I don't know if Turni has a mission statement. It has been nearly two years since we published Turni, so it is certainly late to put together a mission statement now. However, better late than never! Also, I can argue it has always been there. Still, we never explicitly mentioned it correctly. Lately, there have been a few occasions where I felt a mission statement and core value description would have been nice. It is easier to refer to it as/if needed, as opposed to typing it on discord multiple times. So here we go:
I wrote in the first issue of Turni a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin.
"It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end."
That probably remains the mission statement for Turni. But perhaps it requires a bit of 'explanation' because what I understand from that quote may not be what you are able to understand. Turni was created to give folks of BDC to have an umbrella under which they can gather and improve their quality of thoughts and expressions. I think we may not have succeeded in quantity, but we definitely have achieved in quality.
One of the core values that I personally propose is financial freedom. Not by writing content but by innovation. Hive is, in fact, much more than a blogging platform. Many newcomers do not understand that, at least not at the beginning. They try to treat Hive as a content platform where they can make money. Big Mistake! On the contrary, Hive can be much more than that. It can improve the following in people:
These remain some of the core values of Turni and BDC in general.
Nothing good comes out of fear. To conquer the uncertainity, you must try— that's what our hero did and through determination and strong will, finally tamed the mighty sea.
Ignored by his own community, the protagonist continued to build his empire of imagination, worked towards his dream— a dream that others presumed as mad man's doing. But who knew our mad man will survive the crushing waves to tell the tale— thrive despite odds and be the reason to belive in destiny where success comes at a great price. And those who challenge themselves with the submile prophecy of a comfortable life, gets remembered beyond eternity— where fate wrestles with free will to attain the reward of integrity.
Author 
We are also delighted to announce two honorable mentions of the week.
| Authors | Highlights |
|---|---|
 @duvinca | Thieves of illusions |
| - | - |
 @wholesamdiaries | The Quarter Life Bliss |
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Whether it be a walk around the beach or just laying around on a sun lounger, it's all quite chill and relaxing, I know. But you wanna know what really boosts that whole experience? A beach buddy.
Luckily, this time there was no shortage when it came to the beach or the buddies. Our little villa was right by the beach, literally embracing the sea and the waves; on top of that, we were absolutely surrounded by these friendly little critters. In just a few hours we managed to make quite a lot of friends.
We met Lovely, the cute little Maltese, just as we entered the resort. Then we met our little cat friendo in front of our beach villa, giving us a warm welcome. Our little friend joined us around the evening, too, just to enjoy a few biscuits, while having a solid view of the sunset. And by midnight, we had three dogs just outside of our villa, guarding the whole damn; I guess it was just their way of thanking us for the snacks haha.
The next day we managed to cover quite the distance on Marine Drive. While getting back, we decided to stop our fleet of CNGs around Patuatek Sea Beach, to get a glimpse of another beautiful sunset, just a different view and angle this time. And to our surprise, we managed to make a few friends over here too.
The fuzzy and lazy little guy you see here just wanted to take a nap, but he just couldn't manage a bit of shut-eye, thanks to all the ruckus.
The confident little pup you see at the end, the one who's looking right into the lens, this little guy is without a doubt the most friendliest dog I've ever met in my whole life. And bear in mind, I've taken care of quite a lot of dogs, countless types and breeds. Even then, this little guy managed to take me by surprise, always on the prowl, ready to jump on your back, but all he wants is a bit of extra love and attention.
He demands it, actually, and if you try to ignore him, he will reach out for his puppy dog pouch, which is full of puppy dog strategies, and tactics he will use on you just so that he gets what he wants.
