Tashfia Ahmed

Of glitter pens, prestige, and Eids in Dhaka

Being a Dhakaite, your Eids in childhood were spent in mournful longings for something to happen.

2w ago

Pardanasheen

Tell me about this life you live behind the curtain…

4w ago

Durga and the Bangali identity crisis

I am compelled to ask what being a Bangali even means today: What shapes our ethnic identity?

6m ago

Sertraline is killing my poetry

At some point, it started turning into hyper-productivity, because more task completion meant more serotonin. My writing, on the other hand, shifted from my internal world to the problems of the external world.

6m ago

The chasm

At around 2 AM he was awoken by the sound of Shahidun’s sniveling cries on her prayer mat. As grating as it might have sounded, he felt grateful for it to have woken him up.

1y ago

Byting wisely: The varying narratives of nationalism and independence

So in the spirit of Independence, I urge my reader to exercise independence of consumption—to question what you are buying, what you are reading, what you are watching, and which of these you are really given the freedom to choose.

1y ago

Bangalis and the “cutification” of English

On a single visit to the Chadni Chowk gully at the Gawsia/New Market area, I had witnessed, store by store, the gradual devolvement of the name for Mysore cotton to Maisha cotton.

1y ago

Bloom

But I bloom like a flower:/ Soft and strong.

1y ago
September 9, 2023
September 9, 2023

The matriarchy of food

It is a truth universally acknowledged that food is the undisputed sixth love language that Gary Chapman forgot to mention in his 1992 book. Or maybe it’s just the gastronome in me speaking.

June 28, 2023
June 28, 2023

All cows moo to heaven

The farm had transformed overnight into a spinning wheel of fear and intrigue. The mother cows' hushed grunts weaved an elaborate tapestry of tales.

June 20, 2023
June 20, 2023

Scrounging revelations out of music

I don't remember at what point in life I learned to recognize the fallacy behind the not-like-other-girls phenomenon and discarded it for an all-encompassing love for female friendship and solidarity, in acceptance of femininity in all its forms. But I do know that Taylor Swift played a significant role in it.

May 15, 2023
May 15, 2023

La Bandito

She impales the bodies of chickens she prepares for a feast— My mother holds taut the fat clinging to the meat, By the sleight of her hand, separates it, And hurls it into the bin by the kitchen sink.

March 21, 2023
March 21, 2023

Into the rhyme and reason of poetry

To be human is to be a poet. And I will tell you why.

March 10, 2023
March 10, 2023

“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature”. Is she really?

It concerns me that Tate’s apologists range from impressionable boys in my grade 9 classroom to 30-something-year-old single dads. My own mother calls me a ‘feminist’ with such chagrin in her tone, it begins to feel like a slur.

February 25, 2023
February 25, 2023

The native lores know

Language trickles down the routes that blood took through Time. They say it’s a linear path, and yet I, a reluctant servant to the wiles of Time, find myself laid out in loops and slopes.

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