Past or present?

Life is something we all love to grumble about...we're never satisfied with what we have, always wishing we were like kings of the past, who got whatever they want. What if, dear readers, what if I told you that we, the common teenagers of the 21st century are richer than kings? Don't believe me? Read on…

Consider the Emperors of ancient Rome. What did they do for entertainment? Sat around in hot galleries and watched gladiators and lions battle it out? Maybe rode a few chariot or two… and when things got too boring, decided to go and conquer some new territory. Not very exciting is it?

Look at us. We've got such a wealth of entertainment options right at our fingertips. We can just slip on our headphones and listen to some rocking tunes as we surf the net, chat with friends, or if we are in the mood for some mindless violence, we can just tune into wrestling on TV. Take that, Nero!

While Anarkali and Salim had to wait for ages to get their love letters passed on to each other, it takes us a second to email or even text through our cell phones to our loved ones.

Kublai Khan was a grand emperor who wowed the West with his wealth. He had Marco Polo leaving his homeland to stay in China for many years. However, when it came to communication, the poor fellow had to rely on a lengthy and complicated relay system involving messengers on horses, while in this day and age, we have the telephone and the intercom to make life easier for us. Alexander Graham Bell, we love you!

Think of Hannibal…no, no, not the Lector dude! The king who crossed the Alps! He needed whole herds of elephants, and most of them died on the way. Poor guy. He wasn't as lucky as us, and had no access to cars or planes. Taxi, anyone?

Elizabeth I built a fine naval fleet that beat the living daylights out of the formidable Spanish Armada, and went on to become recognized as the world's strongest naval forces. You've got to hand it to her; she was one tough lady. It took a tough lady to have to wear a stuffy corset all day. Too bad no one knew what Victoria's Secret was, back then.

The Mughal emperors ruled the Subcontinent for a long time. They built many fine palaces and amassed a lot of wealth. But come the hot summer, and they were at the mercy of their attendants, who had to follow them around with hand fans. Your experience of power-cuts before the IPS became so popular should tell you how effective hand fans are. Let's just thank our lucky stars we have electric fans and air conditioners, why don't we.

It was said that King Louis XIV had the whole world talking about his wealth. His Palace of Versailles is still a famous monument, event to this day. However it is also said he took only three baths his whole entire life. He had to splurge on perfume so that people could come near him. Phew! I'll just have that shower in an hour, thank you very much.

No matter how much we complain about our meager pocket money or lack of 'stuff' one thing we take for granted, and that is the flush toilet. Did you also know that this essential item was only invented in the late 19th century? Before that, people had to make do with the outhouse, which was basically a pan-style latrine located in a shed far away from the main house, and most likely, the whole household would be sharing just one. The privileged classes had chamber-pots, which were no better than modern bedpans, and these stayed in the rooms with the owners, and were cleaned only once a day! Suddenly, that ceramic 'throne' seems much more valuable, doesn't it?

So the next time you read your history book and sigh at the reports of the luxury of monarchs of old, remember that you, a mere commoner are in many ways, richer than those kings ever were.

By Tashmia Zaman

The way it should be

He closed the door with a bang. He flicked on the fan, and dropped the bag from his shoulders. Even before the bag hit the ground with its characteristic loud thud, he had stepped forward and had his left hands in his back pocket. Bent over his side table, he pulled out his wallet and slammed it onto it. He then reached into his pockets and sprayed some loose change noisily, and then quietly put aside his mobile phone and watch, the things he knew couldn't stand his angst.

He sat heavily on the bed, and stroked his forehead with a heavy sigh. He took off his black-rimmed glasses and scratched his eyes for the longest time. He knew it was bad to do, but he didn't care. Finally, he put on his glasses and looked around his room.

Objects were sprayed in all directions. His table was covered to the point where he couldn't see what the colour was. All sorts of paraphernalia decorated it. His printer and laptop were the only two things arranged neatly. A copy of "Gulliver's Travels," by Johnathan Swift lay by two large bottles of water, one of them full and the other one half-finished and the cap off. He chided himself at leaving the cap off again, but brushed such care aside. He had no time for it.

He looked ahead of him. The floor was dirty with a week's worth of human skin and hair. He got a brief glimpse of what the gathered dust would look like in the weekly cleaning that coming Sunday. Sundays were always like that. The only day of the week off, and that, spent cleaning up a room he barely lived in.

He looked around again. He recalled the rent, and thought about it. He couldn't believe he paid so much money for a place where he slept for six hours a day, six days a week, and slept listlessly for most of the seventh.

He flopped down to his left, and felt some books and objects under his body. He reached under it, and pulled out a file, some CDs labeled "Simulation Data," and put them on the chair beside his bed. He then reached back and pulled out another book.

