অপেক্ষারত
— রি হোসাইন
পাখনাগুলো খসে পড়েছে কবেই,
ওড়ার স্বপ্ন ছেড়ে যে দিতে হবেই।
বয়স আমার বাড়ছে প্রসঙ্গত,
মেঘগুলো তাই হচ্ছে যে সংযত।

বয়স আমার সন্ধ্যাবেলার সমান,
কোথায় জানি হারিয়েছে আসমান!
কাঁপতেছে বুক, মাতপছে জমি-জমা,
এবার আঁধার দাঁড়িয়ে অপেক্ষারত।

এমনি করে ভোর হবে না যেদিন,
সব জমানো হৃদয়-পোড়ানো ঋণ,
শূন্যতে চোখ মেলেই রেখো সেদিন,
নোনা জলেই ঝরে যাবো অবিরত।

Awaiting

Written and translated by Ri Hossain

My wings have shed their feathers long ago,
I must let go of dreams to fly and soar.
With passing years, my age begins to show,
The quiet clouds stay still and rise no more.

My evening hour arrives with fading light,
The open sky has vanished from my view!
The earth now shakes, my heart recoils in fright,
As shadows wait to claim the coming night.

On that dark dawn when suns no longer rise,
And all the debts of burning hearts remain,
Look up into the void with open eyes—
I’ll pour down endlessly within your tears.

Author Bio:

Ri Hossain is a prominent voice in Bengali poetry, recognized as a rebellious and resilient figure in the contemporary literary landscape. Born on August 19, 1981, in Rangpur, Bangladesh, with ancestral roots in Munshiganj, he began his literary journey in 1993. His poetry deeply reflects personal experiences, societal conflicts, urban alienation, and a steadfast commitment to free expression. Author of several works, including the poetry collection Kobitar Abhyutthan Chai (2024), his writing bridges social consciousness with profound psychological and intimate introspection.

And we drink vodka

People yoked in the field until old age

Like buffalo

Like horses

Instead of buffalo

Instead of horses

Harder than being a buffalo

Harder than being a horse

Tilling the soil is like digging a hole for their own coffin

People yoked in someone else’s field in their own village

Here in this field the villagers get their own death instead of fruit

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

They say that the whites exploited the blacks, forcing them to work until exhaustion and death

They say that the blacks were slaves in the hands of foreign white rulers

But what is it like to be a peasant and a slave in the hands of your own rulers

White peasant serfs put to work for other white people who pretend that they are not serfs and not peasants

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

What is night? This is the time when you can steal the harvest from your own field secretly while the owner is not looking

Owners generally do not see many things

At that time, blind peasants work and twice-blind soldiers die

But the peasants, still harnessed to the yoke, dug like madmen

A coffin? A ditch? No, they dug carrots, potatoes, collected wheat and oats, and along with them they got diseases and death

And what could naked, hungry peasants do against people with machine guns and smiles made of knives?

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

This is a vicious circle

This is a circle that even Dante couldn’t get to

This wheat grew on the bones of someone’s grandmothers

This oats are soaked in the blood of someone’s grandfathers

The future has the wrong door

The future hasn’t come

This wheat grew instead of someone’s hair

This oats ripened instead of someone’s blush

Century after century

Serfdom

Stone by stone

And we, half-drunk, with friends, vomit standing on this field

We spit out pieces of undigested food

And we drink until we forget because we can’t help but drink

And we die because we can’t help but die

THE LION’S ROAR: LIV JAGRELL ON METAL, FEROCITY, AND THE MORAL FIRE THAT DRIVES LIV SIN

by Alex S Johnson 

When Liv Jagrell entered my zoom studio for The Kandy Fontaine Show, the atmosphere shifted the way it only does when someone who has lived their art — not performed it, not approximated it, but lived it — enters the room. I introduced her the way she deserved: “My special guest in the studio with me today is none other than Liv Jagrell from Liv Sin, formerly of Sister Sin, a truly iconic metal singer, songwriter, performer… you have a stage presence that is just fully ferocious and committed.” Because she does. She’s one of those rare front‑people whose intensity isn’t an act; it’s a state of being.

I told her about that moment at a Judas Priest show in Florida years ago, when a guy — maybe Brazilian, maybe Argentinian — grabbed me and said, “You’re my brother, you’re my brother.” That’s metal. That’s the thing. And Liv knew it instantly. She just said, “Yeah, you know,” because she does know. She’s lived it.

