Mannan Mashhur Zarif

The sari, they say, is like a book — a sonnet, or a song. One that can make the soul dance like the peafowl with feathers spread on a gloomy day. The colours we borrow from nature, the motifs, and how we interpret, is all that it takes to make things extraordinary.

Think fish. Think sweets. Think heritage loom — that’s Bengali life in a nutshell. With roots firmly anchored in ancient Persia, the Jamdani found new meaning at the banks of the Shitalakshya. Fashion has seen its fair share of turns, but the saga of this timeless textile is a never ending.

Took six yards of glory and like twiners that grip by tendrils, draped like they owned it. The sari is more than just feminine yards and they went wild with flora splattered, and the shades smeared all over. A rumour was doing the rounds — “faux pas!” They laughed over because when it comes to gossip

“Less is more” said the smart ones. Heritage looms to ‘post-modern’ prints — one can simply drown in a pool of this soothing hue of pink, never having to think twice about going wrong. Oh! Did we say, ‘women only’? Certainly not! As the song goes, “Pink is the colour of passion

She turns heads and makes eyes go blind, only if for a second. She needles her way, and stitches the guise on fiery yellow; and that chunky golden chandelier for an earring! Why carry one style when you can don two?

A Jamdani is exquisite. A Jamdani is timeless. And it has the love of a woman, and her man! All our lives we try to stand out in a crowd, while the real struggle often is to blend in. Eons have passed; styles have become passé. Nonetheless, from that moment on — hundreds of years in our past —till today, no Bengali

Eid, beyond doubt, is the best time for fashion peeps — you, I and everyone else in this part of the globe we call home. While one may flirt with the idea to throw out everything ‘ethnic’ and choose to tilt otherwise and rock, we suggest otherwise. You may have never bothered to check the fashion lexicon

Flamboyance is the name of the new game. Think convention, and then do everything opposite. Comfy on a couch — at ease in the yellow of the brightest shade, and a top that simply outshines the fiery fire of the sari. And the shades and the shoes scream — come hither!

Only a year later, in 1890, Shaiji would breathe his last at the age of around 117.

February 2, 1988. Presiding an evening session of the Second National Poetry Festival at the University of Dhaka, famed artist Quamrul Hassan doodled what would become one of the most important works of his career, and our art history.

Sari styles change every calendar year — undergoing major experimentation with fabrics, patterns, weaves and drapes.

Three evenings of glamour, oomph and panache; the best of the best amongst our local designers, participants from various Asian countries; and some of the most promising new faces on the scene right at this moment—made up the razzle-dazzle that set the TRESemmé Bangladesh Fashion Week 2019 apart.

How does one define culture, and essentially 'pop culture'? Never mind the academicians as there is no true consensus.

It would not be an understatement that Jazz, as a musical genre, defies all definitions.

The traffic light goes from green, yellow, red; and yellow again at the dead end of the night, as it does on a bright summer noon.

He imagined the creation, with chaos, and the gods bringing order to what they had shaped.

Wedding invites start pouring in as early as the last week of November every year. Given the fact that I had married not so long ago, the pile this year was somewhat taller, which means more outflow of cash on my part!

Growing up as a boy in the '90s, an eventful decade for more reasons than one, I was allowed to read widely. Of course there was no Internet, no e-books, or online libraries. I cannot even recall being a member of one, because almost every household had a selection of books, no matter how small or insignificant it may now seem.

If there is a price for freedom, what is it and who pays it? And if the debt remains unsettled, how does a generation get absolved of the sins of the last?

I was more of a witness than an actual participant of the whole exercise. The years of searching, the myriad unpleasantness, and even the reality checks had not prepared me for the session of drafting the marriage contract. Even before I had said, “I do,” clauses for inheritance and divorce were tossed, argued, and agreed on.