Fakir Lalon Shah: A Lighthouse in the Unreal Bazaar of the Blind
He spoke of women on equal terms at a time when women were not even people in the country where he lived (and they still are not—neither in the land of Lalon nor in the world that we proudly claim as ours.
1y ago
The Blighted Garden
I took my leave from the Siraj family, thanking them for their hospitality. I was just a stranger and yet they let me stay with them for weeks.
2y ago
Mostly Sunny
“This weather app is a life saver, I’m telling you! Look how sunny this weekend will be!” Ruma pointed at her phone with her freshly manicured fingers—donned with diamond rings. As her fingers tap-danced on the seven day weather chart on the phone, her listener got distracted by the new rock on her pointer finger.
3y ago
Three, Not Three
In the farthest end of the horizon across the river by the edge of a forest surrounding the dark hills sat a cottage made of dried palm leaves and rattan sticks in which lived an old woman.
3y ago
Memories at War
I often consider war as a quasi-synonym for memory. After all, memory is nothing but our present in constant war with our glorified, vilified, expressed, suppressed, erased, and fragmented selves floating in past space and time.
4y ago
A Translation of Mojaffar Hossain’s “Subservient Country, Independent People”
Majid kept sniffing the air as he walked. He slowed down when he heard someone’s footsteps behind him.
4y ago
The Name Game
When it comes to their names, most people in Bangladesh may find themselves in a convoluted situation.
4y ago
Musing on Things Unspeakable
Prejudice is a monstrous thing, and so is the tendency to be judgmental—the mindset that allures us to put ourselves in the shining armor of righteousness.
4y ago
June 8, 2019
Musing Home
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
April 13, 2019
The Charyapadas: Where Bangla Began
Creating the world and nirvana on their own,
February 16, 2019
Fall for Love
It was a hard fall. Kheya was astounded—not because she fell, but because of the person she fell for. The man was a magician of words, with a thick beard and a thin voice and was about one
February 2, 2019
The Puzzles of Trees and Moons
“Everyone has a tree.”Golibe said. “And every man craves a moon. The moon is what he wants but the tree is where he ends. The tree is
December 15, 2018
KHEYA'S WAR
The ant mound was intact until Kheya stepped on it. Pappu was trying to pick some ripe oranges from the big orange tree by the gate. While running toward him, Kheya stepped right on the mound and got attacked by a platoon of red ants.
November 3, 2018
Things That Write Me
I do not write. I am not a writer. I am an active thought, willing to reveal through words the enigmas of human lives and the perplexities of women's stories.
October 27, 2018
Not a Review, but Words of Heart: On Nausheen Eusuf's Not Elegy, But Eros
Life is an elegy, written by time. The instinct of life itself is elegiac, for it always reminds us of fragmentations and jouissance. Life reminds us of things that “are gone into a world of light,” (as Eusuf writes in her poem,
October 20, 2018
The World is a Mirror of Water: Musing on Lalon and Beyond
It always amazes me how a simple illiterate man—'sahaj manush'—from the rural nineteenth century Bengal could have had such a magnanimous vision to assimilate in his songs the core ideas from the Vedic, Upanishadic, Vaishnavite, Buddhist, Tantric, and the Sufi philosophy.
August 20, 2018
Name Me Not
It was a crisp midday. The scorching sun sat right in the middle of the sky, watching over the homebound school children.
August 11, 2018
Death, Grief, and Mourning: Some Chaotic Thoughts
We always talk about life. And then when people die, we talk about their deaths in terms of life—a life they will live for eternity in all
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