Home   |  Issues  |  The Daily Star Home | Volume 3, Issue 42, Tuesday June 6, 2006

 

 

Essentials

666

The sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year of a new millennium will bring about the antichrist... at least that's what they say.

Many observations and debates are going as to what evil will happen that day but if you look back say a century ago, did much of anything happen on June 6th, 1906?

So these are probably just myths and figments of fiction of ones dark thoughts. However at times it doesn't harm to make a fuss about such things or indulge in these dark issues just to feel the adrenaline rush. Over the centuries, many people have thought about 666 or the mark of the beast. Almost everyone has heard about the number 666. Why shouldn't the Devil have his own mark for his followers? Satan wants everything that the Lord has. If the old serpent couldn't have a mark for his followers, he might as well creep away and pout.

Basically it's not a day or date, but a mark on the head and hand of everyone who follow the antichrist, which allows them to buy and sell at that time. 6 symbolize incompleteness, whereas 7 (according to Jewish tradition) is a complete number. There are 3 sixes because, just as God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit make up the Holy trinity, Satan, the antichrist, and the false prophet make up the unholy trinity.

In the past, Satan and his fallen angels rebelled against God. The Dragon and his fallen angels lost the war in Heaven. The fallen angels or dimming stars have no hope or future with their Creator.

The Creator covered the angel Satan with the finest gems in the universe. He was next to God in the structure of heaven. Then pride overtook Satan: he wanted to ascend … above the stars of God, or the other created angels. The sly serpent tried to make himself equal with God. He wasted his position!

Thus he took a vow to avenge this insult by derailing God's children, that's us. From what the society has come to now, it didn't take him much to poison us with his seven deadly sins.

- LS Desk


Under a different sky
Ek ekta din boro eka lage…

By Iffat Nawaz

I got an email the other day from a friend, telling me about how she had bumped into someone we had gone to school with. The subject of the email was that person's name. She was a classmate, someone we saw five days a week for at least ten years and yet I couldn't recall her name, or her face. When my friend tried to remind me, I felt like I was searching through old dreams, hazy, layered. As always I found that the past is not always perfect, but still beautiful somehow.

My friend is an expatriate like me, and naturally happy whenever she runs into a familiar face in a land so far away from home- not the kind of happiness that overwhelms you, but the kind you feel on seeing something written in Bengali letters in a foreign land. It's like an unexpected pleasant surprise that makes you smile- sometimes not enough to miss home, but enough to write a few lines about it.

I hardly ever bump into any familiar faces here- no friends or acquaintances from my past, or my childhood. I don't expect to so I assume they are not around. I go about my daily life surrounded by new faces. And sometimes, rarely, when an old face turns up from my past, it has turned so old that it is new again and I don't recognize it! Familiarity is a strange sentiment.

I often wonder about crossing paths with someone from the past without knowing it, and if they would recognize me. I know I have changed a lot inside, but does my outside reflect all that as well? And if someone did see me and recognize me, what made them not reach out to me, call me by a familiar name? Was it just hesitation from fear of being wrong, or was it more about not wanting to go down a once familiar path just for a few moments thinking, where will that really lead? It would probably lead nowhere, I agree.

The strange thing is, among the new faces I come across I sometimes find the old ones. These new people I have never met, yet in my mind it often feels like I know them. Doesn't she look like so and so? Isn't his smile just like someone or other- someone from the past? I see common features everywhere and voices. The faces may belong to different races and colours but I still feel like I have seen them. I have seen their eyes or their mouths, or their bodies, somewhere before. They are unknown yet known, hence judged, excluded, and not given a chance to get to know. Who am I waiting for? In my search for new experiences have I lost my direction? My preconceived ideas have betrayed me and similarities have just become an excuse to move forward without looking back.

I was walking through a busy street once, and someone called me by my nick name, once, twice, thrice, and then for the fourth time but I kept on walking without responding. As the person sped up to me and nudged me, I turned around but could only stare blankly in their direction for a few seconds before finally realizing that I was being called by a nick name that has been with me longer than my full proper name which I go by these days. My mind did pick up the calls, but my body and my conscious state didn't make me stop, as if it wasn't me they were after but someone else entirely.

This new shell I have created for myself and for you, I hope it suits us both, even on days, when “bhule jawa” to forget and “eka laga” to feel lonesome are no longer justifications…if you smile, I promise to smile back.


Check it out

Grameen checks this summer

Grameen check is undoubtedly one of our very own brands. These checks are perfect for our tropical weather; they are made from 100 percent cotton yarns of very fine quality. The yarns are produced on the traditional looms, which attract consumers with a love for all things 'deshi' like bee to honey.

Grameen Shamogree outlets all over the city have launched their new line for the summer and monsoon. Sarees, shirts, fatua, shalwar kameez in blocks, appliqué are all available at reasonable prices. Check out their stock while it lasts.

- LS Desk


On the cover

We're getting naughty this week. Slither to the center for the sizzle and the sin.

Devil on the cover: Khaled
Devil behind the lens: Munem Wasif
Make-up devilry: Farzana Shakil Hair and Beauty Salon

 

 
 
 

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