Rubab Nayeem Khan

Social media’s pop psychology fuels self-diagnosis and performative empathy, distorting genuine compassion. Counsellor Mariyam Sultana highlights class, culture, and privilege shaping empathy in Bangladesh, urging self-awareness, authentic connection, and mindful action beyond online validation for genuine emotional understanding and societal well-being.

Staying in shape while maintaining proper nutrition has almost always been an uphill battle for Bangladeshi women.

Whenever “Korail” comes to mind, the word that follows next is “bosti” (urban slum). However, there’s more to it than meets the eye.

For the longest time, girls and women in Bangladesh have refrained from talking about their bodies…that too, in public. Long story short, breasts, bras, and lingerie have always been excluded from conversations.

From friends, relatives, partners, spouses or even the OB/GYN — at some point, everyone’s shown some strange (read: intrusive) interest in your sexual history.

When your eyes are dried out, symptoms like stinging or burning, eye redness, scratch sensation as if there’s something floating inside or even sensitivity to light. But thanks to ophthalmologists and the fashion industry, sunglasses were made with the intention to cater to comfort and style statements to consumers.

With the heat and humidity rising every day, there are days when we often end up spraying ourselves with ample amounts of body sprays or colognes, as a quick fix for body odour. Little do we realise, how much it worsens the situation.

Having both sides of East and West Bengal at home, Kishwar Chowdhury was able to broaden her palette. Her father, who’s from Bikrampur, is someone she describes as a ‘wholesome and hearty cook.’ Hence, neharis, biriyanis and bhunas remained his M O in the kitchen. Through her mother, who’s from Burdwan, she was introduced to meals that required light and delicate ingredients. “Growing up with my father’s Nawabi, Bengal-Mughal inspired dishes and my mother’s lighter dishes, we really had the best of Bengal at home.”

Researchers find that plastic materials in napkins and diapers take around 300 years to decompose in soil, which may lead to severe environmental consequences. But with increasing awareness and interventions in menstrual hygiene management across the country, the products in Bangladesh are slowly but surely changing. Their benefits are more long-lasting than the plastic products we have made ourselves complacent to.

From pop art, rickshaw art, digital art, murals to cartoons, there are geniuses tucked away in the nooks of Dhaka city and beyond. These five artists really go above and beyond to bring fresh artistic perspectives for audiences on the digital space. Here are our picks for the top 5 Bangladeshi Insta-artists you should be following.

To say that neck and back pain are minor speed bumps in the process of ageing would be quite an understatement. Rheumatoid illnesses pack a cocktail of conditions that start off with one area of the body and gradually spill onto other parts, thus impacting our functionality and eventually productivity.

Although many marriages seem wholesome and strong on the outside, the dynamic can be entirely different behind closed doors. The cracks however, are only addressed when a seemingly perfect marriage suddenly crumbles, leaving people to wonder, ‘what could’ve possibly gone wrong?’ What often remains unaddressed is how children in these settings are coping with changing home environments.

The causes of what we commonly identify as 'gastric' starts off small — from snacking on our favourite dairy-based dessert, or taking a smoke break immediately after wolfing down fried foods, the triggers are aplenty. To think that a sudden case of gas and acid reflux will not set us back for a lifetime would be a wrong idea. It is only a matter of time that the minor heartburn becomes a major obstacle to living a healthy life. It is not entirely impossible to curb gastrointestinal maladies, but in order to do so it is essential to get to the root of the cause while also making some major changes to one's lifestyle.

Common and chronic skin illnesses among patients in Bangladesh includes fungal disease, psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, seborrheic dermatitis, and acne vulgaris. These diseases are spread out across patients of diverse age groups. In order to understand if a skin problem has gone chronic, the tell-tale signs would be the persistence of the disease for a longer period even without any interaction as well as recurrence or relapse of the disease.

When addressing mental health in Bangladesh, we’re no strangers to being labelled ‘mad’ or in the Bengali definition ‘pagol,’ when we acknowledge our depression or want to invest in therapy. Among the mentally ill, the youth form a significant number. While many suffer needlessly, others actively seek assistance to tackle their mental health issues and overcome them.   

For a girl or a woman living in Dhaka city, the possibility of being sexually harassed is a reality she has lived with from a very early age.

"Lekha pora kore je, gari ghora chore shei!”— an idiom very familiar to Bengalis that promises “cars and horses”, in other words, wealth, provided we studied sincerely.