So I asked her what first captured her about metal energy, and she said, “I think that, well, the metal energy I had to say was thanks to Pantera.” She remembered discovering them at fifteen or sixteen, around 1995–96. “I discovered Pantera, and that hooked me in.” Before that, she’d been immersed in Nirvana and Courtney Love. “Courtney Love was my first idol because I thought that she was super cool… she can be a rock star. I can be a rock star.” Nirvana and Courtney Love got her into music, into wanting to play, and then Pantera sealed her fate: “This is the music I want to do.”

I remembered when grunge came online and hit metal “like a hammer.” Ronnie James Dio playing the Troubadour during Angry Machines, looking a little bitter because suddenly nobody was playing classic metal. Liv remembered it too. “During the grunge period, there was also these other types of music in at the bottom… the heavier stuff, like extreme metal, started to grow as well.”

Grunge reacted against polished pop; extreme metal reacted against grunge. “They were still popping around,” she said, “and what they started back then developed, and we got all this metal just coming from the underground.”

We talked about Pantera’s Reinventing the Steel and Judas Priest’s return with Angel of Retribution. Liv lit up: “Angel of Retribution, yeah, yeah.” I told her Halford seemed possessed, like he was saying, “We’re gonna school you motherfuckers, and this is… we created metal.” Liv nodded. “He’s the metal god… one of the idols that I’ve had and looked up to… also as a stage person.”

I mentioned how Halford has a little Elvis in him, a little Liberace, a little Freddie Mercury — how every great performer steals from everywhere. Then I asked her what she’d woven into her own performance DNA. She said, “First of all, Dee Snider definitely… his stage presence always blew my mind… he’s on stage for the audience. He’s an entertainer.” She named Angela Gossow: “How she just takes the stage… she’s born with it.” And Sebastian Bach: “He also has a lot of energy on stage.” She admitted, “Absolutely I’ve stolen some parts from them… or got inspired, maybe.”

I talked about Jeff Beck, about Lemmy’s generosity, about bandleaders who know everything happening onstage. Liv explained how Liv Sin uses cues. “We have some cues in some of the songs… I know I can go back and then we know that someone will go forward…sometimes it’s a guitar solo, sometimes a bass move.

“It’s not very staged… could be two, could be one, could be three… then I move very freely.”

Her priority is always the audience. “Sometimes I can get into the audience and I can miss my band members… oops, there was a guitar player or my hair gets stuck in the bass.” She laughed. “We headbang a lot, and yes, it sucks a lot. It gets stuck.”

I asked her what it was like working with Lemmy, and she corrected me gently. “I have not worked with Lemmy. I’ve only played support.” Sister Sin supported Motörhead for two shows. “I’m very happy that I got the opportunity.”

She talked about doing a Motörhead cover with Doro — “Lemmy was not involved… we asked Doro if she wanted to join in, and she wanted to do that.”

When I asked about memorable bands she’d performed with, she didn’t hesitate. “Obviously Motörhead,” she said. “It was such a huge thing.” She also loved touring with Udo. “They’re really nice people… we had a lot of fun with them… still talk to the guys from time to time…it’s not with every main band you get that kind of feeling,” she said, “but we really had fun together.”

I told her a story about Oslo — Madder Mortem, Gorgoroth, Emperor, Red Harvest, Faust — and a Swedish girl face‑planting drunk at three in the morning. I asked if Scandinavia had a drinking problem. Liv answered with clarity. “I’m not sure it’s more than in any other countries… but in the Scandinavian countries we have more of a tradition of only drinking on weekends. People squeeze everything into Friday and Saturday. Everything is cold and boring, and you work weekdays, and then the weekend comes, and then you try to squeeze in all the alcohol you can.” She added that younger generations drink less now.

Then we got into the heart of it — the difference between Sister Sin and Liv Sin. Liv explained it plainly. “Sister Sin is obviously more rock and roll… the roots are from Motörhead… some punk rock… but it’s more like rock and roll with a bit of metal in it.” She talked about reunion shows with Accept, balancing schedules, her long history with the members. “They’re great songwriters.”

