"One day everything becomes a story" An abridged version of this article appeared The Daily Star on 2 August 2008. Three years after partition, a ten-year-old boy nicknamed Botu moved from Barasat, now across a border, to Dhaka, settling with his family in the new flats built in Azimpur for government employees. At West End [...]

One hot release at this year’s Boi Mela was the novel Yaba Sundori.      The phrase had only been coined last November with the police campaign against the methamphetamine drug marketed as Yaba. That was our News of the Hour, the Sensation of the Month.      What a sensation that was. It began with a [...]

I’m in my car, driving. The cell phone pressed against my ear, I’m listening to a funny story about Muslim speed dating in Houston. The next minute, my eyes take over. Just ahead, to my right, is the tallest cross I’ve ever seen, its metal body gleaming in the morning sun. A few dozen people [...]

On Tuesday, September 18, Arifur Rahman, a 20-year old, was picked up from his Uttara residence, interrogated by police intelligence, and then sent to jail. His offense? He was the author of a cartoon that appeared in Alpin, the weekly satire supplement to Prothom Alo, the largest circulation Bangla newspaper in Bangladesh. The sub-editor responsible [...]

When the white crescent on green flag was hoisted in Dhaka, as the Raj took leave, I was yet to be born. The only family story I have heard of that day is that my Dada — really my Nana, my mother's father — lit a cigarette. He was not a smoker.     Lighting a [...]

On the second and third day of the protests last week, there was widespread bhangchur.     I like the sound of that Bangla word. It's not in my Bangla dictionary but the way it sounds echoes the meaning of the word. Bhangchur evokes the sound of sticks on steel, the shattering of glass. There are [...]

I am riding the No. 6 bus between Gulshan 1 and Farmgate. The bus is crowded, though I managed to get a seat. At Mohakhali, the bus gets into a race with another No. 6 bus. They edge past one another. First the other one gains the advantage. Now ours does. Meanwhile, traffic around us [...]

I am trying to make sense of the events that started with the Dhaka University students flaring up in protest on Monday, August 20. Nearly everyone calls the initial event that sparked the rebellion a 'tuccho ghotona' – a trivial or insignificant incident. The next morning, when I wrote in my journal I found myself [...]

My friend Andrew Morris, originally from Wales now living in Dhaka — a teacher, writer with a keen eye and a fast pen, and a musician with a mean mouth on the soprano sax — has launched a campaign to raise funds for a new shelter for survivors of trafficking, rape, domestic slavery, and exploitation. [...]

Thursday the 7th of June, it rained 109 mm in Dhaka. Leaving a literary event at the Sheraton I sought a ride home with a friend. Since the entrance was flooded, we agreed to cross over to the other side where his car would pick us up.     We took off our shoes and I [...]