He looked at the blank, grey, hard-cover binding and fingered it gently. He turned it around and looked at the spine: "God-Emperor of Dune," by Frank Herbert. More a lesson in philosophy than a story, he thought to himself. Though he didn't think much of the story up as far as he had read, marked carefully with an orange bookmark, he liked the look of the book itself. Borrowed from the library, he lamented not being able to keep it, because it was in the favorite form he enjoyed his books in: old, almost torn, weathered and worn in by many readers.

The pages smelled rustic and decayed, brown around the borders. It had a feeling of lineage to it, as if someone many years his senior, had read it, and also thought Herbert should have got himself a soapbox if he really wanted to preach.

He put the book aside gently, and put his glasses beside it, on the floor by his bed. Another childhood idiosyncrasy, he thought, to abandon the bedside table for the floor for his more valuable possessions.

He opened his eyes to the blackness of the ceiling. The fan spun round and round, and he tried following it as long as he could. His life, he thought, was like that fan. Just doing what he had to do, no thought, no higher purpose. Just spinning, because that was what was needed of him. Another bee in the hive, just another water droplet, lashing uselessly against a rocky fate, scattered in every direction. Fed into oblivion before real existence.

A memory-image of himself confronted him, pacing around a spacious room on a beautiful afternoon in some far off place. The orange light of the late afternoon sun spilled, making large squares on his floor, patterning his room with that of his windows. He saw himself, with thick tufts of hair, short, but stolid. He paced around the room with a thoughtful hand on his chin, and his curiosity grew as to what he was thinking on this day, in a home he had long forgotten.

Then, the thoughts rushed into him. "It doesn't matter what medium one uses. It is just a matter of how one uses it." What? "Television is a wonderful thing, but if people watch MTV and CNN all day, nobody would learn anything!" Television? "I must tell a story, one with characters that are rich, characters that know the world, and wish to change it for the better!" Change the world?

"There is more to life than working all day and sleeping all night, with no thought of more important things!" Important things? "The poor, the hopeless! The world has enough resources to feed them and to give them lives of dignity and honor, but those that have dignity and honour starve them of their rights to feed their own appetites! I see it, day by day! I must do something! I must make a difference!" A difference?

What difference, he thought to himself as the image dissolved. People will suffer, and they will die, even if I come to their rescue. The knight in shining armour isn't just a myth, it's an abomination. Superheroes and heroic protagonists just feed on the appetite for things good and beautiful in the world, to make the pockets of their writers heavier.

I know the world, he told himself. I have seen it. It is nothing but a 9-to-5 job and a computer terminal mocking at you for 48 hours a week.

"No!" The image came back with force this time. "You have to make a difference! Everyone I see lives their lives in obscurity, just feeding themselves and their families. Noble, yes, but there has to be more!" Noble to feed a family? I don't even have that. And there is no more.

"I cannot see myself 20 years down the road, with nothing more than a laptop, a flashy PDA and an empty soul to show for it. I've seen it in others, and it won't take me." Oh yes, it will.

"It'll be different with me!" No, it won't be. Fight it as you may, fate will scatter your ambitions like water on rock.

He sat up, and looked into the mirror opposite his bed. His eyes had adapted to the dark, and the light spilling in from outside illuminated his face. He looked at himself. Physically and emotionally exhausted, he didn't have time to fight with this childish idealism that had died within him so long ago, and today, for no reason other than his dissatisfaction with work, come back to haunt him. Children are incoherent, their thoughts and wants don't matter. Children haven't seen the world, so they are wrong. I have seen it. The world is the way it should be.

By Iftekharul Haque

If only you were here by my side
As I look into the sky,
I see you in the moon.
The twinkling of the stars,
Reminds me of your eyes,
Where all your sweetness lies.
The whistling of the wind makes me recall your voice
Which, from my mind, used to remove all the other noise.
The gentle breeze calls to my mind,
Your face, possessing that sweet smile
Which was as peaceful and as tranquil.
Then suddenly I see the brightest star
And wish that you were near,
To put your arms around me and wipe away my tears,
And getting rid of all my fears.
How alone and lonely I am, I comprehend,
In the darkness of this night,
Where everything is calm and quiet
Knowing this is a feeling which I can't just fight.
And again I wish,
If only you were here by my side
Saying, it's alright.
My eyes fall into the river,
Which, by its own rhythm flows by,
Just like that live never stops but moves on,
And so should I
I said it out with a sigh.
But deep down my heart I hear a voice saying,
If only you were here by my side.

By Anika Ibnath

True happiness
True happiness...
It is not that smile that you see
Nor is the laughter that you hear
It is what my heart beats for
It is what my soul yearns for
It is what my life longs for
It is love, your true warm love
The feeling of your love
Rises among all other
Abiding in my heart
And lifting the spirit
To a whole new world
Where only we exist
Two hearts that love each other
Two souls that live for each other
Two people that will die for each other...

By Hedayetullah A Solenkhi (Kaiser)