Raffat Binte Rashid

From tea stalls under blue tarpaulin shades to posh cafés serving salted caramel frostinos, Ruppur’s Green City has transformed a sleepy village into a cosmopolitan enclave.

My social media feeds are awash with reels of posh dinners: elegant homes, exotic menus, perfectly styled tables.

Dum Maro Dum (Hare Rama Hare Krishna, 1971), that rebellious psychedelic cult anthem, followed by the sweet, flirty Chura Liya Hai Tumne Jo Dil Ko from Yaadon Ki Baaraat (1973), are universal Bollywood favourites.

My earliest memory of Baishakhi Mela takes me back to the late 1970s. I was riding a rickshaw with my father to Bangla Academy, clutching green glass bangles and little terracotta toys.

Virginia Woolf once wrote that women need a room of their own in order to be able to create; I see now that I never demanded mine.

The January morning chill had given the narrow lane of Dinanath Sen Road in Gendaria a lazy and tranquil feel.

Today, the face of toys has changed, and with it, the fate of traditional toys and crafts

I decided to compile a random list of street snacks for the bohemian souls of Dhaka. The range of street food in Dhaka is so extensive that some of us have yet to taste new treats at any random street corner or alley in this maze of a city.