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

My Bangla Sings out every morning One language Many songs

For educators: My go-to text on 1971 is Jahanara Imam’s Ekattorer Dinguli. It’s a deeply personal and powerful memoir that I believe every student should engage with to truly feel the emotional and human cost of the war. The way she documents her experiences, especially the loss of her son, is heart-wrenching and offers a perspective that transcends history—it becomes deeply relatable and unforgettable.

Obayed Haq’s Bangla novel, Arkathi, is almost a bildungsroman tale filled with adventure and self-reflection. In true bildungsroman fashion, where the protagonist progresses into adulthood with room for growth and change, a bulk of Haq’s novel talks about the spiritual journey that an orphan, Naren, takes through a forest in order to mature, and comes out on the other side to realise a community’s deep, hidden truth.

Proverbs, short and profound, often sum up wisdom passed down through generations. Bangla, one of the world’s most spoken languages, is rich with such gems. One such saying in the language—”manush ki bolbe?”—is central to Intimacies of Violence, a debut book by Dr Nadine Shaanta Murshid, an associate professor at the University at Buffalo.

In classic Bengali fiction, the kitchen is a central site for conflict and community bonding.

I fell asleep to the chatters of cicadas on a quiet summer night

Zines are a new name for an old thing. They are the revolutionary pamphlets of the 1930s, and the underground student manifestos of the ‘50-’60s. They are a distant relative of the tattered choti mags. There are many other examples from around the world of self-published, self-distributed, and often dangerous reading material.

Someone in a chat group somewhere called Sally Rooney the ‘Taylor Swift’ of the literary world, and now I cannot unsee it.

Chiung Yao was a prolific writer, publishing over 60 books in a career spanning more than five decades.

A long stretch of time / passed in prison

The night after the story got published, Jamal stormed to my home at around 11 PM, drenched in the rain. That was the first and only time Jamal raised his voice against me

Patriarchy would have you believe that women are inherently complicated—creatures who must be defined, boxed in, or reduced to stereotypes.

November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, marks the beginning of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence which goes until December 10, Human Rights Day.

The large green pond of Dhanmondi Lake was probably the first source of natural water that I had witnessed. It sheltered a huge number of people who have lived,

Women and the earth have to tolerate a lot.  –Kaajal (1965)

One sits silently. Her eyes blink sometimes. Sometimes her lips tremble a little, or they don’t tremble at all.

The event switched gears soon enough, and the final hour saw Shala Gallery turned into a rave.

Bangladesh is currently going through turbulent times as it tries to find its way out from dictatorial political rule towards an uncertain future. During the past decade,  Bangladesh did achieve significant economic progress, but it came with increased economic inequality, unparalleled corruption, and loss of personal freedom.

The history of Bangladesh’s conception is incomplete without recognising the multitudes of sacrifices and labour that academics and intellectuals had poured into their aspirations for Bangladesh, often at the cost of their own safety and livelihood.

Here is a short list of her chants in fiction, creating a narrative of Bangali postcolonial resistance