-by 
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কাদম্বরীকে নিয়ে ভাবতে গিয়েই কোন কুমুদিনীর কথা স্মরণে এল। যদিও কাদম্বরী বাস্তব চরিত্র আর কুমুদিনী কেবলই রবিবাবুর একটি সৃষ্ট চরিত্র।
এবং যদিও এ দুজনের স্বভাব, চরিত্র, বিচার, বিস্তার, প্রভাব সবই একেবারে ভিন্ন ধর্মী তবুও রবি ঠাকুরের কথা চিন্তা করলেই বা কাদম্বরীর কথা এলেই আমার কুমুদিনীকে বেশ মনে পড়ে।
কুমুদিনী হলেন রবি ঠাকুরের "যোগাযোগ" উপন্যাসের নায়িকা।
সংক্ষেপে বলতে গেলে,
কুমুদিনী রাজ্য হারানো রাজার মেয়ে কিন্তু ঘটনাচক্রে বিবাহ করে আঙুল ফুলে কলাগাছ হওয়া এক রাজাকে। তবে তার প্রণয়ে কিন্তু কুমু কোনো জাতভেদ রেখেছিলনা। সে এক সমুদ্র ভালবাসা নিয়েই বসে ছিল স্বামী বরটিকে তার অর্ঘ্য দেবে বলে। কিন্তু রাজা বেচারা ধনে মানে যশ কামালেও, মনে দৈন্যতা দূর করতে পারেনি।
কুমু'র ভালবাসতে চেয়েও ভালবাসার যোগ্য কাউকে না পাওয়ার যে গভীর মর্মবেদনা, এইটা আমাকে বেশ ছুঁয়ে গেছে।
আর তাদের দুইয়ের এই সম্পর্কের টানাপোড়ন ছুঁয়েছে দুই পরিবার ছেড়ে সমাজ, সংসার, সংস্কৃতি আর আশেপাশের সবকিছুকে।
ছোটবেলা থেকেই মারমার কাটকাট একশন, এডভেঞ্চার বা থ্রিলার পড়ার অভ্যাসের কারণে বাংলা সাহিত্যে আমার দখল একেবারেই নস্যির ডিব্বার সমতুল্য। তার মাঝেও যে কিঞ্চিৎ চর্চা হয়েছে সেটাও দৈবচক্রে। ওভাবেই হাতে পেয়েছিলাম রবীন্দ্রনাথের "যোগাযোগ" বইটা।
এবং এত বছর পরও মনে আছে, আমার "নেই কাজতো রবি ঠাকুর পড়" উদ্দ্যেশ্যে শুরু করা বইটার আকর্ষণের মূলে ছিল, বিপ্রদাস (নামটা এইটা বা এরকম কিছু) কৈশোরে তাকে বেশ মনে ধরেছিল। সবই বোধহয় বুদ্ধদেবের রাজর্ষির মায়া!
তো যাহোক, পড়তে পড়তে পরবর্তীতে কুমুদিনীই হয়ে যায় ধ্যান জ্ঞান।
কুমুদিনী যাকে বলে আভিজাত্যের আরেক নাম।
চিন্তায়, জ্ঞানে, নীতিতে, মনের ঐশ্বর্য্যে সে শাশ্বত। আবার তাকে অতিমানবী বা অধরা করার প্রচেষ্টা রবি ঠাকুর করেননি। তার মাঝেও আছে আক্ষেপ, সীমাবদ্ধতা, অপারগতার দায়। কিন্তু ব্যক্তিত্বের প্রখরতা আর নীতির তীব্রতার পেষণে নিষ্কম্প থেকে যে নিদারুণ অবরুদ্ধ যাতনায় বিদীর্ণ হয়েছে প্রতি ক্ষণ, সে ব্যথায় আমি মর্মাহত হয়েছি বারবার।
আবার তায় জন্য আমার যে কুমু'র স্বামী মধুসূদনের প্রতি কোনো ক্ষোভ জন্মেছে তাও না। অনেকটা যেনো তার প্রতি আশাই বা কিসের। কুমুকে ছুঁয়ে দেবার সে সাধ্যই যে মধুসূদনের নেই। আত্ম অহমিকায় ডুবে থাকা, মানসিক দাসত্বের শেকল ভাঙতে না পারার ব্যর্থতা।
এসবই মধুসূদনকে এমন একটা সীমাবদ্ধতায় অনন্তকালের জন্য আটকে ফেলেছে যে, কুমু'র ভালবাসাকে আহ্লাদে কাছে না টেনে, সে অর্ঘ্যকে প্রাপ্য অধিকার ঠাউরে যে অবহেলা, অসম্মানের আঁচড় মধুসূদন কুমু'র স্নিগ্ধ আত্মাভিমানে এনেছে, তার দায় পুরোটাই মধুসূদনের হলেও, সে ব্যর্থতার দায় কেবলই হয়তো ওর না।
সমাজ, লোক চর্চা, চর্চিত চর্বিত ঠুনকো অহম, আর ইতিহাসের নামে বয়ে চলা জাতিভেদকেও কিছুটা দায় নিতেই হবে।
কুমুদিনী আমার কিশোরী মনে এতটাই গভীর আঁচড় কেটেছিলো যে প্রায় এক যুগেরও বেশী সময় পরে এসেও, আজো কুমু'র কথা মনে হলেই কলিজাটা মোচড় দেয়।
কুমু'র অপ্রাপ্তির এই মর্মবেদনা শীতের ঝড়ো হাওয়ার সদৃশ্য সুঁইয়ের মতন বিঁধে।
চন্দ্রানী ব্যানার্জির গানটা মনে পড়ে-
তোমাকে বুঝিনা প্রিয়,
বোঝনা না তুমি আমায়,
দুরত্ব বাড়ে যোগাযোগ নিভে যায়।
-by 
A couple of weeks ago, I've conducted a little experiment on my hive family. Sitting together in a posh restaurant named Pinewood, I asked them to evaluate a piece of poetry I wrote—which was actually not a poem, but rather a piece of prose work of mine I just reassembled into small lines to give it an appearance of a poem. And they actually praised it! :D It should be noted that they write poetry quite often and thus I was laughing inwardly for successfully tricking them! However, it also pushed me further toward understanding poetry, and later on, Shelley wiped the smug smile I initially had from my face. He declared prose works are indeed poetry and it was a paramount point in his essay "A Defence of Poetry" in which he used that argument against Plato.
