The silliness I have lived through... - Home

My cousin Tanisha

6/14/2022

If I were to be offered with a bet of travelling around the world in 60 days with anyone, I would always pick my cousin and forever best friend, Tanisha. This is primarily because I cannot think of even one time where the both of us have not slipped away from trouble without causing a major raucous... of any kind.

Almost every weekend, in about one or two weeks, we would visit each other in our houses and have playdates. There was a never a time where both of us would get bored of our company. Crazy ideas sparked, rock concerts would be blasted on the maximum, play doughs were squashed and barbie dolls were role played.

There were so many fun things that we loved doing together and still continue doing so. However, the one activity which had always made to the peak of the pyramid would be 'pretend play'.

My cousin has a very beautiful house with two gardens and every time we wanted to do something adventurous ; we would always plan something there.

One of my favourite places in her house is the guest living room, which is downstairs. It is a long room with golden walls, stretched out beautifully, almost like an art gallery. Not to mention, the walls also have quite a number of extravagant paintings.

Now at the very end of one side of the room, there is a tiny indoor garden, that is divided with a glass barrier, which gives a tremendous view of the outdoor garden. This is where Tanisha and I had planned an exciting adventure game as it was slightly cold outside to play on that particular day.

As I've mentioned before, this was an indoor GARDEN. That means there were plants sprouting, fancy but jagged rocks and lots of icky soil on the ground which would be ruined if we stepped on them impulsively.

On one side of the garden, was a spacious wall with a platform, that almost looked like it was meant for sitting.

Now let me ask you this question...

Have you ever noticed places in a room or house that have an unecessarily substantial amount of space that no one really uses for anything? Basically, it was something of that kind.

Unfortunately, my cousin and I did not believe in that. That tiny place inside the wall was so empty, it just did not feel right to have it unexplored or not manoeuvred for anything practical. The idea that it was not used for anything had enraged our tiny little toddler brains. Whenever there was an empty glass, it was our job to fill it up!

So, we grabbed all of our makeshift-exploring tools, trashing them on the floor, and planning our invasion of the empty space in the wall by the garden. Taking less than a minute, we were ready for action.

Now here's where things get a bit tricky. We had to figure out how to climb the space inside wall that was aligned to the living room walls. We also had to avoid stepping on the plants and destroying the soil.

Before we suffered any headaches from thinking skeptically, I decided to take the first leap. And it was successful like a charm! All I had to do was carefully stretch my leg out to the hollow space in wall, while also, giving my arms support by hugging the edges of it.

And now it was Tanisha's turn. Sadly, she was little worried about losing her balance and falling on the rocks. But thankfully, she had her awesome superhero cousin to help her through it without any serious injury... At least that is how I imagined it would it be.

Before you file any cases with my name, I must remind you, no serious injury was experienced, just a tiny, pocket sized little mishap.

As I was aware that Tanisha was not ready to cross on her own, I reached out my arm towards her. I told her to count to three, and by then when she would finish I would easily swing her up and she would land safely next to me on the platform.

Stupidly, I led her into trusting me. I was holding onto her as I close as I can. My feet were on the edges of the platform. If I had gotten any closer, I would lose my balance. My cousin was still struggling worse than before, so this time I reached out my other arm. And then my leg. And then my other leg. I was literally back on the floor again, Standing! All of this for just returning back to where I climbed from!

Annoyed with my disappointment, Tanisha had another idea. She said that maybe it would be easier if we both climbed together at the same time, but holding on to each other. I agreed with her desperately because I did not want to explore the empty space in the wall all on my own. That was not how our adventures worked. We always stuck together no matter what.

For the second time, I started to climb towards the space in the wall before her. I stopped midway, resting my leg in the space, and the other on the step that divided the living room and the garden. I stretched out my arm, and Tanisha grabbed hold of me. I was now climbing again but this time it felt like I was dragging a load with me. She was too scared to even put some effort.

Jeez, this is YOUR house, how come I'm the brave one here?

I silently thought to myself at that moment.

I finally got both of my feet on the platform, inches away, atop from the mini plantation. But something felt different, it was just me.

