Abida Rahman Chowdhury

This is the year when Bangladeshi millennials are eligible to go to polls. Star Weekend talked to young voters, many of whom will be voting for the first time, to understand what they think about the electoral process. The young voters also shared their hopes and aspirations regarding the upcoming polls, what issues they truly care about, and whether they will go to vote at all.

The first time I visited Satkhira, the tide country, was as a student of Environmental Science. And I remember returning with pages upon pages of focus group discussions with villagers who were living in homes that had been cut off from nearly everything because of water-logging. They talked of a life constantly battling a disaster.

To this day, there is that one Bangla poem that I cannot but help start reciting in my head if I find anyone saying the words Choto Nodi.

The recent cases of suicide in educational institutes this year—nine cases of suicide at University of Dhaka (DU) and one at a residential complex of a private university—has opened a can of worms, exposing how poorly the mental health condition of Bangladesh's youngsters are dealt with.

Just a few days back, The Daily Star ran a report that students' enrollment in government primary schools is decreasing sharply.

Among monstrous ships of all shapes and sizes on the river Rupsha, I first saw the “Dolphin boat”, shining and bobbing its snout in the soft winter light.

Think wildlife conservation and what first comes to mind are men in grey or beige toned outfits and names like David Attenborough, George Schaller, John Muir, and Roger Payne.

Why does the Spoon-billed sandpiper, a tiny sparrow-sized bird, migrate all the way from Chukotka, Russia to a mudflat of Bangladesh?

As we talk about his ups and downs, tracing his life all the way back to his childhood, it feels as though this brooding man is one who has always been guided by his ideals. Oldest of his siblings, Kanchan spent very little time in his village home before moving to Dhaka—a student of Class 3 at the time.

I was a particularly anxious child, so much so that even as I tried to sleep, I would resort to visualising elaborate scenes in the dark.

The influence of social media does not stop just there with the “you need this useless product”, it is far reaching, so much so, that I have had friends and relatives come up to me and tell me if only I ate “clean” or smiled more often, I would find that I do not need to see a therapist anymore, but would find that my 'depression' has been magically cured by cumulative good deeds or a nutritious diet.

"NO excellent soul is exempt from a mixture of madness''—Aristotle. In a particularly distraught moment, I logged on to my Facebook account and reached out to all my friends who I knew battled with one or the other form of mental health issues. Some were going through troubled marriages, some disappointing their parents, some struggling adults, some unable to go to grad school and all battling their minds.

My introduction to war lore was an intimate one, removed from any political agenda—they were stories of fear, simplicity, and sheer resilience in the face of ultimate crisis.

It is the Bangladesh-Myanmar border; the calm of the forest is broken by piercing sounds of gunfire and screams. Everywhere, people are on the run and she too trudges on, heavy, weary steps one at a time, trying to find refuge. She eventually makes it to the forests of Bangladesh only to be stuck indefinitely.

From cartoons to books to movies, there is one recurring theme that catches the eye and engages all sensory experiences, and true to Proust's belief, it is the pure, unadulterated joy of a good meal.

Before she made it to our saris, chunky jewellery, phone cases, and magazine covers, Frida Kahlo was a genius, a socialist, a feminist, and an anti-imperialist nationalist, whose mere presence in history is radical.

Once upon a time in a land far, far away, a little girl got her hands on a book, a book about siblings, of living in the countryside, and going on adventures—a book that would later give way to other books on more adventures and misadventures, turning the little child into an adult who constantly daydreams of taking off to some faraway land.

As we all filed back to work the week after Eid holidays, my mind, unfortunately, was not-so-full of story ideas; rather it was in a post-holiday lull, full of not-taken vacations and the bad TV series that I binge-watched through the break.

I often murmur this overused idiom as I pack my bags for a trip to any place. Be it in the country or abroad. The budget woes take hold of me from the conception to execution and to the absolute end of any trip. There have been times, of course, when my soirees out into the wild have been fully paid affairs and I can say without a trace of doubt that if you somehow negate the money worries, travel takes on a

The Yamaha engine sputters before giving life to the speedboat which swerves a sharp right and zooms past the zigzag of large fishing trawlers, the smell of dried fish, and sea salt heavy in the air. Within a few minutes on the steely-grey ocean expanse, the green speck of Moheshkhali appears. Planted mangroves lend this place a Sundarbans-like feel.