::: Star Weekend Magazine :::

Star Diary

Electricity Menace

Load shedding is now an everyday part of our daily life. Students like us suffer the most out of this. We arrive home, all sweaty and exhausted, just to find out that there's no electricity. Due to this, the youngsters especially get dehydrated and fall ill. Throughout the day, we hardly have 5 hours of electricity. Just the other day, I read in the papers that our prime minister wants us to get together and build a better nation. I wonder how she expects us to do this. For the last 2 years there has been news that steps are being taken to solve this electricity problem, but I do not see any kind of change as such. In fact, things have gotten worse.
Yeameem Morshed
Maple Leaf International School
Dhaka

Look out for the Slum!

If you are travelling by Shyamoli road, always hold on to your cell phones as tightly as possible. I learnt this the hard way. My friend had just put his hand outside the vehicle he was in and within a millisecond, a man just grabbed the phone and ran across the road ignoring the rushing traffic. So where do these criminals come from? Why is this particular area so unsafe? Mugging, drug peddling, extortion, murder- just name it. The answer lies in the narrow alleyways of the infamous Agargaon BNP slum, the nightmare for law enforcing agencies, the horror of peaceful citizens and a haven for criminals.

Considering you are a peace-loving citizen, you shall be horrified by what goes on in the Agargaon slums. According to an NGO worker. The slum dwellers make shift-homes that are always moving around and thus changing the insides of the slums all the time. When the houses shift, the lanes shift too, making it very difficult for law enforcers to act on previous intelligence. The Agargaon BNP slum still remains, after numerous anti-crimes drives, a hotbed of criminal activity that disrupts social life all over the city. It is a place where honest and hard working people are in the mercy of anti social elements.
S Haque
Mirpur, Dhaka

Surprise for Breakfast

A few weeks ago I went to a very popular coffee place on Shat Masjid Road, Dhanmondi, for breakfast with a friend. I ordered the Belgian Waffles with strawberries on top and it arrived looking golden brown and yummy. I took my first huge bite expecting it to taste wonderful but instead, felt a sharp prick on my tongue and had to spit it all out. Turns out my lovely looking waffle had somehow gotten staples stuck in it -- two big ones. Amazed I called the waiter and pointed this out to him. He spent the first few minutes arguing that this was impossible. When I lost my temper, the manager showed up and apologised and offered to bring me a new one. I refused of course and told him to find out how the staples got there in the first place. I also explained how dangerous it could be to have sharp objects in our food. Although they apologised, they still made me pay for my breakfast and said that these things happen. It can safely be said I'm never setting foot in that place again.
AH
Dhanmondi, Dhaka