Star Diary

A Glimpse of the Future

One evening, I read my father's personal diary which I have been seeing laying around our house since childhood. Never did I touch or even try to open it as I did not feel it necessary to do so. Things that we are used to seeing around us don't attract us much as per the universal principle.

But that evening, my mom gave me the dairy to find out an urgent phone number of one of our family doctors. While looking up for the number, I went through the pages of the diary, and I came across some of my father's memories- happy and sad- dated mostly from 80s and 90s.

I could not hold back my tears as I got to know the unknown ordeals and upheavals my father and his whole family had to go through. The way I used to see life-- a fantasy of happiness and ecstasy changed after reading the diary. It turned into a realistic world which I too might have to face in the near future. Sigh! 
Samiul Raijul
North South University
Dhaka

OF TERRIBLE JUDGEMENT

These are the two incidents that sometimes make me question myself if I'd done a crime or something.

Incident 1: Since I was a little child, unlike others, I had developed an interest in astronomy. When I was in 2nd grade, I had decided to become an astrophysicist and still want to. At first, no one questioned why I wanted that or who inspired me to want that. One of my idols are Stephen Hawking and I've read almost all of his books and tried to understand the contexts. Nowadays, my family members and even my private tutor have been telling me that if I go that way I'll become an atheist. So, I should grow a liking to any other subject.

Incident 2: Me and one of my classmates were talking about the heinous terror attack which took place in Gulshan. To my great horror, my classmate said that the attackers hadn't done a bad job by killing the foreigners and those who were wearing western clothes. In fact, she said that if she was in their place, she'd also do the same. That was the last time I spoke to her. She has already become an extremist and I wonder what will happen when she grows up. She also told me that I felt sad for the victims because I'd become an atheist. I'm now terrified and depressed about the situation that everyone thinks that if one has different views of things, they're atheists or bad people.
Pokemon Ashley
Uttara,Dhaka