Chittagong’s neighbour Sandwip is absent from Bay of Bengal history because its nature is hard to define.
The first experience of the great river Padma is nothing less than overwhelming, and slightly terrifying. I first came to face the mighty river as a young lad in my teens sometime in April of the momentous year of 1971. My first sighting came with two terrors. My father was fleeing Dhaka with the family with the hope of crossing the river to escape the brutal onslaught of the Pakistan army. Arriving at the banks, there was the Padda (Padma) before us with its glorious panorama. It seemed like an oceanic river, with no sight of the other side, and the frightening prospect of crossing it.
The writing of history in the Bengali language by a Bengali began around 225 years ago with the publication of Raja Pratapaditya Charitra in 1801.
He is the “president of the people”, more precisely the “president of the poor people”.
The idea of death is feared by many but it is not in our control – perhaps only to a certain extent. Various life decisions we make play a big part in determining our fate.
No one doubts the magnitude of complexity that shrouds Dhaka, this city of 16 million poised between being the worst liveable and an economic colossus.
Earlier this month, I was a guest on a podcast titled Not Here For, a series by Kotha Bangladesh, that calls out injustices that we have historically faced and continue to face in this country today.
Theories abound. Bizarre rumours run wild. Apart from extremists on both ends of the spectrum, all rational minds with a heart condemn the divide; yet, it refuses to go away. It’s complex -- at times it gets ugly but, most of the time, a simmering tension over numerous petty differences regarding faith, culture and inexplicable prejudices run deep.
A new cartoon movement, known as cultural cartooning, has been gaining popularity all over the world. Cultural cartooning brings out the humorous side of our everyday life.
On March 10, 1947, a day of non-cooperation was observed in the colonial province of Assam.
The spectacular socio-cultural efflorescence known by the sobriquet of ‘Bengal Renaissance’ was an extraordinary period from mid- 19th to early 20th century in Bengal.
“Leaf Storm” or La Hojarasca in Spanish, the debut novella by world renowned Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, was first published in 1955. Largely applauded as the first appearance of Macondo, the imaginary village later made reputed in One Hundred Years of Solitude, Leaf Storm is a litmus test for a number of the themes and characters later to be crystallised in the book that earned the author the Noble Prize in literature.
Sher-e-Bangla was an institution rather than an individual. So say his critics as well as his admirers. And rightly so. But it seems very few have really appreciated the deeper significance of the epithet given him by themselves.
