Her words will shed a light to the ever demanding corporate culture in Bangladesh which is taking toll on the private lives of the employees. Here is a translation of some excerpts from her post:

“The monthly meetings usually start after 9-10 hours of office work and it is like the women's menstruation period. Some months it bleeds a little more and some months less; the meeting's duration varies like this…..

I have been listening to this for the last five year: we have to increase our clients, we have to increase the deposits, increase the quality of service. How many people are in Dhaka? How many from them can be ushered under the Bank's umbrella? It annoys me.

One stupid suggests we should organize a rally to introduce our Bank to newer communities. We should walk in the streets one to two hours after the office hours to develop public relations and increase clients. I usually can come home after six pm. Why don't I sleep with clients or my colleagues as they are my family now! (They tell) I should not forget that I am a banker even when I am buying small things like socks. I have to befriend the seller. Job is life, job is death.

……..

In one branch of the bank two female employees of the same department got pregnant almost at the same time. The branch manager scolded them and accused that they have done this intentionally so that he will not be able to run this branch smoothly. I think they can introduce a rule of submitting a roaster at the start of an year scheduling when female employees will have sex and become pregnant. I feel like vomiting hearing about targets now and then.

………

My mind is distracted today. This job has taken everything from my life, sound sleep, time to love, time to think, everything. I am unable to find any alternative. I could not write any short story last two years. Many plots play in my mind but as I come home very tired I can't put them on paper. I am forgetting to sing. I feel I will never be a singer. Someday I will forget how to write too.

I am becoming normal then… ha ha ha..I will go to office everyday, come home, have sex, have babies, will be busy with children's school, will always be at husband's disposal.

I piss on everything.”

بحجة الفن اصبحنا نرى التعري على شاشاتنا العربيه دون ان نستطيع التكلم لأنه عند السؤال عن المشاهد (الساخنه)التي نراها يبررها اصحابها بأنها معالجه للواقع المؤلم او انها شرح لما يدور في مجتمعاتنا

لكن التسميه الحقيقيه لها هي (انحلال اخلاقي وتعري فاضح) وبعد ذلك تصبح بطلة الفيلم او المسلسل سيدة مجتمع وقدوه للكثير من الفتيات وعند حديثها في اي مقابله نرى كل الاحترام والتقدير من المشاهدين الكرام لجهودها المبذوله في سبيل الفن

وفي المقابلات والسهرات التلفزيونيه التي نشاهدها نرى بأن الفنانه الفلانيه تاخذ دور السيده الفاضله في المجتمع الفاضل وتبدأ بالتكلم عن الاخلاقيات والاصول والاتيكيت وكأنها (الامرأه المثاليه)

والمؤسف في الامر هو انه عند مشاهدة هكذا افلام وخصوصا من قبل الفئه الاكبر في مجتمعاتنا وهي الفئه (المكبوته والمنغلقه) نرى ان معظم الفتيات ينظرون الى العالم الخارجي من خلال ما يشاهدونه في هذا المسلسل او ذاك الفيلم مما يسبب الكثير من الانحلال الاخلاقي عند اعطاء الحريه لهذا النوع من الفتيات اللواتي يحسبن انهن بهذه الطريقه وهذه التصرفات سيكونون ……….سيدات المجتمع

Using art as an excuse, we now see nudity on Arabic television screens without being able to object against the 'steaming' scenes which we watch and its producers describe as ‘dealing with the harsh realities and describing what's really happening in our societies.'

The real description of what we watch on television is unethical behaviour and disgraceful nudity. After that, the heroine in the movie or soap opera becomes a lady of society and a role model for many girls, who appears on television interviews and enjoys the respect and appreciation of viewers for the efforts she exerts to promote art. In such interviews, she embodies the role of a respectable lady of society, and talks about ethics, etiquette and family origins, as is she were the model woman.

What is unfortunate in this is that the large majority of people who watch such programmes as those who are downtrodden and live in closed societies. This is why you see a lot of girls viewing the outside world through what they see in this soap opera or that movie. This causes a lot of moral decay, especially when such girls, who think that behaving in this manner will enable them to become ladies of society, are given their freedom.

