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

Reya looks out the window of the bus, the glint of sunlight falling across her oval face makes her olive skin shimmer.

Thirty-odd years later, in my two-member home, I try to recreate the Ramzan vibes with overpriced and undersized lamps and lanterns sporting star and crescent motifs

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 24 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Seven

Do you want my hands / Will they be enough to keep you warm

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 23 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Olives

The Covenant of Water by physician and author Abraham Verghese tells the story of three generations of an Orthodox Saint Thomas Christian family in Kerala. Through suffering and loss, triumphs and victories, the importance of familial ties is examined and supported. In the Kerala of the 1940s, blood ties were sacred, but “family” also meant helpers who worked for you. Members of the three-generational family seem to be under a curse which causes its members to drown in water. The mystical power of water in our lives is explored with precision and sensitivity in the novel.

The title of this book suggests that it is based in Bengal but it really meanders deftly across time and space, more often than not in “mazy motion”.

A review of ‘Temple Lamp: Verses on Banaras’ (India Penguin Classics, 2023) by Mirza Ghalib, translated by Maaz Bin Bilal

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 22 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Flag

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 21 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Tire

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 20 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: August

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 19 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: True

The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 18 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Rubble

It is impossible to distinguish when, but I think My loss of faith coincided with your arrival

"Love" did not have me at 'hello' Nor does it cure the cries

Words have crashed onto your shores

Kissing strangers only feels good

Your gaze, a dagger, cuts through me

I needed to de-escalate.

This is the first time I let you in, but you’ve already made yourself at home. You are bumbling around in my kitchen, as though you have been making me tea for a lifetime.