As Fulbanu waited for Syed Ali, she thought about her only son, Suruj. She remembered that Suruj was the first man among five neighbouring villages to acquire his bachelor's degree

When Mr. Vik Roman looked at the time with flinching eyes, it was around 3:30 am.

Then you will vanish—becoming Amma, Chachi, Mami. No one will remember your name.

The city still wants to breathe.

At a gathering in the unfinished community hall, Saleha raises a question: "They gave us walls. But what do we want to grow inside them?"

I made my first kite out of white paper scraps; on my 16th birthday, it came to me that they needed a pop of color.

I know my engine is dying. I know that, by the time the next Eid rolls around, the busy little humans will have taken me apart to create something new.

When he was handing over the money to Naimuddin, their father, Kalam silently cried, holding Dholi’s neck in the yard.

When Ullash decided to choose the cat for one of his experiments, our borobhabi, Ullash's mother, didn't raise a single objection

I rush to the mirror. My gums are pristine, no wound, no sin. But when I look back at the fruit, the truth reveals itself: the flesh is blackened, writhing with tiny, hungry mouths. The rot has teeth

Now, an automated metro-rail glides silently through the city. Conversations have become clipped, calculated. Efficiency replaces spontaneity. They call it peace. Rahim calls it absence.

“I’m scared” a voice calls out.

Farid Shaheb earned a fair bit at the office today. These days, because of the Anti Corruption Commission and newspaper journalists’ incessant pestering, he can no longer directly take the money offered to him.

It was not often that I received odd parcels. True, my job at the paper did occasionally warrant a few peculiar hate-mail or rebuttals, but this was nothing of that sort

Mrs X's parents were not interested in spending money on their daughter's room because they would have to give her new furniture when she got married

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

Mohsin would burst into laughter, saying, "Justice for rape? Is that even a crime worthy of justice?" Rabeya, laughing alongside him, would add, "People expect justice for rape these days? I'm speechless at their naïveté!" 

You tell me stories of the sea—of its waves, of how it speaks to you in a language only you can understand—whenever you write back to me.

The cream colored bowl held the steaming, almost translucent yellow broth with traces of white, garnished by an array of green onions slashed in an angle.

The rain began at dusk, its cold fingers tracing the cracked panes of the house like an unwelcome visitor. By midnight, the storm had grown wild, wind howling through the trees, rattling the fragile bones of the dwelling. I stood before the door, my hand trembling on the tarnished brass handle.