Plato didn't see poetry in a favorable light, in his view, it was merely an imitation of another imitation (The funny thing is that, according to Plato, something tangible, like a house is an imitation of its idea, and not the other way around, and the poem written about a house is an imitation of the imitation), and cannot convey the truth. He championed philosophy instead. It took nearly two millennia for Sidney (An apology for poetry) to argue, that poets were philosophers in disguise and chose poetry in Plato's time as it was a more popular medium to reach people. Shelley enforced the idea more and took it further, he declared, that Plato himself was a poet. Shelley did not make any distinction between poetry and prose work and he found poetry in the inner wordplay and expressions of Plato.
In his words—
"The distinction between poets and prose writers is a vulgar error. The distinction between philosophers and poets has been anticipated. Plato was essentially a poet—the truth and splendor of his imagery, and the melody of his language, are the most intense that it is possible to conceive. He rejected the measure of the epic, dramatic, and lyrical forms, because he sought to kindle a harmony in thoughts divested of shape and action..."
— A Defence of Poetry (1821)
If we are to take Shelley's word then, I have always been a poet (as I am a prose writer) and always understood poetry. My attempt at reshaping a prose work into poetry by arranging it in small sentences was needless, yet when it was done, it was indeed a poem, as it was before any such arrangement.
I also see the appeal in Plato's rejection of poetry in its lyrical form, which feels like an extra step I do not want to take. This is also funny, as I usually obsess over the form quite a bit, and the same me now wants to ignore the form in this case and go blind from here on.
--by 
I may not have enough people to talk to about Pokemon on HIVE, but I sure have found some perfume geeks....that too within our closely-knit BDCommunity itself. A couple of them are in the process and will soon be converted, I'm sure!
Fragrances tend to trigger memories.
We have all heard of it at some point or another. The reason for this is relatively straightforward. Odour molecules in fragrances, or any kind of smell for that fact, get received by nerve endings in the olfactory bulb located in our nose. The chemical signals (odour molecules) are then converted to......HAH! Got ya!
No, I'm not going into a full breakdown of how smell works. Regardless of popular opinion, I'm actually not that boring.
Long story short, smell signals are sent to a couple of regions in the brain called Amygdala and Hippocampus. It is sent to multiple other locations too, but they are not relevant here.
Now, the hippocampus and amygdala are parts of the brain that are also tasked with storing memories. These are tiny areas of the brain with numerous nerves, and their synaptic connections and smell signals get entangled very strongly with memories.
For example, as a kid, if you had great memories at your grandma's house, any significant smell around that place will get entwined with your good memories. As an adult, if you smell any component of that smell, it can take you back to your childhood. These connections tend to be so strong that if a fairly strong bad memory is associated, a particular smell can momentarily trigger a panic attack.
It is interesting how smell brings these memories back. Smell doesn't necessarily bring back the facts from the depths of your brain. The memories tend to be more down the lines of perceptual line rather than conceptual. So you'll recall a particular sensation rather than facts of the memory. Of course, you can then dig deep into your brain and recall the facts, but smells don't usually bring out those facts. It merely brings back the feelings.
There are certain fragrances in my collection that reminds me of a cosy winter evening. Not a winter day, evening. This particular distinction is important in understanding how smell and memories tend to work.
The important thing to note is that I had never smelt these fragrances as a kid. I smelt them as an adult, more specifically just a few years back when I started growing my fragrance collection. And the first time I smelt them, it reminded me of a winter evening in my childhood. There was nothing specific, nothing vivid, just a feeling. It specifically revolved around winter evening; that much was clear to me.
So, last year...or the year before that, when I was writing a post about fragrance, I sat down with the bottle of perfume....kept smelling it over and over and trying to figure out exactly why it was triggering winter evenings for me.
I am still not at 100%, but I have a theory.
When I was a kid, winter used to be in Ramadan, which meant my father would always be at the masjid for Tarabi prayers after evening. As soon as the murubbis left the house, me, my brother and all our cousins would be out of the house in a flash to play badminton. Now badminton has nothing to do with it, but where we played badminton has everything to do with my theory. Right outside our lawn was an open field where young adults from the residential area would gather for their "addas." Besides smoking their lungs out, one thing that would always be a constant was burning wood and dry leaves. And in a flash, I can still visualise those burning flames. I can smell the fog; I can smell the burning wood.
Looking deeper into the notes breakdown of the perfume in question, know what I found?
