The July wind brought in the scent of new beginnings

Magic boys and girls of Bangladesh, I love you.

Movements leave an indelible mark on the psyche of the people, and thus, the culture. As people are pushed to the brink of intolerance through oppressive measures,

In the blanks of muddy moonlight

A walkway through the crystal-clear lies

The silence forced upon the mass came on a sudden Thursday, as all means of communication were shut down abruptly overnight

You've ignited a tempest, / a crimson anger, / A defiance burning brighter than the summer's sun

How long does a corpse of a hero take to rot? 50 years or more? What about the corpses of martyrs? One week? 10 days? The 40-day mark to blow the candles of funeral fires?

Surely, it’s madness / it’s insanity—that he walked on

the way there was complete silence when you lied for the first time. You opened your eyes

“The liberation that comes through sorrow is greater than the sorrow,” says Nikhilesh, in Home and the World. I quote from Penguin’s Modern Classics edition, in Sreejata Guha’s translation.

But talks of harmony flood your nose. / Harmony, harmony, harmony—you want it so bad, / and so you put words in our mouths

“Attention passengers. The next train arriving is a B train traveling westbound towards Boston College.  Please stand clear of the closing doors."

a man walks into a bar but he looks like a little boy

Geronimo rushed inside the hole coughing, somehow managing to shut the door behind him. His mother Telapatra grabbed her son, hugging her tight for an instant before smacking him across the back. “How many times did I tell you not to go out at this hour?” cried Telapatra.

the bullet hole/ in my brother's chest/ unfolds like a pandora's box

My father speaks in a dismantled language that goes up in  smoke. 

Over the last two semesters, my course on South Asian writing at both the undergraduate and graduate level begins with Shahidul Zahir’s Jibon O Rajnoitik Bastobata (Life and Political Reality, translated by V Ramaswamy and Shahroza Nahreen).

I often think of flying on a bird’s eye view  Spread my nimble wings over

Three-year-old Maria asks  her nine-year-old brother, Ibrahim.