When Sister Sin quit in 2015, she was devastated. But she also felt an urge not to give up. “If I’m gonna do my own band, what is the music I desire to do?” she asked herself. “It is more metal because I’m more of a metalhead than a rock and roll girl.” She loves heavy riffs, double‑bass drums, juicy production, synths. “You can’t have that in Sister Sin… it doesn’t work with that kind of music.”

So she started Liv Sin — and started exploring her voice. “I started to learn how to growl… I found that I love doing that.” She also learned she could sing softly. “I was like, I can never sing soft… I can never growl… and I’ve realized I can sing soft and I can growl.” She built a bedroom studio, experimented with production, tried everything — soft singing, growling, screams. “I found out that I could do things that I didn’t think I could do.”

The collapse of Sister Sin became a catalyst. “I was devastated,” she said. “But now I’m happy that it happened… it gave me the opportunity to develop and find my own voice.” Now, when she returns to Sister Sin, she brings that confidence with her. “I write my own music… I write my lyrics… I write my melodies… I can do whatever I want… and that is empowering.”

And then came the part that matters deeply to her — the animals.

Liv didn’t just mention animal rights; she opened a vein. She told me she’d been vegetarian since birth. “I grew up with animals,” she said. “Cats, birds… animals were always around me.” She talked about how natural it felt, how she never had the moment of “deciding” to care — she simply always did.

Then she told me about Cecil the lion.

“When Cecil was killed,” she said, “I was so angry. I was devastated.” That anger became “King of the Damned.” “We used it to raise funds for animal rights,” she said. She talked about Djurrätt, the Swedish organization she supports. She talked about how the song became a way to channel grief into action.

She told me, “I can relate more to animals sometimes. It’s easier to trust them.” And she meant it. There was no performative activism in her voice — only conviction.

I mentioned Napalm Death and Carcass being vocal about anti‑vivisection. “I admire bands who use their platform,” she said. “Music can make people aware. It can make people think.” She talked about how Liv Sin’s fans have supported her activism, how they’ve shown up not just for the music but for the message.

She talked about compassion as rebellion — a radical stance in a world that rewards cruelty. She talked about how metal, at its best, has always been a refuge for people who feel too much.

We talked about Eastern philosophy — her mother teaching yoga and religion, her childhood spent in temples, mosques, churches. She explained Kali Yuga, the chaotic age in Hindu cosmology. “It’s the worst period,” she said, “and we are still in it.” Writing helps her process the overwhelm of witnessing a world in collapse.

As we wound down, Liv outlined her future plans — festivals in Sweden and France, weekend shows, a support tour with Elaine, and writing a new Liv Sin album after the fall tour. She expressed gratitude to her fans. “Thanks to our very supportive fans, we are still here.”

I presented her with a Pawsie Award for cultural achievement and humanitarian effort. She smiled and flashed the Pawsie sign.

(Thanks to Lee Bailes for the interview transcription.)

Alex S Johnson’s 30+ year history as an author, journalist, editor, spoken word performer and educator includes work archived at Harvard University’s “mega-library,” the Widener, collaborations and performances with the likes of Iris Berry (Lame Flames, Pink Sabbath, the Ringling Sisters with Pleasant Gehman, Border Radio with John Doe; Punk Hostage Press); Richard Modiano (Emeritus Executive Director of Beyond Baroque literary arts center, Venice Beach, California, which has hosted the likes of Dennis Cooper, Patti Smith, Exene Cervenka, Iris Berry, Pleasant Gehman, and Alex S Johnson); David J. Haskins (Songwriter of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”; co-founder of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets); Ellyn Maybe (author of The Cowardice of Amnesia and praised by the likes of Jackson Browne and Greil Marcus) and Lasara Firefox Allen, bestselling author of Sexy Witch and Jailbreaking the Goddess). He has also interviewed the likes of Ronnie James Dio of Black Sabbath, Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead, counterculture icons like Gitane Demone, Rozz Williams, R.U. Sirius, Jarboe, Diamanda Galas and Danielle Willis. He lives in Carmichael, California with his family. 

Can you hear Chopin too?