Tanisha had only one of her legs balanced on the platform and other back on the floor. So now, I had to pull her up with me. All over again!

Before I reached out my hand, she went scarlet in the face and said " Wait, I can do this. I KNOW I CAN! "

And she did. Except the part when she slipped after reaching out her other leg, grabbing onto my plaid skirt and led the both of us end up in a nasty dive into the mud of the indoor garden! Thankfully, we landed nowhere near the rocks. But they felt so close before we fell, it was almost like they moved on their own to make room for our crash.

Like typical five year olds, the two of us burst into a grumpy but an emotional breakdown because of our failed expedition and waited for people in the house to hear us, so we could be lifted out of the mess.

This is only a smudge of how much madness Tanisha and I had gotten ourselves into. And to this day, I could not be happy enough to have experienced them.

Love you forever, Tanisha! Cheers to more adventures!

June 13th, 2022

6/13/2022

Zema and I

6/9/2022

During my elementary years of attending school in Bangladesh, my ride or die companion was ( and still is) Zema.

Zema was the kind of a friend who I had always turned to when I had a bad day. To me, she kind-hearted soul full of laughter, excitement and immense spontaneity. She always shared the most fascinating ideas and stories which was cherished by many of the people around.

There were many splendid memories that I have shared with Zema. But there was this one particular time when we both had truly surpassed the height of our friendship ; and that was during a traffic jam.

It was a scorching hot afternoon when I had just been picked up from school by our driver and my mom. As we were closer to the city square, all the cars had to stop as the vehicles from the east and west lanes were crossing. Our car was about 50 rickshaws, 70 motor bikes and 20 buses away from the square. Unequivocally, my mom and I knew we were going to be stuck for quite a while.

Being someone who easily became bored, I started making a fuss. Traffic Jams were the worst in Dhaka city. I remembered that I had just returned my Goosebumps novel to the school library and I had nothing to keep myself entertained with.

To this day, I cannot really explain if at that particular moment, the universe had somehow heard my silent complaints. As I looked through my car window, there was Zema, sitting in her car, looking just as dissatisfied as I was.

I was instantly delighted once I saw her. I waved at her through my window in the most noticeable way.

To her delight, she waved back at me excitedly. We both exchanged mischievous grins and our brains automatically responded to something I had never thought it was capable of.

In an instant, I found myself in a tense game of rock, paper and scissors. We both had played about a total of ten rounds. I was so persistent in having the game to go on as long as it could because she was scoring more points than me. I just had to beat her!

To my disappointment, our cars began to separate towards different directions. The traffic was over, and I was getting further away from Zema. Our car was basically travelling through the main road now, but I could still get a glimpse of her grumpy face and fidgeting wrist through the window, zig zagging past the other cars.

Our willingness to keep proceeding with the game was just so extraordinary that made my mom laugh . Soon, her car was many miles ahead of us, and I am glad to say I ended up scoring the most points and won the game... at least I hope I did.

To this day, I still communicate with Zema. Thankfully, I was able to reach out to her through social media and we both enjoyed a good laugh, reminiscing about our crazy adventures together in school.

If memory serves right, I recall a particular story that made us laugh until our stomachs hurt, and it is one of my personal favourites.

This story dates back all the way to the second grade. Zema and I were both transfer students from Scholastica ( another English medium school in Dhaka). Interestingly enough, this was both of our first time together switching schools. To me, I believe that the change of environment was a significant aspect which brought me and Zema together as close friends. Scholastica was a relatively ginormous school with a ginormous population of students. Thus, it was difficult for many kids to socialise with each other because cliques and social groups were starting to become the status quo.

It was apparent that fate performed it's job quite wonderfully, as Zema and I had quickly become one of the most inseparable pairs in our grade at Chittagong Grammar School. We both did everything together : Sharing snacks, helping each other with homework, group projects and participating in the same after-school activities etcetera etcetera. We became notorious to all of the teachers and staff for our friendship.

One of the most important things that really brought Zema and I together, was our unplanned passion for Songwriting. And this in particular, has a story all on it's own...

