THE OTHER WAY ROUND
A night at Hotel Kaalipara
An uncomfortable stillness emanated in the air around Rajpath road. I stood there with my suitcase in my hand, the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge. Glancing left then right, I crossed the road and entered the premises of Hotel Kaalipara.
200 years of selected Bangalee literature up for grab
Bishwa Sahitya Kendra completes the mammoth task of compiling and publishing the 74,000-page compilation
Jojo-Buri
the moon watches over you, when whales beach themselves, the tides wash them back home; the moon looks down
Homeward
When I was born, my skin was dark, like my grandfather’s, in whose arms I discovered my first home. Relatives old and new, whose disappointment was being nursed by my parents’ fair complexions, looked from afar as my rotund cheeks melted into the sleeves of my dada’s discolored half-sleeve shirt.
The sound of Dhaka city
Once on a particularly smothering hot day, on a CNG ride to work, I was stuck in the most heinous traffic for over two hours. Over the yelling drivers, honking cars, and incessant cursing over why the CNGs were trying to overtake the expensive cars, I was listening to my usual cycle of songs. As coincidence would have it, David Gilmour in his seraphic voice posed the question: “So, so you think you can tell/ Heaven from hell?”
