Special feature

Nokia’s stylish evolution

Fashion is short circles of evolution, evolution and then maybe revolution and currently the thing that is making fashionistas perk up is most certainly premier fashion phones. And who better to give them exactly that other than the world leader in mobile communications- Nokia? A market leader in the cellular industry in Asia Pacific, Nokia provides innovative, industry leading and market relevant technology and products to around 20 diverse markets in the region.

This weekend Nokia unveiled its latest premium mobile phones, the Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition and last year's highly popular L'Amour Collection in Park Hyatt Saigon, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam amid style and sophistication. The program 'Inspiring Senses was a reinterpretation of romanticism and avant garde glamour.

Premier fashion phones like these are for people who drive fast cars, wear fancy watches and love luxury products. People who are extremely familiar with the hippest happenings and hottest quirks in the world fashion capitals will certainly own one of these masterpieces in the cellular industry. However these products will equally draw the attention of those who just need a cell to make a call and are not at all interested in its other technology savvy options. People who would not change their phones with every circle of evolution, and instead will cling on to theirs like a man possessed. Premier phones are timeless pieces whetting the appetites of style mavens and stylish professionals who appreciate on-the-go connectivity for business and pleasure.

Under a different sky

By Iffat Nawaz

He Asked…

Sitting across the table wearing shorts and a sweatshirt, a combination I never understood about “Americans” when I first came here, as if only the upper part of the body feels the winter and the lower is still enjoying summer, he asked me. The ex-funeral director, a man who has spent his life building a mortuary, running it, lugging around dead bodies, dressing them up to look their best, in pink floral dresses or tuxedos, his mind still mistakenly smells the scent of coffins and left-over funeral reception food…he asked me.

He asked me, what the process in Bangladesh is after one dies. I had to stop and think about it. Strangely enough I have never thought about the process after death. Usually it's full of negative memories or mundane gatherings with pregnant whispers and silences, a house that smells like sorrow and incense. Never thought about it, so I had to gather my thoughts and think about exactly what it is that we do that would interest an ex-funeral director and mortuary owner.

Well if we are Muslim, we burry the dead sooner than later, we call upon all relatives and friends, wear light colors and sit in circles praying with our prayer beads. Muslim priests read the Koran in a pre-determined tune somewhere in the background, we cry, we reunite, the men go to the grave, the women stay and mourn. We throw another gathering on the 3rd day after the death and on the 40th. The household of the dead refrains from cooking as long as possible, listening to loud music, or celebrating anything too festive.

If we are Hindu we burn the body, taking the body with a chant “bolo hori hori bol” spreading puffed rice and flowers all the way to the Shaushan. The sons of the dead shave their heads, eat only vegetarian meals, there is a ceremony a few days after the death called Sraddho, and the ashes are taken to river to float away.

He was entertained. Fascinated that the culture was as much as an influence as the religion. I wasn't sure if I should have agreed or disagreed. I just thought to myself, in this age when I rely upon Google to give me the right answers over any culture or religion, how can I answer his question. I often feel lost thinking about culture or religion as a source of solution to my problems and wondering. It's like sometime between early teens and mid 20s I lost the faith in what once was, and became fond of what is without any relation to others. It's what you know, versus what you are suppose to know versus what's right. And what's right often takes over the other two.

“If I ever come to Bangladesh with you, will you take me to a funeral, to the house of the dead?” he asked me. I nodded my head. It was a morbid request, the wish is filled with an end of someone I know, but I still nodded with a promise to take him to a funeral in Bangladesh.

That day I looked up the word dead in Google and every word that relates to death. Wikipedia gave me thorough definitions, well researched answers; I read, read and read more. Being a Googlite and a Wikipedian I have defined my own culture these days, my own religion. My judgments are always challenged, I need assurances not from the past but from the cyber space that's constantly renewed, to be right, factual, accurate…I only trust that…faithfully, blindly, with addiction and passion.

Through my wishes of being boundless I have bumped into space, but the space has her own culture, her own beliefs, and now I am hers. Follower of a new something, seeking the definitions of dead, life, and similes, and culture and religion lost…not in space but in spirit.