During the primary years of school, trendy entertainment hubs such as Barbie, was the craze for all kinds of feisty eleven year olds. And the two of us were among the perfect exemplars. There was one particular movie about a princess who became best friends with purple-haired popstar, who wrote her own magical songs. This 'popstar' was Zema's favourite and I would always end up being the pink puffy-dressed princess ( even though I always yearned to be the cool-haired popstar). Now I'll have you be informed that I am not exaggerating when I tell you that the main concept of this Barbie film, had gradually merged into realm of our realities. This movie became our life. We were the characters.

Now this brings me to my point of how much my friendship with Zema was so special, and very much similar to my cousin ; We both embraced our imagination.. enormously.

Moving on, our imagination took over a major pedestal on a regular day in our second grade English class. Our teacher assigned us to practice our writing skills from copying a paragraph written on the board. As I invested myself into perfecting the letters on my notebook with the tip of my pencil, a sound like "Pssst" came from around the corner. I turned to my side, and noticed Zema making that noise. I wanted to laugh so bad because she put on such a silly expression when she excited to tell me something. But this teacher in front of us was like a shark ; any movement and we would be toast in an instant.

When the shark walked to the cupboard at the back of the classroom, Zema quickly tossed a paper ball at me. I unfolded it, noticing it had a very persuasive note.

" Let's go work on our song together ! We are going to be famous by the end of the month I promise. If you say no, I will find myself a new princess best friend! "

At the age of eight, I was on the weirdest verge of being very protective of my friendships. I was infatuated with the idea of being part of a clique. Being excluded was like a poison to me. I wanted to know everything about everything because it made me happy and almost weirdly, having that justification, was like a homeostatic balance in my soul. I was not going to have Zema be disappointed in me. Or worse, I did not want to leave my assignment unfinished to that hungry shark.

Stupidly, I followed my heart and said "Ok" at the end of the note. I passed it to Zema and she giddily hopped off her chair and asked the teacher if she could use the restroom. The next task was for me to follow her. The shark responded with an annoyed 'Yes'. Waiting exactly after fifteen minutes, I asked if I could use the washroom as well.

The shark flashed a venomous stare into my face and said " Only one student at a time. You can only go when Zema gets back". I gulped. Before I grieved the coming days my friendless life after not helping Zema with the song, I almost became surprised when I noticed that she never really left. The door in our classroom had one window, and peeking through it was Zema, mouthing to me " Come on, Lets go". I could not believe it. She wanted me to ditch the class on the spot. The shark was back facing the cupboard. She could still hear if I closed the door, if I left the classroom.

Somehow, I had successfully managed to exit, without any of my classmates snitching on me. Guilt poured over me like a thunderstorm. I ran to the restroom, and there was Zema, dramatically reciting the lyrics of the song.

" Finally you made it! You have got to be bit more serious about this Raisa. This is the epitome of our career!!" she announced proudly.

" We only have one song. And we are not even old enough to find a record label" I responded, still feeling guilty for what I did.

" Ugh! who cares? I have a vision. I have the Perfect Plan!" she said, enunciating the Ps in a refined manner.

" You always do." I said blankly but kindly.

She handed me the piece of paper. It felt veiny because it was folded so many times under her grip. I looked at the lyrics and... I did not say a single word after reading it:

" The forest was dark. And I was running
There was a dark shadow and I still kept running
Suddenly, I wasn't so afraid.
But I still kept running."

We both thought it was probably the best worst song ever written. In our latest conversation, we even tried to sing the lyrics but only ended up embarrassing ourselves through unstoppable fits of laughter. Personally, I found this moment in my life, truly fascinating on how watching one barbie film at a tender age was the major gateway to nurturing an undying obsession.

Nevertheless, I have vowed, that never in my life, I would trade these memories with Zema for anything. To this day, we both walk the earth as voracious daydreamers, a purple-haired popstar and a princess, and lastly as best friends for infinity...

Insomnia from Ghost Stories

6/1/2022

My favourite grade in Elementary school had always been the fourth. Fourth grade was revolutionary turn in a lot of different aspects in through school ; the friendships I made, the subjects I excelled in and even the things I began to care more about. I was finally part of a clique. People began to see me as that "earthquake-freak" girl, which I must admit felt like a rather silly form of recognition but it was good enough. I scored flawless grades in almost all of my classes. Even in Math! Crazy, right?

