The First King of Bengal
Before the tribes and kingdoms of pre-medieval Bengal could unanimously elect Gopala king in 750 CE, they had to endure a hundred years of utter lawlessness, infighting and bloodshed. We know how Gopala’s Pala Dynasty heralded a golden era in Bengal, little is known about the dark age, and what came before.
29 September 2019, 18:00 PM
Rifles, but no bullets
If I were the type to actually pour the unholy sherbet of bleaching powder and Harpic down my sink, I would at least keep mum about it. Unshakable faith in the Devil’s Rooh Afza is nothing to be proud of.
2 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Adieu, AB
AB is no more. The nation is in his debt, and there's nothing we can do about it. There are murmured demands for some sort of a national tribute or recognition. If you ask me, a man, who has won over hearts, has no use for medals.
20 October 2018, 18:00 PM
No merit in quotas
Anyone who has played “alley cricket” will know that it has its own rules: e.g. two “chiefs” get to select players in tandem, and (s)he who sends the ball over the wall must fetch it. Another such rule is that the owner of the bat will have an automatic place on the team. This last provision is an everyday example of a “quota system” where able performers are replaced by those wielding power over the selection process.
20 March 2018, 18:00 PM
Digitisation / Poetic Justice
Though he thought he had already died, the old poet found himself stumbling around a shady drugstore. Exhausted, as though from a long descent, the poet fell to the curb in a heap.
28 December 2017, 18:00 PM
Rohingyas and the cost of kindness
It is certain that the present Rohingya sensation will soon die down, and be replaced in public memory by something far more banal.
19 September 2017, 18:00 PM
Silence Of Friends: Activism in the Modern Era
Social media has opened floodgates of unexamined causes and unstoppable rebels. With the license to post/share anything and zero accountability, young men and women have taken to protests and activism over anything and everything.
12 June 2017, 18:00 PM
Social ripples of rape
When alleged rapist Shafat Ahmed and accomplice Shadman Sakif were arrested, and the former's father brought under investigation, I had decided not to write about the rape incident that took place in a hotel in Banani.
13 May 2017, 18:00 PM
A Reasonable Vice
A former family chauffeur was recently suspended from his beloved 'government job'.
15 May 2016, 18:00 PM
Can climate gather steam?
When a car spontaneously caught fire in Dhaka last week, allegedly from a heated engine, social media comments invoked the ongoing heat-spell.
2 May 2016, 18:00 PM
Matrix of Biometrics
The man was up against a cave wall, holding his freshly ground and moistened haematite pigment in a coconut shell. He had spent the morning painting two Babirusas (pig-deer) with the chewed, bristly end of a twig. It was a hot day in Borneo; the forest breeze did not reach inside the cave. He was about to wipe the sweat off his brow, when the sight of his arm gave him an idea. He placed his hand against the cave wall and blew paint all over it, leaving an unmistakable imprint on the side of the wall. Little did he know that 40,000 years later – his work of art would dethrone European caves as the earliest instance of human creativity. Unknowingly, he had also become one of the first, deliberate users of biometric information.
17 April 2016, 18:00 PM
The Laws of Inertia
In 1988, Ershad's predictably dictator-esque declaration of a state religion led to the formation of the Committee to Resist Despotism
4 April 2016, 18:00 PM
The Strongman returns
It should be no surprise to us that the political 'strongman' has resurged. The very word evokes images of a bare-bodied Vladimir...
27 March 2016, 18:00 PM
The land of scared ideas
Sixty or seventy years back, higher education for the people of Bengal was a rare commodity. Racial and socioeconomic barriers held
12 March 2016, 18:00 PM
A Democracy of Crisis
Psychologists have suggested that humans have a natural preference for negative news, the public experience of which they enjoy via mass media. The reason is not necessarily 'schadenfreude' or secret pleasure derived out of other people's misery.
1 March 2016, 18:00 PM
Collateral of War and Peace
For Bangladesh's global image, January 2016 was not a good month. Allegations of sexual abuse by Bangladeshi peacekeepers
2 February 2016, 18:00 PM
To burn a mockingbird
It was a windy August day, 1877 C.E. A young, darkish and mostly unimpressive youth was at Nulo Gopal's door...
22 January 2016, 18:00 PM
Bangladesh at Bloggerheads
Like many Bangladeshis, I started concentrating on and paying closer attention to blogging from 2013. February 2013, to be precise.
15 January 2016, 18:00 PM
A narrow spectrum of debate
Sometimes it seems that Bangladeshis have been debating the same thing over and over again, failing to reach any consensus and only
31 December 2015, 18:00 PM
It's not funny
ONE day, the town's new conqueror asked Nasiruddin Hodja, “If I were a slave, how much would I cost?” “Five hundred tomans,” Hodja responded.
12 December 2015, 18:00 PM
The Grand Theatre of War
World War I was once thought of as 'the War to End All Wars'. But the hypothesis that “violence can be extinguished with greater violence” has since been thoroughly disproved and should have no place in modern statecraft. Yet it is the bedrock of anti-terrorism.
30 November 2015, 18:00 PM
The War on Abstract Notions
Wars on abstract concepts (e.g. terror, freethinking) are dangerous because they can be aimed at virtually anyone and can be invoked to launch every missile and curtail every freedom.
22 November 2015, 18:00 PM
Selective memory dictates
Would the news stories be the same if the apparatus were based in Muslim countries and owned by Muslims? Would we not hear more of
the ravages perpetrated by western colonialism and invasions? Would Facebook profile picture campaigns then be about Paris or Beirut?
17 November 2015, 18:00 PM
As the tables turn
In the past week, waves of protest against the imposition of VAT on higher education brought Dhaka to a standstill, causing the denizens to take notice.
16 September 2015, 18:00 PM