Creative nonfiction / Growing up with a new nation: The Dhaka we once knew

What is the sadness that with

The Emperor wrote a lonely note. In exile, he wept for a grave in his Native land. Colonials

Today I would like to talk about a book that I have been waiting to read for a very long time. After years of procrastination, luckily, I finally got hold of a copy and decided to write my thoughts about it—what I expect from it, why I would like to read it and of course, experiencing the sheer eagerness of waiting to turn the pages of a new book; a new adventure.

In a detour from all the genres and topics that we review on this page, this monthly column on short stories is a little treat to ourselves—a short and delicious reminder of what the simple act of storytelling can accomplish.

The loss dealt to Bangladesh and its publishing industry this week will be unparalleled—at 12:59 am on Tuesday, June 22, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Emeritus Publisher and founder of University Press Limited (UPL), passed away after surviving Parkinson’s disease for 20 years.

When I began reading Homeland Elegies (Little, Brown and Company, 2020), all I knew about it was that it was a memoir; an account of the life of the author, Ayad Akhtar—a second-generation Muslim immigrant with Pakistani parents who migrated to America to further their careers as doctors.

Mrittika Anan Rahman (MAR): What does it say about Bollywood that it became mediators of so many of India and Bangladesh’s neighbouring cultures through its adaptation of stories such as Mughal-E-Azam, Umrao Jaan, or Laila Majnu?

Female empowerment is often seen as a luxury reserved for privileged societies—something no struggling community can think about. After all, we misapprehended women’s empowerment as an issue exclusively for women. Yet by making this mistake, struggling communities continue trying to climb out of poverty whilst carrying the deadweight of wasted potential—disenfranchised women.

Even though we moved out of our grandmother’s house in Dhaka more than a decade ago, my sister and I still associate the word “storm” with the smell of the unripe mangoes that the kalboishakhi would force down from the trees in her backyard. There are many other quirks we share, things that might seem insignificant to someone who was not a part of our lives back then. But to us, the house with its long corridors and leafy backyard, and a front yard that turned into a badminton court each winter, is nothing short of a wonderland, a place that nurtured us even as it introduced us to the harsher realities of life, a place that remains a living, breathing character in the many dreams and nightmares that we have.

Sufia Kamal’s is a name revered in nearly every household in the country, and not just because of the spontaneous literary genius that she possessed. She was simultaneously a poet, a feminist activist, and a cultural icon; all of these identities were in some way or other reflected in her literary works—comprising short stories, plays, novels, travelogues, and autobiography—which took her closer to touching the lives of a broader spectrum of people across the country.

I know it’s hard when you want to travel, but life, owing in no small part to COVID-19, has other plans. If you are anything like me, then you are probably avoiding spending too much time watching the news right now. One way I found to cope with these strange times is to escape into books, especially those that transport me to wonderful locations. Here are five such books to read if you miss travelling.

Now that I am old and have time,

It can often feel hopeless to be an activist seeking social change on an issue where most people seem opposed or at best indifferent to it. However, according to a new book by Professor Cass Sunstein,

Late nights calls are risky, reckless.

Last week, we marked the 10th year of my father’s death, on June 15th. Every year since we lost him, I would make it a point to post little stories about him from my childhood, on social media. I call them #memorydoodles. This year, while posting pictures and posts about my father, memories of Abbu – his bookshelf and the many books strewn all over our home – rushed in and I found myself remembering all the moments we shared around books.

In their latest offering, Sensing Bangladesh – A Children’s Guidebook to Art from Bangladesh, UK-based book publisher Bok Bok Books attempts to represent the cultural, linguistic, and literary heritage of Bangladesh through children’s books.

Reading Sarah Hogle’s Twice Shy (GP Putnam’s Sons, 2021) is like biting into the cool freshness of summer fruits in the scorching Bangladeshi heat.

The books we recall today, Ami Birangona Bolchi (1994), Rising from the Ashes (2001), and The Spectral Wound (2015), are among the documentations which highlight women’s voices and their perspectives of 1971.

Shamsul Alam’s From Love Lane to the World: Tales of Travel & More (Sea Sands, 2021) is a selection of his magazine and newspaper articles, based on his many travels over the years.

Afsan Chowdhury’s Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and Bangladesh: The Quest for a State (1937-71), published in 2020 by Shrabon Prokashani, studies Bangabandhu in the context of the peasants’ resistance against colonialism and their quest for a state in South Asia.