Creative nonfiction / Growing up with a new nation: The Dhaka we once knew

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away—or 44 years ago in US cinemas on May 25, to be exact—a phenomenon was born. Today, we know the release as Episode IV: A New Hope but back when it came out in 1977, the film was more prominently known by the title which permeates throughout the world today: Star Wars.

It happened sometime in the winter of 1959. There was a ripple of commotion in the ‘kancha bazaar’ (kitchen market) in Dinajpur town. Someone gave a clarion call, “The gypsies are here. Allah save us! Secure your things.” It was as if a calamity had descended on the small town. Sajeed our domestic servant came running home from the bazaar and excitedly broke the news.

After savouring English and world literature for quite a while, I developed an interest in South Asian literature. This led me to study writers of this literary tradition.

On the tail end of “The Lottery” in the summer of 1948, Shirley Jackson finished writing in one morning’s worth of work her underappreciated short story, “The Summer People”.

On September 4, 1997, Smadar Elhanan was killed while shopping with friends when Palestinian suicide bombers detonated themselves in downtown Jerusalem.

“Kichudin jabot Dhakay cholchhe prochur gorom, abar eki shathe shaolar gondho chorano brishti hochhe.” The incessant heat and rainfall, the month of May, the lull of Eid holidays and the call of books, films, and music are just some of the elements that make Apurba Jahangir’s Footnotes (Subarna, 2021) a fitting read for this time of the year.

Project Shohay, a fundraising campaign jointly organised by Litmosphere and the youth-led sexual awareness organisation Bodol, launched on Tuesday, May 18, with the aim of creating employment opportunities for women in “floating” sex work.

With settler colonialism and apartheid taking place in Palestine—with at least 227 Palestinians, 64 of them children, having been killed over the last 11 days

In a break from activity books for children containing games, images, and writing instructions, Shuvashish Roy, a postgraduate of creativity, innovation, and business strategy from the University of Exeter, has written the first-ever creative journal in the Bangla language, Ja Ichcha Tai (Protik Prokashana Sangstha, 2021), which promises its fair share of fun-loving and creative exercises for adults.

Here are 7 single issues that can serve as gateways into the superhero worlds.

In the song-lyric numbered 230 in Gitabitan, Rabindranath Tagore’s comprehensive compilation of such verse, we find his delight at capturing the loveliness of the world outside his window in a song-lyric: “I’ve caught uncatchable loveliness in rhyme’s binds—/The loveliness of a distant night-bird/Singing at a late hour of the night/ Wings crimsoned by ashoka flowers of a departed spring/And a heart filled with the fragrance of fallen flowers” (my translation).

How often would I lose myself thinking I would bare my heart at your feet? I would fancy holding on to it tightly And confessing: “I love you passionately!” But I would think too: a heavenly angel— How could I show my love so openly then?

Clouds pile upon clouds And the world darkens Why keep me waiting by the door then, All, all alone?

Away from the festivities and communal interactions that make Ramadan special, this year, books seem like a fitting avenue through which we can explore the lives of Muslims across the world. From biographies to novels, for children and for adults, these authors have penned stories that are both wholesome and enlightening.

At Night All Blood Is Black (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020; transl. Anna Moschovakis), shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize, is a

The books authored and published during a war always have an archival quality; they capture the time in its crudest form. They are a seamless blend

The globetrotting hero-reporter, he of the blonde quiff and the plus four trousers, had many an adventure throughout a 46-year-long run under

With the demise of Game of Thrones, Netflix seems best poised to offer a replacement—with The Witcher gearing for a second season and now

Satyajit Ray, born on May 2, 1921—a hundred years ago from this day—hails from a long line of Rays. His grandfather, Upendraishore Ray, was the first storyteller of the family, followed by father Sukumar Ray, master of the fun and formally experimental verse fondly remembered as the HaJaBaRaLa, a children’s novella often compared to Alice in Wonderland.

In “Gandhi and Nehru: The Uses of English,” an essay written by Sunil Khilnani from the 2010 collection of essays edited by Arvind Krishna Mehrotra, A Concise History of Indian Literature in English, we are told about how the two leading figures of Indian independence not only used the English language to write back against empire, but played important roles in “the long, uneasy and interminable task of making English an Indian language.”