Shamsad Mortuza

Had I but an eternal life (“Ananta Jibon Jodi Pai Ami”)

There’s no end, why then the last word needs to be said. What strikes as a blow will become a flame; Once the clouds have their part, the rain has its start.. The light of my eyes, brings the world in my sight I’ll then have insight, when there’s no light The world out of reach comes alive in my mind And lights you up in its own light.

First a disclaimer: this piece does not include any monstrous crocodile that will eat you up the moment you get into its terrain. It is about our national psyche that harbours fear against going out to sea and thinking of our deltaic islands as the limit of our political existence.

Anik Dutta's 2017 movie Meghnadhbadh Rohoshya is a clever evocation of naxalgia. Fifty years after the Naxalbari movement, the

My passport will tell you I am as old as the country itself. I am actually one year older than the country. That's what my mother told me, and that's how it was recorded in my early school documents.

On October 12, 1492, the world changed. It was a blind "date" that went awry. The poster boy of this historic(al) date is a maritime explorer, Christopher Columbus who was hell bent on finding a western route to India.

Don't watch Okja if you are one of those with big plans of making the best out of all the surplus meat that will dip into your deep fridge.

2018 is being celebrated as the bicentenary of Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. As the world eerily embraces the possibilities of human cloning,

My tongue is standing by the road

Meet Manik Bandopadhyay— wounded by the critics who had glanced at the title of his novel to dismiss it as fatalist or feudalist. Manik's tongue-in-cheek reply shows that readership is the real mandate that an author needs; engagement with the society is the real commitment that an author desires.

My phone is bombarded with SMS alerts notifying me of various deals available for Baishakh: the discounts that are offered in various

Our car has to take a detour from Dhanmondi Road 27 because of traffic congestion in front of Genetic Plaza, the new hub for getting glass bangles -- one of the must wearable accessories for women on Pahela Baishakh.

There is a feel good factor about Gauranga Mohanta's collection of prose poems A Green Dove in Silence. A neat jacket, crispy pages,

The celebration of Basanta Utsav contributes to the colour palette of February. Pahela Falgun, the day when the Bengali spring season ushers in, makes yellow the only wearable for those who want to participate in the seasonal festivity.

I was a junior lecturer when I had the privilege of working alongside Professor Nurul Islam, who was chairing the departmental admission test committee at Jahangirnagar University.

It was a pair of forceps that brought me into the world. The metallic tongs pulled me out of my mother's womb. I don't remember the

It's good to see non-academics taking note of an academic mantra: plagiarism. The dictionary denotes it as “the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.” Plagiarism is an absolute taboo in the academic world.

Of the six novels written by Jane Austen, Emma is the only one to include a dedication page. It reads, "To His Royal Highness, The

You can judge a book by its cover, banal stereotypes notwithstanding. The red lines on the slightly green graph paper, featuring on

Saliha Ben Ali is a mother of a son who had fallen prey to recruiters of a terrorist outfit. Saliha is a mother who was promised access to Paradise by her radicalised son.