Call me quaint, but Radha is one of those metaphors that never fail to move me no matter how cliched. In a way, she is such a primal symbol of love; a love so pure and all-consuming even a god couldn't handle its weight and had to run away. Radha is what remains when we… Continue reading Amar Haat Bandhibi: A Translation
'Jaago Rai' was first published as a series in a Bangla poetry blog, and garnered quite a following. The poems were collected and published in 2013 as a little black chapbook illustrated by the poet himself and created by a little collective of madcap writers and artists who called themselves 'Houdinir Tnabu' (Houdini's magic tent).
On days like this, I don't want the pain to stop. I wake up dreaming of sumptuous steaks in golden platters and my stomach turns. The weak but insistent rays of a late-winter sun struggle against my dusty blue curtain and I try to wipe off the smug faces of my uncle and aunt sitting… Continue reading Love Will Keep Us Alive
This is an account of my first relationship, an abusive one. It broke my mind and body, drove me to severe self-harm, and a decade on I'm still not completely free of the repercussions. Here is what my mind remembers from those days.
You wake up and it's foggy. Outside the window and inside it. You are moving too slow, as you always do. Your ears are filled with the strange buzz of no-noise and your mouth is chalky with no-taste. You have one thousand things you should have done by last night and they are not done… Continue reading It’s Foggy in Here
গল্পটা আমি প্রথম পড়ি গ্রান্টা ম্যাগাজিনের অনলাইন সংস্করণে। কারমেন মারিয়া মাচাদো সম্পর্কে কিচ্ছুটি জানতাম না তখন, এখনও উইকিপিডিয়া পেজের তথ্য ব্যতীত খুব কিছু জানি না। তবে তাঁর নামের পাশে হরর এবং ইরোটিকা শব্দদুটো বসানো হয়। তাঁর অন্য কোনও লেখা এখনও আমার পড়া হয়ে ওঠেনি, কিন্তু এই একটি গল্পের ধুনকি কাটতেও সময় নেয়। এটাকে ফেমিনিস্ট আখ্যান… Continue reading অনুবাদ: দ্য হাজব্যান্ড স্টিচ, কারমেন মারিয়া মাচাদো
I don’t remember the entire dream, only fragments of it. Certain feelings and certain images float back. (I’d like to know how this works; remembering your dreams. When I am in the dream, I follow a certain causality on which the ‘I’ seem to have no control. When I wake up that causality is no… Continue reading Dream Narratives: One
From a specific angle, they can pass off as dementors prowling through a stark white fog. Except, these don’t seem to suck out soul, rather they are born of a soul in desperate need of lighting its own weight. She paints ravens in flight. She also paints still life, rugs, slippers, potted plants, café interiors.… Continue reading Ravens for A Woman I Think I Know
Once in a great while, there comes a moment in your life when you realize with perfect clarity that you are but a small cog in a scheme of things much bigger than you. Walking alongside one lakh people under pouring rain for a single cause is one of them. Today is 20th September. Four… Continue reading #HokKolorob and Why I Am Not A Journalist Anymore
How dark is the place that you are in? You sit in this airy room painted a happy green, wispy young trees dancing in the breeze like children after school and sun shining in the thick emerald foliage underfoot, the sky a rare powdery blue and fluffs of white glide dreamily through, the happy yellow-green-mauve… Continue reading How Long Do You Wait for Someone, Something?
In Other Words 