Someone knocks at the door

It is Uncle Frankie

Who always asks for sugar

Who I always make a cup of hot coffee for

Who I always make a sandwich for

Sometimes I give him fruit

My parents’ aren’t here

And I am scared of my brother

There will be consequences

There are always consequences

So I say, Nothing today

I can’t help you today

And close the door

This morning, 

my brother locked 

the white cupboard

I heard the lock click

My brother wants to put a gate 

up in front of the house

But his druggie friends 

are welcome in his parents’ house

There was one druggie, Christopher, 

that his son didn’t like

My brother and Christopher would drink 

rum and coke and whisky 

in his father’s study

One day, my mother even made hotdogs

My nephew stayed in the room

While my brother and Christopher 

ate at the dining room table

As I slept in my bedroom

The men who drank that night away

walked up and down in the darkness

of the passage to the bathroom

I didn’t sleep that night

For a long time, I just haven’t felt safe

in my childhood bedroom

in my parents’ house

How to stay sane?

How to stay safe?

I eat noodles 

as if they were psalms

I make hymns 

out of mashed potato

I turn the roasted vegetables 

into gospel truths

And I wait, watch, look and listen

as the vegetable soup morphs

into the verdant-green jewel of the African continent

I want to forget about all the brown girls

who laughed at me at the Model C school 

I went to in high school

I want to forget about all those brown clowns

laughing, pointing at me

Those girls who knew my brother

Those girls who partied with my brother

Those girls whose sisters knew my brother

Those same girls who partied with my brother

I want to forget about the year 

I spent in the library pretending to read

As my eyes watered

Two silvery-edged ponds

I want to forget about all those brown faces 

who laughed at me at the police station

Those brown faces that remembered my brother 

from high school in a subeconomic area

when he left Grey because he had cool brown friends

who drank and smoked cigarettes

He was nearly expelled from his new school

because of those cool brown friends

I can hear Chopin

in my mother’s voice

I can hear the fear 

in my mother’s voice

Go to your room

Read a book

Knit, she says

She gets 

into the car

They will be back 

within the hour

from Cancer Care

But, it will be 

an eternity for me.

DIGITALIZATION AND REWORKING EDUCATIONAL PARADIGMS

Dr. Jernail S. Anand.

In the present scenario, we are witnessing a perceptible economy of time, coupled with extreme precision,  in the performing of various functions relating to human mind. The human mind has its own speed, but machines have enhanced human capability, so that what once took hours can now be accomplished in seconds. The AI revolution has taken the world by storm, rather it seems we are losing our feet, and already flying in the tempting world of the AI.

If we can perceive it, let us focus on the impact of the new civilization, its TV ads, and the films available round the clock on OTT platforms.  Children take far less time to grow young, and then, old too when we used to have our adult years. Very small kids know everything about rapes, baddies, killings and daggers, and even murders. In a way, time has galloped upon them, and infused in them wisdom in a few years, which otherwise, would have come, or may not have come at all, in decades.  It is not only knowledge, it is also the time taken that is under study today.  To put it simply, I am pointing out how much time our new generations take to mature.

From this premise, let me now introduce the idea of educational paradigms. Centuries ago, when time moved on the back of camels, our colonial educationists decided that men need at least ten years to complete basic education. And education should be imparted in annual slabs of ten years. The whole month, and then, multiplied by 12, students would keep going to school and coming back, sun or shower, and studying hard at home. The hard work helped to get them high divisions, on the basis of which they could enter some clerical job. This used to be the highest dream of the parents.  

Decades after Independence, and on the threshold of a digital revolution, Matriculation still means ten years, and B.A. six years [plus 2 plus 4]. What do we want to show? As the times are changing, and time itself  is losing its longevity, are our students gaining in lethargy? Do we think they are becoming dullards so that they still need sixteen years to do B.A. and then, one more year to do M.A.  and thereafter,  three years [extendable up to five] for doing Ph.D?

The time span is horrifying. Do we want that our young men should spend their creative period in waiting for periods, labs, and library hours? Are we living in fifties, to expect young people to waste their precious time, ten years for Matriculation, and six years for B.A. It is simply atrocious in these times of AI and faster processing of data.

How fast are our kids, look at the games they play on their mobile phones. How smart is this race! We are fools if we think they should be forced to spend one year in one class, and ten years to do Matriculation and then B.A. and M.A. and so on. 

 A more practical way is to free the education system from the stranglehold of annual examination system, and make things free for the kids. Those who want, or need slow doses,  may receive instruction in the schools on yearly basis, but those who can master the syllabus in two or three months, must not be forced to stay for the whole year in the same class. It is a grave injustice with the truly brilliant students. They should be allowed to appear in the final examination, even after two or three months. And if they clear, let them move to the next class.  Even during Vedic period, such restrictions of time were never imposed. When the Guru felt the disciple has learned enough, he would ask him for Gurudakshina. (Parting gift from the disciple).

