In Gaza, the names of the martyrs slip through silence, lost to a world too distracted to listen

The large green pond of Dhanmondi Lake was probably the first source of natural water that I had witnessed. It sheltered a huge number of people who have lived,

It feels like only two days ago that my dadu was still here, worrying I’d always be too short like her.

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?

The Notorious Loverboy, Slum Boy and Millionaire’s Daughter, My Bride or My Mother, My Mother’s Body in a Wedding Saree,

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a mom in Dhaka must be in want of a balcony-garden

My love affair with spectacles has long been regarded by my mother as nothing but a symptom of my dramatic nature.

Back in 2006 at the age of 11, I was introduced to faith, in the most domestic way possible.

When I was born, my skin was dark, like my grandfather’s, in whose arms I discovered my first home. Relatives old and new, whose disappointment was being nursed by my parents’ fair complexions, looked from afar as my rotund cheeks melted into the sleeves of my dada’s discolored half-sleeve shirt.

My mother’s house is beside a lake that separates the rich and mighty of the city from a little isle of people who work for them.

Love is the enormous mango tree growing directly from an ancient grave, so old that no headstone remains at all.

My father’s ancestors were Ayurvedic medicine men from a remote corner of the North Bengal. A few generations ago, one of them had cured a long-lasting ailment of the Raja of Taherpur and had received, as a reward, a large chunk of agricultural land or “joat” next to the mighty Joshoi Beel.

In exchange for the presidential suites at the Ritz and so on, the men holding our city keys have already opened our skies to all that may come.

The only thing I like about this city is the thought of leaving it. And I was leaving it finally, after one and a half months, my longest stretch of stay in the last three years. Juggling my luggage with one hand and my phone with the other to get Google Maps directions while I balance myself on the rickshaw racing through bumpy Dhaka roads–it is a metaphor that sums up my life in this city.

Are ghosts real? This was the question Mollie, a little 8-year-old girl who lives at the end of our street asked me in a–real–letter she wrote me recently. I had apparently included a book of ghost stories in a bag of books I had given her.

But I understand. I am part of a historic pattern. So not everything is personal. I can't help but fall into some of the traps and become prey to some of the vultures.

Football, bloody hell! Like the chapters of a book, slowly unfolding towards the eventual climax, this edition of the World Cup has been nothing short of breathtaking. From gorgeous goals to late drama, with a few major upsets sprinkled throughout, this year’s World Cup has probably been the most spectacular iteration of football’s greatest tournament.