creative nonfiction

CREATIVE NONFICTION / Of moms and balcony gardens

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mom in Dhaka must be in want of a balcony-garden

CREATIVE NONFICTION / Patuatuli and a young girl’s love for glasses

My love affair with spectacles has long been regarded by my mother as nothing but a symptom of my dramatic nature.

CREATIVE NONFICTION / Of faith: Mother and memories

Back in 2006 at the age of 11, I was introduced to faith, in the most domestic way possible.

CREATIVE NONFICTION / Homeward

When I was born, my skin was dark, like my grandfather’s, in whose arms I discovered my first home. Relatives old and new, whose disappointment was being nursed by my parents’ fair complexions, looked from afar as my rotund cheeks melted into the sleeves of my dada’s discolored half-sleeve shirt.

CREATIVE NONFICTION / Of love, longing, and music that make us

My mother’s house is beside a lake that separates the rich and mighty of the city from a little isle of people who work for them.

Creative Nonfiction / The graveyard in Banani

Love is the enormous mango tree growing directly from an ancient grave, so old that no headstone remains at all.

Creative nonfiction / Anjuman and the stories of the mango people

My father’s ancestors were Ayurvedic medicine men from a remote corner of the North Bengal. A few generations ago, one of them had cured a long-lasting ailment of the Raja of Taherpur and had received, as a reward, a large chunk of agricultural land or “joat” next to the mighty Joshoi Beel.

Creative Nonfiction / 7 minutes to midnight

In exchange for the presidential suites at the Ritz and so on, the men holding our city keys have already opened our skies to all that may come.

Creative Nonfiction / An odd memory in Dhaka city

The only thing I like about this city is the thought of leaving it. And I was leaving it finally, after one and a half months, my longest stretch of stay in the last three years. Juggling my luggage with one hand and my phone with the other to get Google Maps directions while I balance myself on the rickshaw racing through bumpy Dhaka roads–it is a metaphor that sums up my life in this city.

February 18, 2024
February 18, 2024

Of moms and balcony gardens

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mom in Dhaka must be in want of a balcony-garden

January 6, 2024
January 6, 2024

Patuatuli and a young girl’s love for glasses

My love affair with spectacles has long been regarded by my mother as nothing but a symptom of my dramatic nature.

November 25, 2023
November 25, 2023

Of faith: Mother and memories

Back in 2006 at the age of 11, I was introduced to faith, in the most domestic way possible.

October 14, 2023
October 14, 2023

Homeward

When I was born, my skin was dark, like my grandfather’s, in whose arms I discovered my first home. Relatives old and new, whose disappointment was being nursed by my parents’ fair complexions, looked from afar as my rotund cheeks melted into the sleeves of my dada’s discolored half-sleeve shirt.

October 7, 2023
October 7, 2023

Of love, longing, and music that make us

My mother’s house is beside a lake that separates the rich and mighty of the city from a little isle of people who work for them.

September 1, 2023
September 1, 2023

The graveyard in Banani

Love is the enormous mango tree growing directly from an ancient grave, so old that no headstone remains at all.

August 19, 2023
August 19, 2023

Anjuman and the stories of the mango people

My father’s ancestors were Ayurvedic medicine men from a remote corner of the North Bengal. A few generations ago, one of them had cured a long-lasting ailment of the Raja of Taherpur and had received, as a reward, a large chunk of agricultural land or “joat” next to the mighty Joshoi Beel.

August 9, 2023
August 9, 2023

7 minutes to midnight

In exchange for the presidential suites at the Ritz and so on, the men holding our city keys have already opened our skies to all that may come.

May 6, 2023
May 6, 2023

An odd memory in Dhaka city

The only thing I like about this city is the thought of leaving it. And I was leaving it finally, after one and a half months, my longest stretch of stay in the last three years. Juggling my luggage with one hand and my phone with the other to get Google Maps directions while I balance myself on the rickshaw racing through bumpy Dhaka roads–it is a metaphor that sums up my life in this city.

February 4, 2023
February 4, 2023

In Ireland once: A story of ghosts

Are ghosts real? This was the question Mollie, a little 8-year-old girl who lives at the end of our street asked me in a–real–letter she wrote me recently. I had apparently included a book of ghost stories in a bag of books I had given her.

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