Ashfaque Swapan

Naiyor: A Tale of Two Passages in Two Eras

Imagine, dear reader, a youthful village belle. Transport yourself back 50 or 60 years ago. She lives with her husband and her in-laws in a farming homestead in rural East Bengal. It's been a few years since she arrived in her new home.
From Atlanta, with love

It struck us like a bolt of lightning around the end of November.
US, reeling from fatal racial attacks, goes to midterm polls

Americans vote on November 6 in a momentous mid-term elections. Polls suggest that the total Republican grip on federal power is about to be shattered as Democrats regain the House.
Bangladeshi festival fever hits Atlanta

July is less than a month away, and festival fever is beginning to take hold among the estimated 10,000-strong Bangladeshi expatriate community in greater Atlanta. All hands are on deck for the 32nd FOBANA convention, the upcoming Bangladeshi jamboree to be hosted at the World Congress Center in downtown Atlanta. All told, at least 5,000 attendees are expected, by conservative estimates.
A haunting, sombre memorial to African-American suffering

It was a lovely spring morning when my friend Arif and I drove down to Montgomery, Alabama. A new memorial, National Memorial for Peace and Justice, opened here on April 24—dedicated to African Americans who had been the victims of extrajudicial killings in the post-Civil War United States.