The cream colored bowl held the steaming, almost translucent yellow broth with traces of white, garnished by an array of green onions slashed in an angle.
The rain began at dusk, its cold fingers tracing the cracked panes of the house like an unwelcome visitor. By midnight, the storm had grown wild, wind howling through the trees, rattling the fragile bones of the dwelling. I stood before the door, my hand trembling on the tarnished brass handle.
Tell me, how far you want to descend Into your own abyss?
This is an excerpt from Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's short story "Abhishapta", translated by Dipty Rahman
When moon fades into dawn and when I pass away with it / Will you think of all that I was?
It was actually a bit of a relief to sit on the terrace of the Gezira Pension and have a quiet breakfast before plunging back once more into the traffic of Cairo in search of a carriage to the museum.
Where there's no scent of mother, but only a sweet sense of comfort in the touch I remember the warmth of my mother's lap
I jump from ship to ship, / fly dangling from the claws of a huge bird in the sky / till my toes scrape mountain-tips.
I see her now, but not in the way I have always seen her—through the lens of service, of duty, of roles—but as a woman whose edges were softened long before I learned her name
A lonely soul treads on the street cultivating the sweet pain of defunct love; like a solitary artist, he rambles through the alleys of the city
In the psyche and schema of the average transnational Bangladeshi, rape is visible and legitimate only when it takes spectacular forms—violent, brutal, deadly.
It was the shade of the ashwath that vanquished all one’s weariness from the fiery heat of Choitro. Or else it was not possible for fatigue to be eliminated so quickly.
I weave Hibiscuses in your hair and Along with them I softly weave the strings of my I love you’s. Your eyes are closed as you soak in my touch and Your lips are pressed thin as if imprisoning yours.
For educators: My go-to text on 1971 is Jahanara Imam’s Ekattorer Dinguli. It’s a deeply personal and powerful memoir that I believe every student should engage with to truly feel the emotional and human cost of the war. The way she documents her experiences, especially the loss of her son, is heart-wrenching and offers a perspective that transcends history—it becomes deeply relatable and unforgettable.
In classic Bengali fiction, the kitchen is a central site for conflict and community bonding.
The night after the story got published, Jamal stormed to my home at around 11 PM, drenched in the rain. That was the first and only time Jamal raised his voice against me
