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

The harmonium is massive in size. Antique and made of German reeds. Though time's whiplash left dark marks on it, its exquisite face still attracts its viewers.

“I am malicious because I am miserable. Am I not shunned and hated by all mankind? Tell me why I should pity man more than he pities me? I will revenge my injuries; if I cannot inspire love, I will cause fear.”

A reader can perhaps assume from the back flap of Fayeza Hasanat's debut collection of short stories that the pieces revolve around a woman's position in society, familial relationships and identity that is constructed for her.

-“Wonder! What a wonder!”

On Wednesday, October 10, 2018, the much awaited longlist for South Asian Literature 2018 was announced by eminent historian and academic Rudrangshu Mukherjee, the chair of the jury panel for the current year for the distinguished prize.

I do not write. I am not a writer. I am an active thought, willing to reveal through words the enigmas of human lives and the perplexities of women's stories.

The next day, Lebu had really blasted a peto at the party's office. Well, he had tried to. The peto had fallen off his maimed hand, right in front of the table. It didn't bounce — rather sort of slumped — like a ball in a slow spin. Everyone shrank in fear. Babluda, the secretary, had pulled his legs up on the bench. He pressed his palms against his ears and stared, wide-eyed.

We read about this girl. That she may have a name doesn't matter. What matters is that she is a'middle-sister', 'middle' as in relative, as in younger sister to someone, older sister to someone, sister-in-law to someone, and daughter to someone else.

Neil Gaiman ticked all the boxes on the “celebrity author” checklist long before he garnered mainstream fame. He guest starred in two episodes of “The Simpsons”, wrote multiple bestselling novels, penned one of the greatest comic book series of all time, and (what he considers to be one of his greatest achievements) scripted an episode of Doctor Who.

Two years ago, on a cool afternoon in November, driving towards the cantonment gate at the intersection past Radisson on the Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, a sign caught my attention.

They decorated her way with hibiscus,

The alley is dark. Dim streaks of light trickle down from the street lamp at the turn.

Life is an elegy, written by time. The instinct of life itself is elegiac, for it always reminds us of fragmentations and jouissance. Life reminds us of things that “are gone into a world of light,” (as Eusuf writes in her poem,

Everyone wants to make more money. While there are a lot of ways to earn money, one thing is for sure: You have to invest time. Time is a fleeting resource and most people feel that their time is the biggest thing they are losing in their quest for money.

Baul songs, stuffed with enigmas and codes, sum up the existential philosophy of deha tatta (Truth in the Body), probably the central theme of Baulism, outlining the aphoristic concept according to which 'whatever is in the universe is in the receptacle (the body).'

Lālan Sā̃i, also known as Lālan Fakir or simply “Lalon” (d. 1890 CE) was a non-sectarian poet and mystical philosopher who lived in the historically undivided Nadia district of Bengal

There the City of Mirrors lies, Within a stone's throw of my place, I have a neighbour living there, Oh, I've never seen his face!

It always amazes me how a simple illiterate man—'sahaj manush'—from the rural nineteenth century Bengal could have had such a magnanimous vision to assimilate in his songs the core ideas from the Vedic, Upanishadic, Vaishnavite, Buddhist, Tantric, and the Sufi philosophy.

The issue of Islam in Bangladesh is complex, sensitive and fraught. It has problematised the sense of national identity of Bangladeshis into a schizophrenic duality driven by the tension between the cultural and religious aspects of their collective personality.

The Storm is a tale of multiple compelling characters from around the world but all tied back to a crucial time and place in South Asia—a storm based on the real 1970 Bhola cyclone.