But beneath all of that, a little driving force had existed which pushed me in middle school to do my best. First obviously, it was, my sister who could not bare to see the disastrous marks from my third grade Math and English tests but had ever so kindly supported me through her "not so- monstrous" form of tutoring to help me perform better in my classes. Second, it was the heat of internalised competition.

Every one in the fourth grade knew what they were doing, but everyone also had the secret desire to be better than someone. I know I did. Every single question on a textbook felt a stepping stone towards defining our identity. Does this answer make me sound scholarly? Will my good grades be affected if I did not pull up my stockings? Does the way I tie up my hair represent the neatness of the project work I submit?

Anyways, sliding past all of this ridiculousness, ,everyone just wanted a sense of approval. But I can never justify if it was always the good kind. Everything felt like a test. A test for your organising skills. A test for your presentation skills. A test for your communication skills. The least perpetuates till the core of this planet and no, I am not fibbing.

Now, here comes the test of bravery. Which by the title, you can presume, was obviously something I dwindled in... miserably.

It was a dark and a stormy morning. ( Ha! dark and story.. cliche.. I know ) Our fourth grade section were having a class in the library. Essentially, this was not really a class as it just gave students the opportunity to explore and look for some good books to enjoy. My personal favourite books to borrow from the library were always the Goosebumps series. I shall stop you here to clarify that this precious book series, was NOT in account of my condition. Reading Goosebumps filled me with nothing but genuine delight. However, I would never receive the same effect when it came towards listening to a true ghost story from none another than.. THE LIBRARIAN!

Our class was about to end in at least 20 mins and everyone had gotten bored from looking through the books. Our school did not have a diverse variety because many of them were meant for students in nursery. The novels we were given to read had some complex vocabulary which only few students could understand and be occupied with. Luckily, in time our librarian advised us to sit around her in circle on the room carpet. She had a thick black book on her hand, and on the back was an illustration of a Bengali folk demon.

Once everyone had seen this, frowns were carved into excited smiles. I will not go in depth into the stories that she told us about I will try my best to give a near-perfect summary.

Basically, all of our imagination had been encouraged to shift towards a very dark period that had occurred in the midst of the bustling city life of Dhaka. Way towards the edge of the town, there was once a farmhouse owned by a rich family who were attending a wedding and had asked a young female servant to look after the house. Once the servant was left alone in the house, she had constant visions of a pale, long haired and ghoulish looking spirit who followed her around the house. It was believed that the spirit belonged to the primitive residents who treated her with injustice, and had later committed suicide.

The most intriguing element of the stories our librarian told us, was how the majority of them were not the ones she read from her book. She said to us that these stories were passed from friends to friends, who have heard strangers, passed on from other strangers and then from the people who actually who knew what had happened.

Another thing I noticed in her stories, was how much of our culture had connected with it and that aspect had made me feel that the stories were true as can be. Many of the stories she told us were tragedies that took place in impoverished settlements or in abandoned villages, of young women dying from tragic accidents and their spirits haunting people.

There were thousands of different stories like this and also some that were similar from the book she read to us. However, none of those stories had matched the intensity of the ones she shared with us verbally.

I thought about them all day during the classes. All the time during recess. All the time when I drove back home. The envisioned horror had never left my brain. My imagination was going out of control and I kept on thinking that some form of faceless, ghoulish and dark haired spirit was following me.

It was not until the night before I went to bed, that I had realised how much of the ghost stories I have heard had really infused into my mind.

I was sleeping peacefully. Not until the clock at struck 2 am. It was the dead of the night and my eyes just fluttered open. The entire house was fast asleep. Not a single sound can be heard from the entire neighbourhood.

I slowly sat up on my bed and just looked around in the dark room. I had one balcony on the side of my bed with a sliding door, and most of the time it was easily to notice the silhouette figure of the neighbours living next door. I stared at the window for a while and gradually my brain automatically transformed into a sponge, now being porous to all sorts of horrific ideas, at the most perfectly, worst time, of the night.

