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

In my early 20s, I moved to New York and started going to a commuter college. I lived far from campus, so in order to get to school, I had to take a bus and then the subway, adding up to an hour of commute each way. My classmates all commuted from various parts of the city; some of them ran to work right after classes. Having been surrounded by friends all my life and not yet knowing how to enjoy my own company, I felt extremely lonely.

Finding an independent bookstore in a new city is one of my most cherished travel experiences.

And womanhood? Well, it is messier. But it is mine. No longer something handed to me by men or mothers or traditions. Just mine.

Celebrated author and activist Arundhati Roy’s 2025 memoir Mother Mary Comes to Me (Penguin, 2025) continues to solidify its place in the zeitgeist and its cultural impact well into 2026, with its recent win at this year’s US National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award in the Autobiography category.

We once lived in Jackson Heights, Queens, New York City. Those days still return to me, especially when my grandmother’s death anniversary comes around.

Children of 1972–73 came of age alongside Bangladesh itself. In Azimpur’s close‑knit colony, a telephone became a neighbourhood lifeline, television was a shared ritual, and the Buriganga was our afternoon escape.

One of these days, you will lose one or two limbs to the slow erosion of years, the same silence that took Grandfather’s stories mid-sentence.

In the early 2000s, remixed versions of Bangla folk songs flooded neighbourhood corners during evening street matches and nighttime ceremonial events, which blurred the elusive nature of melancholia and yearning in the beats and celebration.

Though human beings speak in prose in everyday life, the astonishing truth is that poetry is humanity’s first artistic love.

Reading these literary works born from the 1952 Language Movement today reminds us of the sacrifices endured by those who fought for Bangla and shows how literature has always been one of the sharpest ways to preserve memory and keep their struggle alive.

You know that feeling: you’re standing in front of your bookshelf, fingers trailing over spines, and you’re not just looking for a story. You’re looking for a companion—a voice that feels like a thought-daughter, a story born from the mind but nurtured by the heart, one that asks big questions but whispers them in your ear. Lately, my own shelf has been whispering back, and it’s been telling me to pass these whispers on to you.

Once in a full moon, Ophelia's flowers received full bloom, beside the daffodils, But they never saw eye to eye, as a narcissist only stares at her own reflection

From now on, selected works of representative Bangladeshi poets will now be available on the Lyrikline platform

Long before Pinterest boards and Instagram FYP, the Eid shongkha dictated what we wore.

The scramble was almost instantaneous and without mercy. Men in freshly tailored panjabis—stitched for the next morning's prayers—threw elbows for the simple right to go back home.

The novel, as a form, for a long time, has been concerned with the representation of consciousness.

Strings of light stretch across the streets, storefronts glow a little brighter than usual, and the air seems to carry the quiet excitement of Eid drawing near.

The exhibition reimagines the book as a tactile, textile based vessel for memory, currently on view at Alliance Française Dhaka from March 10-18, 2026.

Earlier this year, Brandon Sanderson finalised what has been described as an “unprecedented deal” with Apple TV+ to adapt his Cosmere universe for film and television, specifically his Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive series. For years, Hollywood had shown interest in acquiring the rights to his massive fantasy catalogue. But they could not guarantee him creative control. This is the biggest reason Sanderson had not sold the rights until now. With this Apple TV+ deal, Sanderson gets full creative power and will oversee each project personally.

A few days ago on a dreary, grey Sunday, as I was busy with my weekend chores and preparing for the week ahead, I received a call from my sister.