Books are often staple travel companions. But as the reader leafs through its pages, they are blanketed by the warmth of its faint-yet-familiar scent, and submerged into a linguistic hinterland hiding infinite possibilities. As pages and letters metamorphose into a world unfettered by human limitations, books become much more than mere companions we literally travel with. Rather, they are transfigured into vehicles through which we embark on a more figurative journey—one of the intellect and the imagination.
When my literature professor heard I had been delving into Bangla literature and cultural media in pursuit of a self-undertaken project to finally learn Bangla, she suggested I see the 1970 film Jibon Thekey Neya.
How do you attempt to understand testimonies of mass public trauma?
This is part of a grand narrative that, offensive as it is, asks why the Jewish people let themselves be killed, instead of asking why the system enabled it to happen–the same narrative also exists in the cases of colonialism and slavery.
As we remember the joys and the agonies brought forth by 16th December 1971, we often forget or, rather, neglect the nuances embedded in the struggle
“Can one break a country...Will the earth bleed?” asks eight-year-old Lenny in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India (1988)–a tale about Partition. “No one’s going to break India. It’s not made of glass!”
Books are often staple travel companions. But as the reader leafs through its pages, they are blanketed by the warmth of its faint-yet-familiar scent, and submerged into a linguistic hinterland hiding infinite possibilities. As pages and letters metamorphose into a world unfettered by human limitations, books become much more than mere companions we literally travel with. Rather, they are transfigured into vehicles through which we embark on a more figurative journey—one of the intellect and the imagination.
When my literature professor heard I had been delving into Bangla literature and cultural media in pursuit of a self-undertaken project to finally learn Bangla, she suggested I see the 1970 film Jibon Thekey Neya.
How do you attempt to understand testimonies of mass public trauma?
This is part of a grand narrative that, offensive as it is, asks why the Jewish people let themselves be killed, instead of asking why the system enabled it to happen–the same narrative also exists in the cases of colonialism and slavery.
As we remember the joys and the agonies brought forth by 16th December 1971, we often forget or, rather, neglect the nuances embedded in the struggle
“Can one break a country...Will the earth bleed?” asks eight-year-old Lenny in Bapsi Sidhwa’s Cracking India (1988)–a tale about Partition. “No one’s going to break India. It’s not made of glass!”
