Asif stares at the blank page, his chest tightening with that all-too-familiar dread.

“If my father had any unpaid debt to anyone, please contact me or my younger brother Hamza,” Omar said to the congregation at the funeral, trying to sound soft and loud at the same time, “And if my father ever hurt any of you unintentionally, please forgive his soul and pray for him. Thank you.”

Is he eyeing me?.That young man with the receding hairline, flipping through a paperback on a discount table. No, revise that. He is not so young really, as my second take reconsiders. A freshness in his eyes made him look more youthful. If not for his thinning scalp, that little paunch un

Long, long ago, when the world was younger, wiser, softer, when the animals were braver and the people were gentler, when art lived and music sailed, and the skies were a true, honest blue, there lived a man who loved a woman, and they lived in a little house they loved very much. How they met o

Trigger warning: self harm, sexual and physical abuse “For a hundred million, Omar, are you ready?” said the host, with his everlasting grin.

The automated blinds of the penthouse in Gulshan, an upscale area, rise with a soft hum, revealing a picture-perfect Dhaka morning.

Children pulled from rubble in Gaza, dust-white faces against red bricks—

Every night, a market forms near the mill gate. When it’s time for that market to close, Fulbanu stands on the high bank of the pond, waiting for her husband’s return.

Saiyara didn’t wave a flag to voice her rights on the streets. She had never marched in a protest line, never chanted beneath the dark blanket of smoke-heavy skies. Her revolution was quieter, and it carried a little soul swaddled in a bassinet beside her, traces of milk on her lips and dreaming

As Fulbanu waited for Syed Ali, she thought about her only son, Suruj. She remembered that Suruj was the first man among five neighbouring villages to acquire his bachelor's degree

When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.

Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name.

The city still wants to breathe.

At a gathering in the unfinished community hall, Saleha raises a question: "They gave us walls. But what do we want to grow inside them?"

I made my first kite out of white paper scraps; on my 16th birthday, it came to me that they needed a pop of color.

I rush to the mirror. My gums are pristine, no wound, no sin. But when I look back at the fruit, the truth reveals itself: the flesh is blackened, writhing with tiny, hungry mouths. The rot has teeth

Now, an automated metro-rail glides silently through the city. Conversations have become clipped, calculated. Efficiency replaces spontaneity. They call it peace. Rahim calls it absence.

It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort

Mrs X's parents were not interested in spending money on their daughter's room because they would have to give her new furniture when she got married

Mohsin would burst into laughter, saying, "Justice for rape? Is that even a crime worthy of justice?" Rabeya, laughing alongside him, would add, "People expect justice for rape these days? I'm speechless at their naïveté!"