Star Literature
ESSAY / Zadie Smith’s rhetorical tricks
Smith’s framing runs into the same blind spot in other criticisms levelled at student protests, i.e. it detaches the student’s cause from the activists, academics, and journalists, Palestinian or otherwise, who have been documenting Israel’s settler colonial project for 75 years.
FICTION / Hair cream
The mosque committee was quite displeased with Rashed, their young muezzin.
POETRY / A childhood memory
Dust patterns have gathered around my landline phone, huddling around the maroon. my fingerprints take some dust off of it, and they rejoice.
POETRY / How to exist
When there’s a lull in the air, I get the feeling that I’ve scraped the bottom of my fleshy insides.
ESSAY / Rabindranath Tagore’s engagement with Islamic culture and Muslims
The English poet W.B. Yeats once expressed his profound admiration for Rabindranath Tagore, describing him as “someone greater than any of us”.
POETRY / Shedin dujone dulachinu bone
You know how that day the wind brought out/ The crazy thoughts I had in me all the while.
POETRY / Je chilo amar shopnocharini
You called me close in the moments of grace/ Veiling my delicate senses
POETRY / A building, a tree, and a kid
Buckets of water I pour on my head; my vision gets blurry./ "The blurrier, the merrier", my mother said.
REFLECTIONS / Human passions in Kurosawa’s Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s enduring international appeal is in part due to the remarkable personalities he had invented.
FICTION / The man who dug his own grave
Everyone gathered around the east end of the Shashipur to watch Sharafat Miah dig his own grave. The local kids lurked around Sharafat’s old hut, keeping a watch on the progress of the grave until their mothers came to pick them up after Maghrib.
'Urge': Sehri Tales selections, Day 28
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 28 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Urge
'Liberation': Sehri Tales selections, Day 27
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 27 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Liberation
'Duty': Sehri Tales selections, Day 26
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 26 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Duty
'Soul': Sehri Tales selections, Day 25
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 25 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Soul
Everything you need is already inside you
The mid-month slump is probably the most demoralising part of the Sehri Tales challenge, even for long-time Talers.
Konokbari
Reya looks out the window of the bus, the glint of sunlight falling across her oval face makes her olive skin shimmer.
Of Ramzans past
Thirty-odd years later, in my two-member home, I try to recreate the Ramzan vibes with overpriced and undersized lamps and lanterns sporting star and crescent motifs
'Seven': Sehri Tales selections, Day 24
The top selections in poetry, flash fiction and artwork for Day 24 of the Sehri Tales challenge; prompt: Seven
A Desire or death eats away at my corpse. You are basking in the sun
Do you want my hands/ Will they be enough to keep you warm
