Shamsad Mortuza

In September 2001, soon after the attack on the Twin Towers, the Bangladesh government issued a public announcement to contact the America & Pacific wing of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the whereabouts of Bangladeshi residents.

Two news reports caught my attention on Friday: one was about a wild elephant being electrocuted, and the other was about the dwindling international funds for the Rohingya refugees.

I don’t remember the last time I went to Chattogram. My knowledge of the port city can be summed up by the memorable quote from the epic fantasy series, Game of Thrones, where the main protagonist is told: “You know nothing, Jon Snow.”

I was watching a movie on Netflix. Suddenly, the voice assistant of the laptop, Siri, got activated and said, “Siri aha?”.

There was something ominous about the day in which Bangabandhu was laid to rest in his native village of Tungipara when, according to the village elders, the “skies were knowingly weeping tears” (Syed Badrul Ahsan, From Rebel to Founding Father, p. xv).

We are all glued to the mega-spectacle involving the flickering of the dropped or lost tails of some lizards who have tactically dissociated from a disposable part of their bodies to protect themselves from their attackers.

While staying with a host family in Pennsylvania during a weekend trip in the late 1990s, I found a statement knifed in the bed’s headboard: “Here a battle was won by the Man of the house [date]”.

There is a rush hour traffic out there. People after spending a short Eid escapade are frantically returning to the capital as the lockdown tolls the knell of a parting holiday.

Last week, all eyes were fixed on Neymar’s ripped shorts, Badhon’s jewelled blouse or English rogue fans’ red-crosses, when something terrible happened:

When an esteem-ed member of our university’s syndicate board died recently, we requested the government for a replacement.

The institution that one attends for education is often attributed with the honorific title alma mater, literally meaning "generous or nourishing mother". The phrase "alma mater studiorum" (nourishing mother of studies) was first used in 1088 as a motto by the oldest university in the Western world, the University of Bologna.

A female student of mine walked out of her dentist’s chamber at Bailey Road at around 8pm on June 7, 2021.

Normally, you and I would not see fairies or hear them singing. They exist in a world where we fear (or do not care) to tread (anymore). Even if we do, we will not admit it in public.

It reads like a Netflix blurb of a horror movie. A young man took a machete from a street coconut seller, uttered his last words: “please forgive me”, and then slit his own throat in front of Dhaka Medical College Hospital.

At a preparatory meeting for ULAB’s planned virtual convocation, I suggested that we use the iconic image of Keanu Reeves dodging many bullets in the Matrix trilogy as our promotional campaign.

During the latest rerun of the biblical David and Goliath narrative in a changed context, the age-old conflict between the Israelites and the Philistines has come alive.

The holiday lethargy has caused me self-loathing. Let me count some of the factors as to why I am beginning to hate myself.

A breath of fresh air: the University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to allow public universities to hold online examinations.

Ah! May Day. It’s here. Our newspapers will carry a close-up shot of hardworking men or women in action (e.g., breaking bricks, carrying loads, or manning the machine) to draw our attention to the tears and sweat of a largely overlooked mass whose discomfort ensures the comfort of the rest.

A good story is hard to find. Niaz Zaman, the editor of The Demoness: The Best Bangladeshi Short Stories, 1971-2021 (Aleph Book Company, 2021), has found 27 “best” short stories to create an appetite for Bangladeshi fiction.