And that is when I remembered the stories our librarian had told us. Tall, long haired ghoul floating around in the air. White bloody dress. Faceless spirits. It all just came back to me and now I could not get it off my mind. Then it came to my justification that I was probably not going back to sleep. I was not ready to be possessed by a spontaneously approaching ghoul. I asked myself these completely nonsensical questions! " How old is this apartment?", " Who was it again that told us the neighbourhood was build on top of a graveyard?", " Are there some restless spirits envious of my blossoming life in flesh"?

Everything that did not make sense through any funnel of logic, made sense and it frightened the life out of me. I felt transported, but everything I thought about was just my imagination going haywire.

The days in school after those dreadfully sleepless nights, I was practically the class zombie. I could not function well when it came to gathering ideas for group projects, answering questions or snapping back at my enemies with a clever insult comebacks. In the nights, I was strictly alert of fighting the non-existent demons in my house, while in the days I would accidentally walk into a glass door without pushing it aside.

Everyone in class became aware of the way I acted. I could already sense the gossip developing through whispers and giggles that echoed through the hallways.
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There was one time where my I was minding my own business in the school cafeteria, when a group of girls from my grade, but different section had sat down to "chat" with me. I did not feel like talking to anyone as I normally did. However, these rats had attempted to push my buttons to their worst. They kept on teasing me over and over, coming up with nasty reasons on why I arrive so late in school or what really kept me up at night.

All it took was an unnecessary impulse to get this ridiculous idea out of my mouth : The truth is... I AM A VAMPIRE!! . Even to this day, I cannot escape without wincing at least once when the memory of this scenario rings back into my head.

I really could not believe that I said that. I expected this to make me sound like a cool and mysterious person. But now everyone just thought that I was a freak. Only in a matter of seconds, the entire cafeteria burst into laughter. I could have sworn that I even saw the lunch- server force back a chuckle.

From that day on, my problem was never solved. At one point, I was actually worried that maybe some supernatural force had taken over my soul during the nights I stayed awake and that I was never going to return to my normal, human state.

It took days. No, weeks. No, actually a month. Oh why bother justifying ; this felt like forever and I was miserable! The fear of those stories had slowly drifted away from my mind and I came back to sleeping much more peacefully.... all the way to sunrise. The truth about how I recovered was actually quite funny.

The scariness of stories were so powerful and triggering, it was hard to keep them known towards oneself I must say. So, I decided to share them with other people!

I could not think of a better audience than kids who were younger than me!

Gotcha! Sorry, I am still working on fooling my readers with twisty conclusions but unfortunately, they end up sounding cheesy.. or just cruel.

Nevertheless, I apologize for all of that.

Anyways, I shared the stories to people I knew in my household ; my parents, my sister and primarily people who looked like they were brave enough to enter an abandoned farmhouse...

I even told the stories to my neighbours. Many of them thought that it was just rubbish and made up folklore to brainwash young kids like me. A lot of people told me that my librarian must have been insane to share something so gore. And then, many had reacted the way I did ; walk away pale faced and jump at any loud sound or reflection.

But at the end of the day, sharing those stories and just receiving a variety of reactions, I came to understand one thing. It was all passed down. The more dispersed the stories had felt, the less of a distinction or fright it poured onto me. Everyone was familiar with the idea, and genuinely, it was sort of thrilling experience to know how to make conversations more interesting.

Again. It was a story passed down. And I fell in love with the aspect of how much power and excitement it had given the rise to. Finally, I realised that it is stories like these that actually fill readers with sense of adventure and anticipation. I was not able to see this side before, because I pushed myself too far into delving into it.

Lastly, my credits truly goes to this moment in my life where I was genuinely inspired in writing my own stories. Scary ones.

I was never really upset or mad at my librarian due to the daunting effect her stories had struck on me. Instead, I felt thankful. I felt lucky enough to have something interesting to share with other people, as things like these usually lit up a conversation.

And then like a charm, I figured it all out. That was the effect I would want when sharing my stories with people. Stories that get people thinking. Stories that chill people to the bone. Stories that keep us up all night with wonders and horrors and fantasies and....

Hey! If I get to live through terror like that, EVERYONE else should!!

Just kidding! Sorry, again... that was just cruel.