Vinodh, one of the core members, just can’t disengage himself from this passion he shares with his bunch.
He writes:

“Come weekends and we’re at our efficient best in rehearsals. Memorizing dialogues, working out the sound ideas, imagining our costumes, and rehearsing our scenes. Pages and pages of lines to memorize in the weekends for the folks who type lines and lines of codes during weekdays. Coffee and colas keep us awake between shots. Playing pranks on each other keeps us all charged up, after all we are in the serious business of making people laugh.”

The countdown for their next production “Once upon a time in Arabia” has begun and they are working overtime for this magical journey to be staged on July 26 and 27, in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. If you happen to be in Chennai, if you’d like to catch the show you can get your tickets at ticketsnew.

Deepa, from Bangalore is calling the recent play she watched, ‘The women in me’, as ‘An intense and absorbing play’. The play is about a man whose wife is dead and he is deeply troubled by that and has lost his emotional balance. Based on the concept - ‘There is a woman in every man and vice versa'. Reviewing the play on Metblogs, Deepa is astounded by the use of Shadow to portray a particular scene and the rapid-fire delivery of dialogue in following sequences.

“The play disturbed me and made me think hard; I am very impressed that such a young man is able to delve so deeply into the male and female psyche and bring out the nuances of how men do not even understand when they are raping their own wives…”

Tanya Behera reviews a play titled ‘Lucknow 76′ organized by Alliance Française de Bangalore, at her blog Remainconnected.

“The plot of the play was based on politics and history, shifting between two time frames of 1876 and 1976 looking at Lucknow city through the eyes of the common man. 1876 was a milestone for the Britishers, as that was the year, when Queen Victoria took over the command from the East India Company. 1976 was also significant in history because during that time, the once proud democracy, India was under the clutches of tin pot dictator, Indira Gandhi who had declared a state of Emergency as the Prime Minister of the nation.”

She goes on to give more information on why the play was named after ‘Lucknow’, not ‘Delhi’, ‘Bombay’ or ‘Calcutta’.

“But then why ‘Lucknow' and why not ‘Delhi' or ‘Bombay' or ‘Calcutta' or ‘Madras' or ‘Bangalore'? Because the director and playwright of the play, Abhishek Majumdar (AM) had spent some part of his childhood in this city. During AM's visits to Lucknow, his grand uncle, a scholar of history and geology had inundated his mind with tales and chronicles about the city from an old bungalow.”

Geetali Tare, writing for HimVani under the post ‘The Shimla tragedy: Missing theatre, missing drama’ wants the following for Shimla:

Unlike films, plays are not a passive, one-way, pre-packaged experience. In plays, as in films, there are rehearsals. But once the show gets going, a theatre artiste does not have the opportunity to give another ‘take’ – to make another attempt at mouthing a dialogue: what has been said, has been said. Audience reactions affect acting as it happens. The warmth in the tone of a speaker travels directly to the viewer; a glimmer of a tear in the performer’s eye immediately causes the spectator to respond. A skilled actor, through the blend of voice, tone, gestures and outfits succeeds in creating a world and transporting his audience to it. The actor’s energy expands and fills up the space which is also occupied by the viewer; the energy flows from one to the other. The viewer feels the despair of Mahatma Gandhi at Pyarelal’s delinquency; he feels Zulfi’s longing for Amrita; he laughs with Dhanjisha Batliwala & quibbles with Madhukar Kulkarni.
Kay Kay, Naseruddin Shah, Dinesh Thakur, Aul Kulkarni, Shabana Azmi, Boman Irani, Mehrbanoo Mody Kotwal, Rahul Da Cunha, Feroze Khan, Sanjana Kapoor, Shernaaz Patel, Rajit Kapoor, Jayati Bhatia: they allow you to enter their world and experience, in the span of two hours, many highs and lows, rapture and anguish, a whole world of moods and happenings.
I want this in Shimla. I want this for Shimla.

The Mumbai Theatre Guide is a dedicated site for reviews and different theatre related events happening in the city of Mumbai.

