Qazi Mustabeen Noor

I needed to de-escalate.

The reader might have encountered in their grammar books that the pronoun ‘tara’ in cholito bhasha comes from its shadhu form ‘tahara’. For some of us, years of formal schooling has cemented this etymology in our heads, rendering us unable to find an alternate reality. Breaking these moulds, the author declares, “The word ‘they’ is tara, the word for star”, encouraging one to take a pause and consider these homographs in a new light.

It's easy to neglect our mental wellbeing while planning to study abroad.

In the middle of nowhere, among the wide expanse of paddy fields stands a wee nursery—an oasis of sorts, a respite from the outside world.

I discovered Olga Tokarczuk in 2018 after having lapped up the contents of Flights (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017), a novel, written in fragments, that invites obsessive reading, winning Tokarczuk and her brilliant translator Jennifer Croft no less than the Man Booker International prize that same year.