 We are doing great disservice to the future generations by holding them for longer periods in the same class, simply because our policy wants to delay their maturation for a degree, and subsequently, their race for jobs. It is dire injustice with human intelligence, which must stop. NEP 2020 which already talks about flexible entry and exit and credit banks is a good beginning in this direction, and needs to be taken to its logical conclusion.

Extending on the same argument, I feel the time fixed for Ph.D degree needs to be reconsidered.  We should focus on the essential ideas which a scholar generates and wants to convey. Moreover, no research which does not serve an ethical necessity should be allowed to be taken up. We must ensure students do not squander their time and energy, and also their youth for years on a degree in these times when people are already short on time. China has already done away with the need for submitting a thesis under the new Degree Law implemented we.f. January 2025. Under this law, the  only consideration for doctoral degree, as an alternative to thesis,  is the innovation which a scholar can present, such as new equipment, software, devices, prototypes, technological processes,  or project documentations which demonstrates  viability in real life. Wei Lianfeng at Harbin Institute of Technology became first to get Ph.D degree on the basis of practical results – a vacuum laser welding equipment. 

AI and digitalization have offered us the facilities, and cut down on the time taken to amass material. Libraries too should be digitalized. We need to revolutionize the idea of a University. We should value human time and energy which is these days is wasted in making rounds of libraries and on formal education where hundreds of irregularities have crept in due to human factors.

 It is better if we welcome the digitalisation, and involve AI in our studies, and stop wasting our time on amassing information, which is available at the click of a button. We should cut down on the time taken for the class work.  Years should not matter. It is time which should matter, and students should be given a free hand to decide their own time, and the focus should shift from formality of education to creativity and innovation. 

DR JERNAIL S ANAND

Dr. Jernail S. Anand, with 200 books to his credit [20 epics] is a Chandigarh-based  polymath, and a vital architect of the 21st century ethical literature whose seminal work ‘Lustus: The Prince of Darkness’ challenges the moral complacency of our era.  Founding President of the International Academy of Ethics, and Laureate of Charter of Morava [Serbia], Seneca [Italy], Franz Kafka [Germany, Ukraine, Czech Rep] and Maxim Gorky [Russia],  his name is inscribed on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He is an Honorary Member of the Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade. Anand has built a poetics that unites ethics, Vedic spirituality, social critique, and the philosophy of meaning. Anand presents an articulated perspective on poetry as an instrument of planetary consciousness. A moral philosopher, professor, and international speaker, Anand has devoted much of his research to the ethical dimension of language, to the responsibility of the individual within a globalised society, and to the relationship between matter, consciousness, and transcendence. Email: anandjs55@yahoo.com.

Bibliography:

https://sites.google.com/view/bibliography-dr-jernal-singh/home

https://share.google/QtiWrcFr7Sca7v0qC

A boy

Eva Petropoulou Lianou

A fairy tale story about a Boy….

….

A story about the children who lost their parents in the war.

Arzaff lived in a block of flats on the third floor.

Every day he went to school

Every night he went home and read.

He was a good student.

His mother was proud

His father was happy too.

On Saturday, Arzaff asked the father to go with his friends and  play football.

-It is dangerous to play in the field, it is very close to the wall.

I do not want you to go, said his father.

Arzaff cried, hit the door loudly and left.

He went to the fields with the other guys.

 They played football until night came and all the kids left.

He returned home to find the apartment building bombarded by rockets. 

There was nothing from the second floor and above.

 The building had been opened in two.

That afternoon was the last time Azraff saw his parents alive in Lebanon 

Fate

Heaven is a beautiful thing to feel for

Like Eve in a white wedding gown

Good people don’t need a thing to live for

It has everything with goodness

Like pristine and noble of a rose bouquet

Or the prayer book that Good bled on his ideal

It’s the bad people that earth’s pleasures are for

Somebody I used to know faked 

Being a Moralist and got praised for

The eternal hanging note of happiness and love

Sadness is real for the philosophical mind

They dwindle and get cursed for watching life

I wish upon monks and priests

Live life like greenery.