Fiction
I dashed off my first short story in January 1994, right after coming home to Detroit on a Greyhound bus from Buffalo. Many rewrites later, this was published two years after as “Felicia” in the anthology Contours of the Heart: South Asians map North America. I am grateful for that encouragement.
Some of my published stories are listed below. Where the stories are available online, you will find them linked. In a few other cases, I’m making the stories available right here.
- NEW:Man in the Middle,
published in New Age Eid Special, September 2008, Dhaka, Bangladesh. - Blue Mondays at the Gearshift Lounge,
published in New Age Eid Special, September 2007, Dhaka, Bangladesh. - Interrogation,
published in New Age Pahela Baishakh Special, April 14,2007, Dhaka, Bangladesh. - Fragments from a lost manuscript,
published in the anthology In Pursuit of the Perfect Gourmet Garam Masala, Skrev Press 2007, UK.Sometime in the year 2131: By the time Indian astronomers discovered a distant planet that had a 99% possibility of hosting intelligent life — a planet they named Durga in honour of its ten moons — visitors from that planet had already arrived and established a sprawling base on the beds opened up by the melting of the Himalayan glaciers.
Read the full story. - Postcards from a stranger,
published in The Daily Star, December 2, 2006, Dhaka, Bangladesh. - Before the monsoons come,
published in The Daily Star, October-November 2006, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Part I, Part II. Part III. - City Shoes in The Village,
published in The Daily Star, April 2006, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Part I, Part II, Part III. An earlier version of this story was published as “Balancing Acts” in the Winter 2005 issue of the Asian Pacific American Journal. - Killing the water
featured at Another Subcontinent - War Stories
This story won First Prize in the Katha India Currents Fiction Contest and appeared in India Currents, April 2001 - Felicia
Published in the anthology Contours of the Heart: South Asians Map North America, available from Amazon.com - Runa’s Journey,
published in The Daily Star Book of Bangladeshi Writing , February 2006 from Dhaka, Bangladesh.
WHEN Zakaria Brown neared the bend at Grand and Harrison, he noticed three people walking towards him. Closest to him, a dark-skinned woman with her hair locks splashed in purple fabric, a man in the middle, and another woman, the tallest of the three, flashing a dancer’s leg through a slit in her denim skirt. They were laughing about something. He stepped off the pavement to let them pass, and the woman next to him turned her head and said, ‘She thinks you’re cute.’
The man tossed Carlotta Jones the Monday night gig and acted like he was doing her a big favour.
By the time the boys face me, the constables have already knocked some sense into their skulls. But I have made it clear to my superiors that I shall not have my hands dirtied with that job. I have even managed to get them to agree that the prisoners will be given a bath before I see them. I do not want to see any signs of blood.
Dear Hyacinth, You left behind a book at the Firestone service station. It had your address in it.
In the heat of the summer afternoon, even the pie dogs have slunk away to find shade.
There would be no familiar faces to greet him when he arrived. But Altaf could expect the children to hear his call.
When I fly into Dhaka - if I’m lucky enough to arrive during the day - I see beneath me the delta landscape of Bangladesh, familiar patches of green fields crisscrossed by a maze of gray-blue rivers. More water than land.
He was one of the last few people on the streets. As he walked with hurried steps toward the subway station, the young man heard the crashing noise of an iron grate being yanked across a storefront. Otherwise the night was still. Even the Salvation Army bell ringers had gone home.
She saw me eying the empty seat next to her at the back of the bus.
Read the full story
I am here only because Maa insisted. Under no other circumstances would I have come back to this God-forsaken place.
