Biryani Tales and Life Lessons from Kerala, Review essay, The Wire (September 2018)
Back on the Bus: The world of a daily passenger, Personal essay, Sunday Eye, Indian Express (August 2018)
What Manto’s ‘Das Rupay’ Tells Us About Sexual Violence Against Girls Today , Review essay, The Wire (July 2018)
A People Ravaged: Peeling off the Many Layers of Partition Trauma, Book review, The Wire (May 2018)
Love and the Turning Seasons – India’s Poetry of Spiritual & Erotic Longing , Book review, Kitaab, (April 2018)
The Whore as Metaphor for a City, Review essay, The Beacon (February 2018)
Wet Radio and other poems, Book review, Kitaab (December 2017)
Rooting in Snow, Personal essay, Cargo Literary Magazine, (November 2017)
House of Song, Book review, Cafe Dissensus (October 2017)
The Restless Brilliance of Hassan Blasim, Author profile/Book review, Kitaab (October 2017)
On Durga’s Migrant Trails, Personal essay, Cafe Dissensus Everyday (September 2017)
Satirical Films Have a Lot to Say About India’s ‘Baba’ Culture, Essay, The Wire (September 2017)
The Historian’s Daughter , Book review in Cafe Dissensus (August 2017)
Cutting Through Mountains to Build a Statue Translation in The Wire (August 2017)
Who is Abani, at whose house, and why is he even there? Translation in Parabaas (August 2017)
Bangladesh Now, Through the Lens of Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, film review in The Wire (June 2017)
Book Review: Sumana Roy’s ‘How I Became a Tree’, book review in Cafe Dissensus Everyday (April 2017)
Singing in Dark Times—a Manual for Encoding Dissent, poem in The Maynard (April 2017)
Beheji, poem, in Stonecoast Review (December 2016)
London Relived: The precise affections of a sometimes lover, personal essay in Coldnoon Travel Poetics (August 2016)
Asavari, poem in Open Road Review (August 2016)
Balancing Yin and Yang in Coyoacan, personal essay in Cafe Dissensus Everyday (April 2016)
Nirmala Boudi and the Bureaucracy, fiction translation in Humanities Underground (November 2015)
Parama Park Street, prose translation in The Sunflower Collective (September 2015)
Fall, poem in Words, Pauses, Noise (September 2015)
Thirsty, poem in Open Road Review (June 2016)
Togetherness Formulae, poem in AntiSerious (June 2015)
Review of Rivers Run Back in Cafe Dissensus (May 2015)
Living Abroad is Making Do and Make Believe, poem in Words, Pauses, Noises (March 2015)
An anti-national friendship, translated into Bengali in Friendships Across Borders (February 2015)
When I had the Plague, humour essay in Anti Serious (December 2014)
Patch of sky for hopes to fly, review essay in DNA (September 2014)
Between the Map and the Memory/book review in Cafe Dissensus (August 2014)
Marrying the Road, essay/book review in DNA (July 2014)
Winter Outside a Grocery Store, poem in Two Cities Review (P 33) (June 2014)
Ocean of Consciousness, essay in DNA (May 2014)
Letters from a Foreign Shore, translated letters in Cafe Dissensus (May 2014)
Aranyalipi, translated essay in Muse India (May 2014)
Kabir in the time of elections, essay in DNA (April 2014)
The Curse of the Missing, column in Cafe Dissensus Everyday (April 2014)
The fabled crop of winter, essay in DNA (March 2014)
Summer at Victoria Park, poem in The Boston Coffee house (March 2014)
Two Weeks in Delhi, personal essay in Pithead Chapel (March 2014)
Flickering Embers in Verse, essay in DNA (February 2014)
Book review: Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage in DNA (January 2014)
Book review: Corona in TFQM (December 2013)
The Bulldozer in Warscapes (November 2013)
His Masterly Voice: Manna Dey, in Sahapedia (October 2013)
Alice Munro: Marathons in Sprint in IBN Live (October 2013)
‘Where a line is a circle: Toronto’ in Earthen Lamp Journal (September 2013)
Shakti’s Singing in Parabaas (April 2013)
On Durga’s Migrant Trails Personal essay in The Four Quarters Magazine (December 2012)
The Crater Doesn’t Move in Open Road Review (November 2012)
Ramkinkar’s People Live Again in Indian Express (September 2012)
A restless but calming mind (May 2012)
When art meets publishing world (April 2012)
Mention in BCLT Alumni News (March 2012)
Still in Translation (March 2012)
It is shocking the extent to which those people in power can go in order to maintain their personal interests, even when they are opposed to that of their people. This is truly a sad episode but at the same time it also shows the importance of Identity and how far people are willing to go to defend their right to maintain their own language and traditions.Excellent post, Sury!Cesar
Bhaswati, nice post. it spoke to me because I work in a place which brings together seven languages!
Cesar, you said it so well. The stories are the same the world over; politicians smothering the interests of ordinary people to serve their vested interests. Shameless, thanks for reading. I am sure you appreciate the sensitive nature of the issue even more. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this. You’d think with our intelligence we’d be way more evolved than we are. But, it’s the people who fight for what they believe in that give me hope.
Terrific post – thank you for sharing! I have a day home so I am trying to say hello to my internet friends! Hope all is well with you and you have a wonderful day!
Nienke, you are so right. It’s the people who stand up to protect their roots that bring us hope and inspirationMarti, so good to see you! I hope all is well with you. 🙂
Hello,A brilliant post Bhaswati on language!One point I just wanted to mention is that what keeps the East & the West Bengal from living in peace and helping each other when they share the same language~
Bhaswati, a touching post and one which has particular significance for me. My father was born in what became Bangladesh. I’m old enough to remember the turmoil around the time of independence and to remember the terrible fear my father had for the relatives he had left behind many years earlier.I also remember a friend seeing some of the news footage asking how fighting groups knew which group was which. He saw the similarities rather than the differences – as an outsider it was easy for him.”In 1999, UNESCO declared February 21 as International Mother Tongue Day.”I did not know that and I feel the poorer for not having known it. But I feel the richer for the fact that you have taught me it. Thank you.Language is, indeed, a powerful thing. Spoken, or written we sometimes forget what power it holds.
Abhay, thanks for your kind words. You know, the people of East and West Bengal do have some differences, but nothing insurmountable. But when politicians come into the picture, things start getting murky. Otherwise, the two Bengals are pretty much united in spirit and ethos. Amin, first up, welcome back, friend! I missed you. Thanks for reading the post and sharing your insights. I shudder to think of the trauma people like your father went through. The same happened to my grandparents. My grandma was haunted by memories of East Bengal all through her life. So much so, the setting became a part of my psyche, even though I am yet to visit Bangladesh.
After reading your touching and emotional post I have come to one conclusionEkushey February is the main reason for India not reaching the Super 8 stage of World Cup.Its because of Ekushey “Bangladesh” was created.And I wish to express my gratitude to Bangladesh,for saving us from the Batterring and Bruising , we would have experienced at the hands of Austrlaia and South Africa.Disclaimer: By no means I am underplaying the senstive issue raised in the PostWarm RegardsDr.Sumit SethIndian Foreign Service
Dr. Seth, I can’t disagree with you on that. Sure, Bangladesh actually rescued us from the agony of humiliating defeats at the hands of the bigger teams. I didn’t think your comment underplayed my post. It’s true; without Ekushey, no Bangladesh would be there, and India might have still had a slim chance of passing the league stage of the World Cup. 🙂