Jaya and Sharmin—a film produced by Jaya Ahsan—is a quiet reminder of who we were and still are, five years after the pandemic struck. In this quiet, haunting two-woman film, the pandemic is never centerstage—rather the film avoids its dramatization. There are no sirens, no scenes of hospital chaos, no feverish handheld camera work. Instead, the film offers what most pandemic stories avoid: the internal climate of a shared household. Time slows. Fear settles. News flits across the TV, unnoticed. Through understated rhythm, the film accomplishes something powerful—it keeps the focus on the emotional, relational toll of confinement, rather than its spectacle.
When Subahdar of Bengal, Islam Khan Chishti, entered Dhaka in 1608 or 1610, he was accompanied by a diverse group of North and North-West Indians, Afghans, Iranians, Arabs, and other foreign Muslims and Hindus.
Dr Rebecca Prentice, Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Development at the University of Sussex, has studied garment workers’ health and labour rights for over two decades.
Mohammed Taher, a young Rohingya poet and teacher from the refugee camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, uses education and writing as tools for change.
“The sun rises, but the light of life seems to be stuck at the gate of the Tinbigha Corridor.”
There was a time when pens had “health issues” and needed to be taken to the “Pen Hospital.”
Nine months have passed since the July Uprising, yet its human toll continues to surface—survivors left scarred, jobless, and crushed by mounting debt. Among the most visible yet overlooked are those who lost their eyesight—many now living with permanent disability and fading hope.
Jaya and Sharmin—a film produced by Jaya Ahsan—is a quiet reminder of who we were and still are, five years after the pandemic struck. In this quiet, haunting two-woman film, the pandemic is never centerstage—rather the film avoids its dramatization. There are no sirens, no scenes of hospital chaos, no feverish handheld camera work. Instead, the film offers what most pandemic stories avoid: the internal climate of a shared household. Time slows. Fear settles. News flits across the TV, unnoticed. Through understated rhythm, the film accomplishes something powerful—it keeps the focus on the emotional, relational toll of confinement, rather than its spectacle.
Dr Rebecca Prentice, Associate Professor of Anthropology and International Development at the University of Sussex, has studied garment workers’ health and labour rights for over two decades.
When Subahdar of Bengal, Islam Khan Chishti, entered Dhaka in 1608 or 1610, he was accompanied by a diverse group of North and North-West Indians, Afghans, Iranians, Arabs, and other foreign Muslims and Hindus.
“The sun rises, but the light of life seems to be stuck at the gate of the Tinbigha Corridor.”
Mohammed Taher, a young Rohingya poet and teacher from the refugee camp in Ukhia, Cox’s Bazar, uses education and writing as tools for change.
Nine months have passed since the July Uprising, yet its human toll continues to surface—survivors left scarred, jobless, and crushed by mounting debt. Among the most visible yet overlooked are those who lost their eyesight—many now living with permanent disability and fading hope.
There was a time when pens had “health issues” and needed to be taken to the “Pen Hospital.”
When the cuckoo begins to call from the distant peaks of the hills, and the southern breeze carries the gentle fragrance of newly blossomed wildflowers in vibrant hues, the hills awaken in their own colors—ushering in the celebration of the eternal tradition of welcoming a new year and bidding farewell to the previous year
Exactly 169 years ago, in the jungles of what is now the Indian state of Jharkhand, Bengal Army sepoys fired the final shots in what became known as the ‘Hul’, or uprising, of 1855.
