Tareq Nurul Hasan

 This ticket to childhood cost me only $20. :) 

  How Mother Language Day was born from this country's fight for its mother tongue International Mother Language Day, which falls on 21 February, has been recognised by the UN since 1999. However, this celebration of cultural and linguistic diversity has its roots in a 1950s movement that fought for the right to speak Bangla in Bangladesh, then called East Pakistan. Click here to read the complete article on SBS

  ‘Free, non-judgemental, accessible’: How your local library is a sanctuary of health and wellness Far from just a spot for bookworms, the humble local library is at the frontline of the fight against a 'loneliness epidemic' - with a recent survey showing many people think it plays an important role in their mental health and wellbeing.  Click here to read the complete article on SBS. 

-Isaac Asimov-   Actually, science fiction is committed neither to marvels nor to disasters. It deals with possible situations. It tries to draw a rational and self-consistent society, different from ours, which may be better, even much better, than our society; or worse, even much worse; or better in some respects and worse in others. The point of the story, then, is how people live and react in such societies.  Naturally, trouble makes for greater drama than does happiness, and it asks more in the way of human response. Therefore, science fiction (like all forms of literature) is more likely to deal with discomfort than with comfort. Furthermore, it must be granted that given the direction in which our society is now moving, we seem much more likely to end in the soup than to be swimming in the cream. ( From the introduction for Octavia E. Butler's story Speech Sounds )

  INTERVIEWER Do you get letters from people who've read your work? CARVER Letters, tapes, sometimes photographs. Somebody just sent me a cassette—songs that had been made out of some of the stories. I wonder, if Raymond Carver was referring  to the album by the Australian singer Paul Kelly . 

  William Trevor   I still remember the very first time I put on glasses.   Until then, for some time, I used to press my eyes, to see the speed signs properly on the road.   While I was reading a book, sometimes I used to bring it too close to my eyes without even knowing.   So when I went to the doctor, he gave me these glasses. And after that I found out, the world around me was not as blurry as it seemed to be!   William Trevor, is just like my new pair of glasses, with power.   Reading Trevor means I could see more. Those small letters, printed on the pages are able to paint lives with thousand of colours.   Using the same old humans of this same old earth, he tells us brand new stories.   Happy birthday, dear maestro.