Links to this post were contributed by Ramya & Sandhya.

The Guayaquil Book Fair (ExpoLibro 2008) recently came to a close, which according to organizers, drew hundreds of thousands of visitors with more than 210 stands [es]. This proves that the reading is not dead, as had been predicted with the arrival of the internet. Interest in literary works is alive and well in Ecuador and during this past week, four authors who are in different provinces of Ecuador contributed to the culture and literature of the country. Two authors are not well known in the field, but by no means, is their contribution any less important : Rafael Mendez and Luis Felipe Mora. The other two are men with extensive knowledge in the field of Sociology and has been on the political scene: Jose Bolivar Castillo and Oswaldo Hurtado, respectively. Some local bloggers provide reviews on these books.

Xavier Oquendo Troncoso provides a review of Que mi alma se la lleve el diablo (May the Devil Take my Soul) written by Rafael Méndez a popular blogger and poet from Guayaquil (Naranjal town). His book is about inspirational poems. Oquendo says:

Este poeta sabe “que la vida va en serio” y que la poesía puede ser el instrumento más loable para alcanzar, sin ningún lenguaje ríspido, el poema.

This poet knows “that life is serious” and that poetry can be an instrument more laudable for achieving, without any rigorous language, poetry.

Now we have to head southern of Ecuador. VivaLoja [es] presents El Ecuador Austral (The Southern Ecuador) and published under patronage of CCE-Loja and the Binational Plan for Border Development, Ecuador Chapter. What is this book about?

La obra de carácter investigativa es una Monografía de la provincia de Loja con interesantes datos del cantón Zaruma (1930) contiene ilustraciones; pintorescas descripciones de pueblos y paisajes; datos estadísticos y noticias históricas y científicas, desconocidas hasta aquí.

This investigative work is a monograph of the province of Loja using interesting data from Zaruma's canton (1930) and contains illustrations, picturesque descriptions of people and landscapes; statistics and historical and scientific news, which had been unknown to date.

Dr. José Bolivar Castillo is a very visible personality for people from Loja and the entire country. He has been a Congressman representing his province and has served as Mayor of Loja on more than one occasion. Cohexista [es] is a blog hailing from the local Technical Universitiy and the author was present when the book Ecuador Equidad (Ecuador Equity) was launched:

…En sintésis habla sobre los hechos pasados, presentes, y propuesta acerca de la regionalización del Ecuador, se hace un análisis de las razones y justificaciones para ver con más pertinencia y objetividad la regionalización horizontal, creo que es entendible que es un tema que nos compete a tod@s los que hacemos país.

In summary, the book talks about past and present events and proposals on the regionalization of Ecuador, providing an analysis of the reasons and justifications to see regionalization with more relevance and objectivity. I believe it is understandable that it is an issue which is incumbent on all of us to create a country in which we are all a part.

And finally, the new book of Oswaldo Hurtado Larrea, former president and vicepresident of Ecuador, La cultura de los ecuatorianos (The Ecuadoran Culture). María Isabel Punín interviewed him and asked him about the reason for his book:

Yo llevo 40 años estudiando los problemas sociales, económicos, políticos del Ecuador y buscando una explicación al hecho de que cuando están por cumplirse dos siglos de la independencia del Ecuador, o del territorio que luego se llamó Ecuador; y habiendo experimentado con diversos modelos económicos con nada menos que 19 constituciones, gobiernos de diversa naturales, por qué es que el país no ha progresado, quiero decir no ha progresado en los términos que eran posibles, como lo han hecho otros países del mundo que eran tan atrasados como el Ecuador. El caso más parecido es el de Korea y venía echando cabeza desde 1994 en que publiqué un primer ensayo, sobre que la explicación sea de orden cultural, esto es, que las trabas de desarrollo cultural no solo estuvieran en el sistema político, sino también en la forma en que los ecuatorianos nos conducimos: cómo trabajamos, cómo nos relacionamos, cómo cumplimos la ley, cómo pagamos los impuestos, como organizamos la producción.