For students and recent graduates, networking can provide access to internships, mentorship, industry insights, referrals, and even long-term career opportunities. But how do you begin building a network when you are just starting out?
My first instinct, when walking into “Troubling Rain” at Alliance Française de Dhaka, was to recall how often rain has been romanticised in this city’s cultural memory. Generations have sung about it, written about it, danced to its rhythm. The monsoon, in Bangla literature, has been the backdrop for longing, love, and lyricism. From Tagore’s verses to Nazrul’s songs, it has always been imagined as something that enhances beauty and deepens emotion. And yet, what Abir Abdullah does in this exhibition is strip the rain of its poetry and return it to its grit.
Every time I settle in for a binge-watch, armed with snacks and the delusional belief that I have “just one more episode” worth of self-control, an OTT platform finds a new way to personally offend me by splitting a season into two. You open Netflix or Prime Video, click on a highly anticipated series, and halfway through, realise you are too early for the binge-watch. “Stranger Things” did it. “The Witcher” did it. “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game” Season 3 did it—and, more recently, the second season of “Wednesday” just did the very same. And don’t even get me started on the “Money Heist” final-season split, which had the entire internet in a chokehold for weeks.
Over the past week, my Instagram feed has been practically throwing "My Oxford Year" at me, with Tumblr-text captions over softly lit stills, reels romanticising ancient libraries and English cities, and teary-eyed confessions that claim this film destroyed them, in the best way. And like any curious cinephile, I clicked to watch it on Netflix. What I found was a film trying to be both the dream and the ache, the fantasy and the wake-up call.
Bangladesh's pet food market is largely reliant on imported products, with limited domestic manufacturing and few established local brands. The industry faces several challenges, including supply chain disruptions, high retail prices, and concerns regarding product authenticity. Although demand for packaged pet food is gradually increasing, particularly in urban areas, the market remains in the early stages of development.
We’ve all done it—clicked “next episode” with tears still in our eyes, let the credits roll as we stared blankly at the screen, a pit of something nameless blooming in our chest. Shows like “Baby Reindeer”, “Euphoria”, “13 Reasons Why”, and “BoJack Horseman”, to name a few, are not easy watches. They are raw, haunting, sometimes violent. Yet we keep returning— even when we say we need a break, even when we feel worse afterwards. And somewhere along the way, watching pain became the very way we process our own. Or maybe, just maybe, it became the way we avoid it.
In the early days of cinema, female friendships were like decorative wallpaper—always present but rarely integral to the narrative. They giggled in the background, shared screen time over shopping trips or heartbreaks, and usually vanished once the male lead arrived. Where men had bromances that drove plots, whether on a battlefield or a basketball court, women, even in the company of other women, were set up to compete, compare, and eventually capitulate to romance. They were often designed to orbit the male protagonist, and when more than one appeared, you could almost smell the narrative setup: one would be the virtuous angel, the other a scheming vamp.
"Bidrupe Bidroho", the six-day exhibition currently underway at La Gallerie, Alliance Française de Dhaka, revives the spirit of resistance. Organised by Earki, the exhibition has been organised to mark the first anniversary of the July 2024 uprising, the 36-day-long people’s movement that culminated in the overthrow of the Awami League regime.
For students and recent graduates, networking can provide access to internships, mentorship, industry insights, referrals, and even long-term career opportunities. But how do you begin building a network when you are just starting out?
My first instinct, when walking into “Troubling Rain” at Alliance Française de Dhaka, was to recall how often rain has been romanticised in this city’s cultural memory. Generations have sung about it, written about it, danced to its rhythm. The monsoon, in Bangla literature, has been the backdrop for longing, love, and lyricism. From Tagore’s verses to Nazrul’s songs, it has always been imagined as something that enhances beauty and deepens emotion. And yet, what Abir Abdullah does in this exhibition is strip the rain of its poetry and return it to its grit.
Every time I settle in for a binge-watch, armed with snacks and the delusional belief that I have “just one more episode” worth of self-control, an OTT platform finds a new way to personally offend me by splitting a season into two. You open Netflix or Prime Video, click on a highly anticipated series, and halfway through, realise you are too early for the binge-watch. “Stranger Things” did it. “The Witcher” did it. “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game” Season 3 did it—and, more recently, the second season of “Wednesday” just did the very same. And don’t even get me started on the “Money Heist” final-season split, which had the entire internet in a chokehold for weeks.
Over the past week, my Instagram feed has been practically throwing "My Oxford Year" at me, with Tumblr-text captions over softly lit stills, reels romanticising ancient libraries and English cities, and teary-eyed confessions that claim this film destroyed them, in the best way. And like any curious cinephile, I clicked to watch it on Netflix. What I found was a film trying to be both the dream and the ache, the fantasy and the wake-up call.
Bangladesh's pet food market is largely reliant on imported products, with limited domestic manufacturing and few established local brands. The industry faces several challenges, including supply chain disruptions, high retail prices, and concerns regarding product authenticity. Although demand for packaged pet food is gradually increasing, particularly in urban areas, the market remains in the early stages of development.
We’ve all done it—clicked “next episode” with tears still in our eyes, let the credits roll as we stared blankly at the screen, a pit of something nameless blooming in our chest. Shows like “Baby Reindeer”, “Euphoria”, “13 Reasons Why”, and “BoJack Horseman”, to name a few, are not easy watches. They are raw, haunting, sometimes violent. Yet we keep returning— even when we say we need a break, even when we feel worse afterwards. And somewhere along the way, watching pain became the very way we process our own. Or maybe, just maybe, it became the way we avoid it.
In the early days of cinema, female friendships were like decorative wallpaper—always present but rarely integral to the narrative. They giggled in the background, shared screen time over shopping trips or heartbreaks, and usually vanished once the male lead arrived. Where men had bromances that drove plots, whether on a battlefield or a basketball court, women, even in the company of other women, were set up to compete, compare, and eventually capitulate to romance. They were often designed to orbit the male protagonist, and when more than one appeared, you could almost smell the narrative setup: one would be the virtuous angel, the other a scheming vamp.
"Bidrupe Bidroho", the six-day exhibition currently underway at La Gallerie, Alliance Française de Dhaka, revives the spirit of resistance. Organised by Earki, the exhibition has been organised to mark the first anniversary of the July 2024 uprising, the 36-day-long people’s movement that culminated in the overthrow of the Awami League regime.
Scroll through any beauty retailer or Instagram ad today, and chances are you will stumble across a celebrity-owned brand. From skincare and makeup to fragrance, supplements, and now even homeware and tea, the list keeps growing. Over the past few years, it feels like nearly every actor, singer, or influencer with a solid fan base has released a product line inspired by their personal journey.
Lately, I have found myself in conversations where people talk about ChatGPT and the productivity boost it has brought to their lives. I have used these models. And I have felt the shift; not in the speed of my sentences, but in the weight of them. They come faster, cleaner, and somehow emptier.
