There is little question that Bangladesh has been producing a good number of little magazines for the last few years. Many of them are up to the mark, but people inclined to reading journals from Kolkata cannot really detach themselves from those. The Dhaka literati who once had few bookshops, like Marieta at Dhaka stadium market and nothing like the present Aziz Market for foreign books and periodicals can surely recollect the many issues of Bijnapan Parba edited by Rabia Ghosh. Numerous novel thoughts on literature enriched the issues. Shibnarayan Roy, Sumantra Chattopadhyaya and Subimal Mishra were among the regular contributors to the magazine.

The leaves have started falling here in London and dawn has a different hue these days. I have always been attached to dawn since my childhood because it has had a special meaning for me. I am the youngest of ten children and as a child I always remember being an early riser in Kolkata. I can recall as early as when I was three, when I would awake at dawn and stand beside the red and green wrought iron railings of the long verandah overlooking the quiet road that ran by the house where I grew up. I would watch the Kolkata corporation people wash the roads. I would then skip inside to see my father, Syed Badrudduja, rosary in hand, sitting in his study and praying, a little tray in front of him. The tray contained his morning tea. Soon a maid would appear and pester me to drink a cup of milk sweetened with ovaltine. I would resist and then my father would intervene and get me halwa puree form the halwaais nearby.

The question Why Write? is one that writers hear often, sometimes asked in jest and at times with serious intent. How writers choose to answer it (again, sometimes in jest, and sometimes seriously) can vary, because the question is difficult, frustrating, and perhaps futile. Lurking within it is a number of flawed, thin assumptions about the nature of utility and importance. The question's main assumption is that, because “not many people read,” therefore reading, and the work that produces reading (writing), are both, inherently, not “truly important” acts. Since few people have the time or luxury to read, writing cannot, then, be very important. Indeed, “no one will read this” is the deadliest phrase the struggling writer whispers to himself in self-defeat.

It was a dawn painted in black
When many a Brutus
Danced to the sound of gunfire
To perpetuate an unholy orgy
Amidst bloodied human corpse.

I sat by you head bowed in silent prayer
Here and now is mine, not to share
Others can wait to set you at liberty
Before I let go, this moment belongs to me
I hold your hand for warmth
I touch your feet for blessings
I feel your face for assurance
I hold you long to my heart's content
…You will always be my luminary