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

The English poet W.B. Yeats once expressed his profound admiration for Rabindranath Tagore, describing him as “someone greater than any of us”.

You called me close in the moments of grace/ Veiling my delicate senses

You know how that day the wind brought out/ The crazy thoughts I had in me all the while.

I wove necklaces of lyrics/ Which you'd wear beautifully

Buckets of water I pour on my head; my vision gets blurry./ "The blurrier, the merrier", my mother said.

Articles on Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s last novel to be published by his sons against the author’s wishes built up my anticipation and I couldn’t wait for April to arrive. Thanks to Bookworm, I got my copy the moment they had it in store and I read it twice. It didn’t impress me the first time as it was just a string of chapters describing how a promiscuous woman drove herself into the arms of different men on her annual August 16 visits to a Caribbean island.

Priyanka Taslim greets me with a gentle smile as we meet over Zoom. She is eloquent and our conversation flows organically, akin to an adda over a cup of saa (cha).

The aim of the event was to promote the vibrant tales written by female writers who participated in the Sehri Tales challenge this year

The best part of this book is perhaps the fact that all the weird, bonkers cultish stuff just happens with no rhyme or reason to it.

For poet Abul Hasan Neither the pen nor the camera has changed 

Anyone could see that they were a couple very much in love. Always laughing at each other’s jokes. Finishing each other’s sentences. Name the cliché and you’ll find them living up to it without question. 

Shakespeare’s enduring international appeal is in part due to the remarkable personalities he had invented.

The book discusses the lack of sensitivity among policymakers in acknowledging the distinct socio-cultural differences and linguistic and community identities of the refugees that often got merged. It explores how different categories of refugees received different treatments.

The Calcutta trilogy withstands the test of time and seems relevant to us even today, perhaps because Satyajit Ray was keen to ask questions rather than suggest a solution to the audience

A review of ‘Roaming’ (Drawn and Quarterly, 2023) by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

You are wide awake again

The yard in this noontime is buzzing with/ The white aroma of the guava flower

I’m going through a heartbreak

Shahaduz Zaman stands out prominently as a significant figure in the contemporary Bangla literary landscape, utilising intertextuality throughout his works, and   infusing various texts and genres into his narratives.

Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.