POETRY / Take me to a hibiscus field won’t you
13 December 2024, 18:00 PM
POETRY / Our Bangla
13 December 2024, 18:00 PM
THE SHELF / Pages for freedom: Book recommendations for Victory Day
13 December 2024, 18:00 PM
Alice Munro, Canadian Nobel Prize-winning author, dies at 92
14 May 2024, 17:26 PM
POETRY / Be a tree
15 March 2024, 18:00 PM
FICTION / The loss of essentiality
15 March 2024, 18:00 PM
POETRY / THE OTHER WAY ROUND
8 December 2023, 18:00 PM
POETRY / Soldier amidst the blood moon: An elegy
8 December 2023, 18:00 PM
ESSAY / Ludic space for Tagore’s fictive children
8 December 2023, 18:00 PM
POETRY / They raise their fists. Inside, I fall asleep to the sound of rain
1 December 2023, 18:00 PM
A Serenade of Love
In a soggy London street he stood, shaking his dreadlocks like wind-struck branches of a willow and moving his weathered bow on the shiny strings of his broken violin.
10 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Life’s Invisible Battles
This is a story without a beginning or an end. The story does not even relate to events that one can see. And yet, in some sense, there is a beginning and there is an end.
10 August 2019, 18:00 PM
The Song of the Mountains
It’s late June and it’s hot. It’s nine in the morning and it’s hot. It’s so hot in Dhaka that after a while feelings turn somewhat numbed, vision blurred. And taking advantage of the overcrowded vehicle, when a guy pinches Shila Chakma’s buttock after a futile attempt to grope her breast, she wants to scream: Stop it, you pervert.
10 August 2019, 18:00 PM
The Story of the 21st
We could have never imagined that we would get Topu back. And yet he has returned and is amidst us. It is mind-boggling – the person whom we had seen for the last time at the High Court intersection,
10 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Why Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch is a movie in prose
The Goldfinch—the written version, Donna Tartt’s third literary triumph—opens upon a Christmas day in a hotel in Amsterdam. The “I” that speaks offers a brief recap of his murky dreams and departure from New York; what but he really (quickly) wants to get to is setting up the scene for us.
8 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Inner Battle
Please for once do not judge -
2 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Ocean bloom
Aqua blooming ripples of ocean, wisping hair
2 August 2019, 18:00 PM
I Sing the Sea
I sing the sea
2 August 2019, 18:00 PM
The Story of Kusum’s Family
When the twelve-year old Kusum was returning home, she stole a glance at the setting sun for one last time. It was dipping over the heads of tallest coconut trees lined along the furthest edge of horizon. She let out a sigh — for some indefinable reason she wanted to
2 August 2019, 18:00 PM
Mothers and Daughters
Atia crossed over to the window and looked out into the rain-soaked streets. A rickshaw-puller had taken refuge under the mango tree and was huddled in the passenger seat.
26 July 2019, 18:00 PM
On Writing in a Second Language
Writing entices me. But every time I get down to writing something, I feel like a bumbling idiot. Nothing emerges. Ideas evaporate. Thoughts tangle. Language languishes. My frustration mounts.
26 July 2019, 18:00 PM
Silent Words
There was a faint sound of an old dog crying somewhere. It was as if a blind man was trying to play an ancient untuned violin. Its shrieks turned Rubi’s blood cold. She almost fell asleep but woke up at the howling sound.
26 July 2019, 18:00 PM
The Thai Massage
We had gone on a package tour to South East Asia and on the last day of our trip we spent the whole day in Bangkok, the capital of Thailand.
26 July 2019, 18:00 PM
What do you read on the road?
My copy of Zadie Smith’s Autograph Man is special for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s the only one of my favourite author’s books that I haven’t read in its entirety.
25 July 2019, 18:00 PM
The Guest
The total number of guests adds up to forty-odd. It is too many, yet Nishat and I are not prepared to drop any. I have just finished my PhD and we are leaving America to take up my new job in Saudi Arabia. It is time for celebration, it is time to say goodbye.
19 July 2019, 18:00 PM
Micro Fiction
And we two—a lovey-dovey couple, get married one day. Always be true to the truth, be honest to each other—we harmonized on that point. Years later, it is our fifth marriage anniversary evening. She dresses up gorgeously, stands before me and asks, “How do I look?”
19 July 2019, 18:00 PM
A First-Class Ghost
We had just moved to Kolkata for our schooling. Not that we thought Kolkata schools were better than mofussil ones. Schools are the same everywhere—cast in the same mold. All schools force-feed lessons but sadly no one becomes educated; and even if they do, it is
19 July 2019, 18:00 PM
The Rainy Day
Oh, a rainy day
Drips of water
Falling from the sky
17 July 2019, 18:00 PM
A Mother’s Plight
After a heavy shower the city life sighed a breath of relief. I can still hear the clogged up rain water streaming down the rooftop and beating against the exhaust machine of the air cooler, affixed right outside the hospital cabin where my mother has been admitted.
12 July 2019, 18:00 PM
Starstruck
I see starlight on my walls in dark nights
I see it on my windows.
12 July 2019, 18:00 PM