Creative nonfiction / Growing up with a new nation: The Dhaka we once knew

“You gave me such a fright last night! I thought you were dying.”

Prejudice is a monstrous thing, and so is the tendency to be judgmental—the mindset that allures us to put ourselves in the shining armor of righteousness.

Containing pieces of nearly seventy poets in their 40s, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (2019) can be called a landmark new anthology that maps contemporary poetry scene in India and the broader Indian diaspora.

The much-anticipated shortlist for the US $25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 was announced at a special event, which took place at the London School of Economics & Political Science.

“Let me finish first,” I say. “The first disaster descended on my life when Ahona turned six. I felt so elated when I took her to meet Sajeeb at Alliance Francaise.

Bhikhu suffered terribly throughout the rainy season. At the beginning of Ashar while raiding Baikhuntha Shaha’s depot at Basantapur, Bhikhu’s whole gang got caught in flagrante delicto.

Here we are on the Irish border for Hallowe’en, originally a Celtic festival designed to propitiate the ghosts of the dead.

In early September 2019, I made a weeklong trip to the UK to present conference papers at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the University of East Anglia (UEA).

I went to a café in the Gion region of Kyoto on invitation of Nizam Ahmed, a Bengali researcher in the University of Kyoto.

Guarded by the Biting Wind,

Every time before the voyage,

Maybe, someday we will joke about this,

When I pushed the calling bell of my Fupi’s (father’s sister) flat, a bewitching beauty opened the door. She possessed love-at-first sight charms. Beauty-struck, I gawked at her.

Almost all the readers of this review, I believe, know of the dramatist Momtazuddin Ahmed, National Professor Anisuzzaman or social activist Dr. Anupam Sen. It is a matter of some clicks on your mouse to get to know about these legends from Bangladesh. But, maybe, some of you sympathize with me that you do not know them through the microscopic lens of a student, who were in good terms with these leading lights within the four walls of classrooms and even outside.

A hawker was constantly nagging in front of me for buying a handkerchief. It was only 7.30 am in the morning and yet the sun was ready to burn the entire world with its rage.

‘How dare you!’ She poured molten lead into my ears, the moment I had proposed to her. I stopped right there. More than a decade has passed since then.

“And brown for my hair,” muttered Mustafa to himself. He was engaged in his favorite pastime surrounded by a splendid array of multi-colored play dough.

Ms Banalata Sen is mentioned thrice, at the end of each 6-line stanza, and each time the effect, in the context of the stanza’s affective and ideational development, is climactic.

I separate the bleeding stars

Gulshan Market Two has not changed much over the last three decades. Surrounding three sides of an open parking lot, it is a square, U-block construction, with a colonnade veranda running along the front of each shop. Some of the shops are new, but most are what they had been when Rita was a teenager.