I can see you You are a blooming flower Looking at me

Written forty years apart from each other, La Nuit Bengali (Bengal Nights) by Mircea Eliade and Na Hanyate (It Does Not Die) by Maitreyi Devi are yet two sides of the same coin. While some may call them another version of unsuccessful teenage love, the New York Times

Golam Kibria, the Philosophy professor of Ibrahim Khan college, has a reputation of being very student-friendly. He is so popular that the Principal himself is jealous of him. However, he has so far failed to create an excuse and complain against him. Mr. Kibria is a

This water feels good; —so many times had the silvery water of rain

“Tell us a story, Khona apu,” Trina said. “You can’t go anywhere in this rain. I’m sure your flight will be cancelled. The runway has become a river by now!” She giggled. “Don’t give me that worried look! Mohon and I will drive you to the airport the moment the roads

That’s it. Aura looked with slit eyes at the blabbering boy sitting across her. What was wrong with him? Every other afternoon he sat with Aura to prattle on his crush. He went on and on about Rimi with a wide-eyed enthusiasm that made Aura’s blood boil. She

A rough count of the songs collected in Gitabitan in the section titled “Prakriti” or “Nature” reveals that Rabindranath Tagore composed about 16 songs of summer, over 100 monsoonal ones, 33 songs of Sharat or early autumn, 5 of Hemanta or late autumn, and a dozen

Look at these tantalising equations of life-

In the morning when I grabbed the newspaper, the banner headline arrested my attention – “Poor Poland surrenders to the mighty Nazis.” I started to peruse. While I was going through the breaking news, all on a sudden, a spider distracted me. Surreptitiously, it

I teach English at a private university in Dhaka, Bangladesh, having attended universities on three continents. I’m persuaded to think as such that I know what a university is and does. I wish I did! Joe Moran in First You Write a Sentence claims, “A university is a factory

He chose me.

Having lived in the world’s pathways for a long, long time

Sultan Abdul Hamid’s ties to the Indian sub-continent are a revelation for those more accustomed to seeing the name of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk on main thoroughfares or commemorative stamps. Our knowledge of the Ottomans is usually through the lens of our British authored,

For orchid people like us, a tree from a land called home brings a sweeping breeze of mirth. That breeze dances around us and stirs our leaves of memories. Sometimes it comes in the form of a visual presence, sometimes as a crisp smell of some known delicacies, sometimes, as a familiar

I know you know

History as an oft-repeated cliché says is written by the victors. While the winners appropriate exclusive rights for their narratives, the vanquished are seemingly marginalised. Or, are they? For better or for worse, they can now have their say, on television at least. Take the case of the Ottoman Empire

Today, 1 June 2019, is the 113th birth anniversary of litterateur Abdul Quadir (1906-84) who was born in the village of Araisidha in Brahmanbaria. As a tribute to him, this essay offers snippets of his life and brings together some relevant anecdotes and reflections, which have literary-historical significance.

By the time James Rennell in the 1770’s, working out of Dhaka, finished surveying all the many rivers of Bengal, most of them had changed course, thus showing as much indifference to cartography as to any other form of human presumption.

What is a metaphor? How does it help people learn to write? What good is it to even to ask such questions? Though Bangladeshi culture values literature greatly and so recognizes its value in poetry we do not think much about metaphors beyond aesthetics. People overlook the power

I am a poet of the present, and not a prophet of the future. […] My birth in this country and this society does not mean that I shall remain constricted and confined to them. No, I belong to all countries and to the entirety of humanity. —Kazi Nazrul Islam