I Am Asif

Monday morning we started later than we wanted to. We were actually pretty damn tired from the extended amount of walking on the previous day. We checked out of the hotel and kept our baggage at Nahiyan's place, and took a public transport known as tempo here in our country, towards Jaflong. On our way to Jaflong we feasted our eyes with the sight of the huge mountains that are visible across the border, over in India. Well, "the mountains are always higher on the other side of the fence", hehe. The shear magnitude of the mountain range clicked the inquisitive part of my mind, it made me wonder, what secrets lay hidden in those deep valleys covered with trees. There must be places within those mountains and forests that no one has ever set foot upon. Truly Allah's creation is way wider than our thoughts can be. Jaflong is a place that combines sand, stone, and crystal clear water in a fascinating way. It is a tourist spot, yet the place is busy with labor, men ...

The spot that played the chief role in bringing us to Sylhet was the Madhabkunda water falls. On our second day, we started real early towards there in our rented microbus, right after Fajr prayer. The road to Madhabkunda was a beauty itself. Curving this way and that, climbing uphill and going down again, we wished all of our roads were like that. At about 8:30 in the morning, we reached the gates of the Madhabkunda Eco Park , from there a walk of about half an hour in necessary to reach the falls. While walking towards the fall, we already started to feel that we're really gonna like this place. We could see the water from the fall running over the rocks below, at one point we got down from the path into the water just to get our feet wet and take some photos. We kept walking and admiring the beauty of the place, and then we saw it. The water fall itself. The stream of water running down from the top of the hill is like the grand jewel in the crown that is the whole surrounding....

Me, Pulak and Rumman have been calling each other constantly, planning a trip to Sylhet . We all needed a big break, a breath of fresh air after the turmoil that we went through last month. We planned to go to Srimangal directly, instead of going to the city of Sylhet first. We wanted to have some fun on the way, so we booked train tickets. On the night of April 10, Friday, the six of us, me, Pulak, Rumman, Imran, Kanon and Rocky all gathered at the Kamlapur Rail Station in time. As scheduled, our train started for Srimangal at 10:00 p.m. Our seat arrangement was the best we could ask for, six of us facing each other. The whole night we spent awake, gossiping, laughing and constantly hitting on each other. We had some great laughs while playing chor-pulish, a famous pen-and-paper game in our country. It was a moonlit night, so as the train passed beyond the urban areas, the surroundings got more and more spectacular. I spent a lot of time just looking out from my window into the h...

It really came out of nowhere. On the noon of April 1, the day my exams ended, I was peacefully playing Burnout Paradise on my PC, when my uncle Shapanku (Shapan + uncle = Shapanku!) gave me a call, telling me that he was going to our village at Barisal the next day for a very short trip, and he asked if I wanted to go. I was looking for whatever chance I could get to refresh myself from the stress that I was in for the last month, so I jumped at it. Our trip was already planned, so the next day, April 2, I left home with my uncle in the afternoon, towards Sadarghat , where we were supposed to board the launch Sundarban-7 . Night at the river: My uncle had booked a VIP cabin for us, and the room was pretty nice indeed with air conditioning, double bed, sofa, impressive decorations, a separate veranda and toilet. It was as cozy as it could get. The ship started at 8:45 p.m. After some time, when the ship had left behind the city lights and was deep into the river, the sight that unf...

March 24 was the day before my brother's wedding, the day of his 'Gaye Holud' ceremony at our place. Should've been a great day for me, but it was also the day before my Semiconductor Devices semester final exam. So up till the evening I was switching between studies and arrangements. But after evening I had no chance to study. The program went pretty good thankfully. I was free to study at almost 1 o'clock at the night. I did my best to prepare for the exams, studying for a little more than an hour that night, and after the Fafr prayer the next day. So the preparations weren't so good, and the exam was nothing better. The exam didn't go any better than I was prepared for, but at least I wasn't scared of failing. That very day after the evening, our whole family left for my Bhaiya's wedding together. But things took a turn again, at least for me. My sister was feeling sick from the morning, she was constantly vomiting for some reason. When me and o...