Fakrul Alam

Remembering Melville in His Bicentenary Year

The Melville bicentennial almost passed me by.
From Liberation War Hero to Prison and After: A Sobering Tale

Two narratives counterpoint each other in Tawfiq-e-Elahi Chowdhury’s Chariot of Life: Liberation War, Politics and Sojourn in Jail. The first is the absorbing story of major events in the author’s life till the closing years of the first decade of this century. The second is
Bangabandhu in prison: Transcending stone walls and iron bars

Bangabandhu spent almost one-fourth of his nearly 55 years of life in prison. The first time he went to jail was when as a schoolboy, in his hometown of Tungipara, he and some of his friends got into a fight with Hindu leaders who had beaten up a Muslim one.
Rabindranath’s Monsoonal Music

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
From Jibananda Das’ Ruposhi Bangla

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