Tashfia Ahmed

Being a Dhakaite, your Eids in childhood were spent in mournful longings for something to happen.

Tell me about this life you live behind the curtain…

I am compelled to ask what being a Bangali even means today: What shapes our ethnic identity?

At some point, it started turning into hyper-productivity, because more task completion meant more serotonin. My writing, on the other hand, shifted from my internal world to the problems of the external world.

At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.

So in the spirit of Independence, I urge my reader to exercise independence of consumption—to question what you are buying, what you are reading, what you are watching, and which of these you are really given the freedom to choose.

On a single visit to the Chadni Chowk gully at the Gawsia/New Market area, I had witnessed, store by store, the gradual devolvement of the name for Mysore cotton to Maisha cotton.

But I bloom like a flower:/ Soft and strong.

These words are not just some veils adorning the valour and victory of our freedom fighters; they're not just tributes but testaments to the rare occasion of the oppressed overpowering the oppressor.

These stories, whether in books or movies, not only provide pearls of wisdom for young minds, but even subvert the preconceived notion that wisdom is cultivated with age

It is a truth universally acknowledged that food is the undisputed sixth love language that Gary Chapman forgot to mention in his 1992 book. Or maybe it’s just the gastronome in me speaking.

The farm had transformed overnight into a spinning wheel of fear and intrigue. The mother cows' hushed grunts weaved an elaborate tapestry of tales.

I don't remember at what point in life I learned to recognize the fallacy behind the not-like-other-girls phenomenon and discarded it for an all-encompassing love for female friendship and solidarity, in acceptance of femininity in all its forms. But I do know that Taylor Swift played a significant role in it.

She impales the bodies of chickens she prepares for a feast— My mother holds taut the fat clinging to the meat, By the sleight of her hand, separates it, And hurls it into the bin by the kitchen sink.

To be human is to be a poet. And I will tell you why.

It concerns me that Tate’s apologists range from impressionable boys in my grade 9 classroom to 30-something-year-old single dads. My own mother calls me a ‘feminist’ with such chagrin in her tone, it begins to feel like a slur.

Language trickles down the routes that blood took through Time. They say it’s a linear path, and yet I, a reluctant servant to the wiles of Time, find myself laid out in loops and slopes.