CRUSH!
By
Tashmiah Zaman and Sabrina F Ahmad
Teenage
love, fleeting as it is, happens to be the most powerful, passionate
love of all. Wise people dismiss it as mere infatuation, but for all
its novelty and youthful naivete, the romance that surrounds it, fleeting
as it may be, is unmatched. Indeed, a youthful crush is the sweetest
taboo.
Teens usually
have crushes on classmates, senior students or even on teachers. These
crushes usually occur in school, and they might be very short-lived,
but when Cupid's arrow strikes, well the world seems different. Life
takes on a colour and flavour of its own.
Prior to The Crush,
life is all about waking up in the morning, cursing the school for
starting so early and dressing up lazily, wishing it was the weekend
so that they could have slept for a longer time. They wear their uniforms,
boys tucking in their shirts, (ironed or wrinkled, who cares?) so
that 'Rozie Miss' doesn't give them detention, and girls clipping
their nails to look neat and tidy . School life is all about books
and studies, grades and sports, bunking class or playing pranks on
teachers. Conversation flows freely about subjects like music and
hobbies, and how perfectly frightful Trigonometry is.
Everything changes
when The Crush happens. It's like the Celine Dion song:
'Hush now, I see a light in the sky
It's almost blinding me
I can't believe, I've been touched by an angel with love.'
Now the same people
who hated the alarm clock for ringing are up at the crack of dawn,
preparing for a big day at school. For boys, the shirts mysteriously
fall out over their suddenly baggy trousers, refusing to be tucked
in, and their hair, in an amazing indifferent to gravitational forces,
rises up in spikes. Girls discover the magic of make-up, and instead
of the school libraries, the washroom becomes a favourite haunt, as
it is the perfect place to secretly experiment with lip-gloss and
mascara without being caught by the eagle-eyed teachers. Scrunchies,
rubber bands and all other forms of hair fasteners are forgotten as
they discover the Hair Straightener.
Conversation that
once revolved around things like Science and Geography, cricket and
basketball, now is carried on in blushing whispers, and the topics
under discussion are mostly the members of the opposite sex who's
hot, and who's not. Interestingly enough, if you listen to girls talking
about their crushes, you'll find that though every third sentence
they speak refers to the ones they like, they display a curious inability
to pronounce the loved ones' names, be they close acquaintances. Instead,
they find interesting nicknames for the 'Crushable One'. Examples
include names as bizarre as 'Mr. Hot', 'Hiroo', "Tehari"…
As for the boys,
they'll first withdraw into themselves and pretend that they don't
have a crush on Amina Miss from History Class (yes, they frequently
fall for older women at this stage, but this is a broad generalisation).
If someone asks, they'll be very vociferous in their denials. Then
gradually, pressure builds up, and they confide in their close mates
that 'The chick in my coaching class is very cute.' Sports and studies
take a back seat as the number one priority for both sexes becomes
to impress those on whom they have a crush.
Now, this whole
situation would be rather amusing where it not for the fact that these
crushes cause the particularly foolhardy ones to take some dangerously
reckless steps. Girls usually do stupid things like going on crash
diets to lose weight, with a bit of TV influence which shows 'Thin
is in'.
Boys try to impress
the girls in a different way. Some will take up habits like smoking
to 'look cool'. Others might try to give off an air of being 'macho'
by suddenly developing a disrespect for authority. By flouting school
rules or being cheeky towards the teachers, they try to show the girls
that they are the ones on top. Those that can afford it will show
off through their gadgets. Snazzy cell-phones with built-in cameras
and polyphonic ring-tones, souped-up cars with fancy (and often unbecoming)
lighting, mufflers, howlers and cacophonous sound systems suddenly
become mandatory. Friends become rivals as they end up having crushes
on the same girl or guy. For some it leads to serious depression as
usually these "Puppy love" turns out to be negative.
Before one starts
to think about imposing a ban on crushes altogether, rest assured
that it is perfectly possible for a crush to have a positive effect
on a young person, and it does happen. The smart ones, instead of
neglecting important things to waste time on looks and toys, will
try to hone their skills and talents to win the limelight. They study
harder in order to secure the best grades, or pick up on new interests
and hobbies, so that, in addition to admiration from the Crushable
One, they also win approval from teachers and parents. Talk about
having it all and all it takes is a little guidance.
At
the end of the day, after weighing the pros and cons of crushes, there's
no denying that life is more interesting because these things come
and go. When a crush happens, everything seems so beautiful, sweet
and fresh, and when the crush crashes, as they often do, for a while,
life doesn't seem worth living. At the end of the day, one should
remember that IT'S ALL PART OF GROWING UP!
Who's the Boss?
By Tahiat-e-Mahboob
There was a time
when people felt they were doomed because the phone was out of order.
I remember my days as a teenager (gosh, I feel old!). The moment that
I would pick up the phone, look up at the ceiling and say, "Why
God? Why?" my parents would know. "The phone?" my Mom
would ask with a knowing smile. And my days, from then till the day
it was fixed, would be miserable.
Times
have changed. I'm no longer as dependent on the phone as I once was.
Now coming to some greater evils. The computer. I must confess, without
a computer, at times I feel like what's the point of existing? But
there are millions of people who feel the same way (I know at least
seven thousand five hundred people who feel that way). It's funny
how you watch the Matrix trilogy and say, "Like that's ever going
to happen. Computers ruling us. Yeah right!" But then think again.
Not that I believe this theory but sometimes I wonder if I'm the boss
of my PC or whether the PC is my boss. The fact that I'm extremely
dependent on a computer becomes very evident when I trudge through
the eighteen inches of snow from building to building in search of
a computer to write my term paper on. It was very evident last week
when I returned home to find that my PC was in shambles. In the week
that followed I felt like a caged bird (I don't know why) whose freedom
rested not on opening the cage door but rather on turning on the computer.
Before I get further
I should clarify one thing though. Whenever I refer to a computer
please keep in mind that I'm referring to a computer equipped with
the Internet. It's funny how many people think that in America everything
runs like clockwork and the system never goes down. Well wrong again.
I remember my first week in college. The Internet system had gone
down and the blaster virus was making its rounds on the network. Sometimes
the Internet wouldn't work, sometimes it was slow, and sometimes I
could hear the guys across or down the hall screaming that one of
their PC's had the blasted blaster. But things got better in time
(luckily) although there wasn't a single month that went by without
ResNet sending an e-mail saying the system was down and was being
fixed. In spite of this, in the last ten months my habits have changed.
I was always dependent on the PC but never really interested about
it. Combine that with the fact that at my college everything was already
set up and when the Net did work, it was super fast. Also, whenever
there was a problem all we had to do was dial 4567 for ResNet to come
to the rescue. All this has now turned my PC knowledge into mulch.
I realized this today when I had to set up my PC. I felt like the
dimwit that my friends were trying to convince me I already was.
And
that sadly brings me to my conclusion. Have we become that dependent
on electronics (phones, computers, hair dryers, coffee makers an God
knows what else) that when they stop functioning, we stop functioning?
Are we to keep on filling the pockets of Bill Gates, AT & T (or
in our case TNT) and a million other corporations because we think
without their products we'd be crippled. I don't know. But then again
I'm a dimwit. So the next time one of your beloved gadgets goes wrong
ask yourself the same question and see if you agree with what your
brain tells you.