A strong dose of tobacco, amber and wood.
--by 
While a part of human life yearns for adjustment, the other half jumps into the ocean of uncertainty— staggering on the thin line of a balanced life, the wilder one prevails and establishes itself as the pessimistic cliché of prophecy.
The sensation that was developed clinging to that rusty grip of an unstable foundation—adjustment—barred by the nihilistic conviction of the surrounding, quietly finds its way to deliberate demolition. That’s the worst dilemma of human life— neither do we can live in solitude nor can we be submissive to social dogma, and this is where we fall through the crack.
Overwhelmed by the miracles of this judgemental society, we just become another brick in the wall— shoved down to the line with a dreadful hammering whenever the society is sceptical about our dislocation— trims our wings in an attempt to keep us caged and we, even after fueled by the doctrine of freedom, muzzle our cheerful view of life.
Overpowered by the waves of the majority, we prefer masking ourselves with the norm and, being remorseful, perform the act of convincing our minds to overlook the bogeys— the perfect propagandists walking through acute crisis yet yielding all the profits by selling us down the river.
What started as a sweet journey to attain consistency, ends up in ambiguity— butchered by brutality, our prosperous perception of adjustment ends up in disparity.
Soon after, 'clouded by the deformed hues of sadomasochistic drive', we simply lose the sense of sanity and find solace in saying— Yeah, welcome to the circus; such is life.
-by 
In a break from the ride, we got down and took our desired positions to feel the surroundings and just relax. Some Sampan boats on the sides were the centre of my interest then, so I jumped into one of them, and from there, I decided to take in the surroundings. The sound of the sea hitting my ears, refreshing air filling up my lungs, the mesmerising view of the hills just on the other side of the road. It was all stunning.
At that moment, I had a sudden urge to write something, I had absolutely no plans for doing so, but the urge had struck me badly out of nowhere.
But what did I want to write?
Well, nothing in particular. Just the feeling, thoughts about what my eyes were seeing then. Something that would remind me of that particular moment again and again. But I chose to feel instead of writing. I also did get busy with some other stuff, but I really wished to put some of those feelings into words. Maybe some of those words would have taken a different sequence, held a different tone, a different meaning, that I may not be able to pull out now.
But whatever, I have no regrets. Because at that time, I lived in the moment. Even though now I can’t confine what I felt back then in words, but the memories would surely keep those them evergreen in my heart.
Ah! Those precious moments! I would love to visit them over and over again.
While traveling home a couple of days ago from a dystopian city, where dreams and hopes get crushed each moment, the sky cried its heart out with a solemn downpour of unwanted solitude. It was a mundane ride in general, except for the bit where me and my friend talked about our past aspirations and lost loves.
The megalopolis of piss, poop and pollution never really called out to me with its venomous air and the cramped bird coops treated as human domiciles. As I watched the rain droplets race across the window pane, I took my phone out in hopes of taking one of those cliched monotone, bleak social media photos of a blurred out window. As my phone made that fake and faint sound of shutter drop, the thought hit me out of the blue.
Oftentimes in life, we bipedals like to look at the blurry window panes while forgetting to glance at what is happening on the other side.
And as the thought had hit my temple hard, glancing outside is what I did.
The traffic light declared red, and our car came to a stop. Out there in the rain, I saw a hawker walking along the road. Drenched in rain, matted gray hair, tired eyes, and forced smile of a thousand wrinkles, it was clear time was not kind to him or to his age. Perhaps, he was only years younger than my father. He walked from car to car, showing off the products he had up for sale, and in all honesty, it was said products that had attracted me towards him.
In his hand lay some figurines made out of paper; colorful little cutouts of dolls and animals of various kinds, which moved when you shook the stick attached to them. He looked earnest as he tried to sell his offerings, but none of the windows ever lowered to buy his goods. Kids these days have traded paper for screens. No one cares anymore for such toys made with love. When he stopped outside my window, I looked at his eyes and saw a tiny yet tired flicker of hope. And I tried to buy some of that flicker in the form of those figurines.
There are many like him who roam in the traffic stops. Those who sell unusual products like him are not few in numbers. And people who spend days selling paper dolls, their daily earnings do not really amount to much. Might not even be enough to provide three square meals for his family. But, with his cents that this particular doll maker earns everyday, he has to pay for a multitude of other expenses.
That car ride home may have cost more than what he earns in a day. As I sat inside the car, getting air-conditioned air wafted across my face, while being sheltered from the harsh weather and uncalled rain, I was unconsciously spending a day's earning of a man who was just outside my window.
Oftentimes in life, we bipedals like to look at the blurry window panes while forgetting to glance at what is happening on the other side.
The focus always stays inwards.
The shutter only ever drops when it concerns only us.
But,
the separation between privilege and misfortune
is only a blurred out window pane.
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