There is always a subtle tension when a story migrates across cultures. Some narratives travel with the lightness of wind, reshaping themselves almost effortlessly inside new imaginations, while others arrive heavy with the weight of the worlds that first produced them.
If the girls we read about could speak today, their voices would be both sharp and unflinching.
My readings of the two books—the subject of this write-up—happened to be on two momentous occasions, set two decades apart in utterly contrasting ways.
Translation is risk, and poetry is the highest form of risk
My nani’s nickname was Bokul—like the flower. In English, it’s called the Spanish Cherry or Mimusops elengi, though no translation quite captures its softness.
The bus stop was empty as usual, I sat waiting for a sight of one. Then he came. A man in a faded red shirt with a bag hanging on his back, running as if the devil himself had taken out a lease on his shadow.
When moon fades into dawn and when I pass away with it / Will you think of all that I was?
1 and 3/4 cups of sugar, 2 cups of i-love-you
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.
1 and 3/4 cups of sugar, 2 cups of i-love-you
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.
In the psyche and schema of the average transnational Bangladeshi, rape is visible and legitimate only when it takes spectacular forms—violent, brutal, deadly.
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.
I fell asleep to the chatters of cicadas on a quiet summer night
A long stretch of time / passed in prison
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
The large green pond of Dhanmondi Lake was probably the first source of natural water that I had witnessed. It sheltered a huge number of people who have lived,
Women and the earth have to tolerate a lot. –Kaajal (1965)
