — MS So, Ahmadinejad is a fellow blogger My opinions on nuclear non-proliferation, or obesity, might not get the attention (or threat) of the United Nations’ Security Council, but I have one thing in common with the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Yes, we both have a blog! My blog is getting just a little less attention than the personal blog (www.ahmadinejad.ir) of the controversial leader of the so-called ‘axis-of-evil’ trio most feared by the US imperial machinery. Brought out in his native tongue, Persian, and three other languages (English, French and Arabic), launched in August of last year, his first post dwelled on his childhood, the Islamic revolution of Iran and the country’s war with Iraq. The blog also conducts a poll asking readers to ponder over the thought ‘whether the US and Israel are trying to trigger a new world war’. The usual feedback and post area are there for readers to send in questions to the president, and even a picture gallery containing pictures of the new Prince of Persia! Funny, if you think of it, since internet and media censorship is almost at a level of paranoia. With this scenario, blogs have actually become one of the most active forums for dissident voices within Iran. Though Iranian authorities use one of the most sophisticated internet censorship systems in the world, somehow I have a feeling that my fellow blogger, Ahmadinejad, wouldn’t have a problem with that!    — MS A place under the Sun osted on Monday, September 25, 2006. From letters written to President Bush by residents of the Sauerland region of Germany in response to his January 14, 2004, announcement of United States plans to build a deep-space launch pad on the moon. The letter writers are among more than 1,200 Germans who purchased moon lots from U.S. entrepreneur Dennis Hope, who claims legal ownership of the moon under a loophole in the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty. No national governments have yet recognized Hope’s claim to the real estate, and it is possible that rival companies have sold overlapping lots to different customers. Hope’s company offers one-acre lots for $19.99. Originally from Harper’s Magazine, May 2004.        Dear Mr. President George W. Bush,    In our local paper of February 1, 2004, I read an article about the plans of the U.S. government to build a space station on the moon. For me this is more than just an ordinary piece of news, because I am the owner of a part of the moon surface. Nearly four years ago I bought an area of 700,000 square meters on the moon. To prove this I include the document of ownership. Reading about your plans I do worry that the future space station might be built on my lot. So I would like to inform you that I might allow the U.S. government to do so, but only if I am paid for that area. If this should happen, I would be ready to enter into negotiations with the U.S. officials.        Dear Mr. President,    I read about the new plans of the U.S.A. to build a moon station. I am a great fan of outer-space activities, and so I like the idea. But since 1999 I am owner of a small part of the moon surface. I bought it from the Lunar Embassy. Now, I’d like to know where you plan to build the station. If this would be randomly in my area, you will need my permission. This is no problem, but contact me before further plannings, please. If you will use another area, who is the owner of this part of the moon? Please contact me if possible in German.        Dear Mr. President!    I am the proprietor of the moon estate with the following position: Moon estate number 1397, longitude 20?degrees north. These are 700,000 square meters. If you intend to use my area within the bounds of your intention, to build a moon base or something else on, over, or under the surface of this moon area, you have to contact me personally. This must be absolutely, to clear up under which special conditions I will leave the rights of use to you or the United States of America. If you or the United States of America at all will fail to do this, I will take legal action at an American court of justice, to receive a compensation of 10,000,000 EURO.    But I believe that you or the United States of America will be a considerable business partner.        But You Can Call Me Il    From a list of titles allegedly used by “prominent leaders from 160 nations across the world” to refer to Kim Jong-Il, as announced last winter by North Korean state television. The titles were translated from the Korean by Lee Jong-Heon.        * Supreme Commander at the Forefront of the Struggle Against Imperialism and the United States    * Greatest Saint Who Rules with Extensive Magnanimity    * Lode Star of the Twenty-First Century    * Best Leader Who Realized Human Wisdom    * Leader with Extraordinary Personality    * Perfect Picture of Wisdom and Boldness    * Eternal Bosom of Hot Love    * Master of Literature, Arts, and Architecture    * World’