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)
Just came across your blog. Good stuff, I’d say it definitely is poetry. I’m looking forward to Durga Puja too. I didn’t know Shiuli was called Shefali also! Time to tease my friends with that name!
Thanks for dropping by and commenting, Gargi! I like your blog too; will add it to my blogroll soon. 🙂
My dear Bhas, Didn't realise you had been filling your blogs with posts again…I think you had stopped for awhile. I have one more deadline to get through and after next week, I shall definitely catch up all these missed posts, Bhas. I did leave a comment for this beautiful piece on Facebook. XX
Hey, thanks, Bhaswati! Glad you liked it! I look forward to dropping by often.
Hey, Susan! Yes, this blog woke up sometime back and has been sauntering along ever since. Thanks for reading and commenting on FB. Much appreciated. Gargi, I will look forward to your dropping in. 🙂
Lovely! I remember, as children growing up in Santiniketan, we were to taught to gather these from the ground in the morning…So beautiful…and then one used the orange stem (actually, the fused corolla, I think…my botany's a bit rusty) to dye clothes…you get a rich yellow if processed properly! But yes, it killed the pretty flower 😦 But I guess behind every idea of beauty there's some cruelty…To keep your garden clean you banish the weed, which is a flower too…
Thanks for your lovely comment, Shubho! I have heard so much about the dyeing of clothes using the stem (or your corolla :)), but haven't actually seen that done. Agree with your thoughts on clearing the weed to beautify the garden. Would you believe it, I once had a dream that featured a garden of, yes, weeds! One of the most enchanting dreams I've ever had. Shubho pujo to you!
Wow, a garden of weeds! Love the idea! Leonard Cohen would love it, as he once said, "Weeds are flowers that no one collects." And he also said, "Poetry is not a form, or occupation…that lines don't reach the end of the page is no guarantee. Poetry is a verdict." So my verdict: yes – this "spontaneous expression, triggered by memory" is most definitely poetry! And yes, shubho pujo to you too (though I hate festive seasons in Bengal when my name becomes a plague)!
Learn so much from you; what sharp insights from Cohen on both weeds and poetry!My dream was truly special. I was taken to an expansive garden, somewhere in Holland (at that time, I hadn't yet stepped out of India). The garden, I was told (and would see later) consisted entirely of weeds. I saw some familiar weed plants and stood transfixed by the novelty of the idea. Enjoy your pujo; won't utter your name for the next five days. 🙂
Dear Bhaswati,Your expression very sweet. Believe me…I too am not a poet. But I personally believe that what is spontaneous is a poem. And your stuff is spontaneuous, rythmic and more importantly soothing to the heart and mind. The polls in Bihar keeps me very busy making me move out in the hinterlands and write political stuff for the newspaper I work for for. That's why I saw your post quite late. Still, I enjoyed it. Best regards, Nalin
Thank you so much for your time and observations, Nalin ji. I am touched. So good to see you here despite your busy schedule.
Hi Bhaswati, an award awaits you at my blog.
Lovely piece and lovely flowers. We call these “Parijatham” in Tamil. Just discovered your blog. It’s wonderful.
Thanks, Agnija! I learned the Tamil name of this flower a while ago through some FB friends. Such a beautiful name. Thanks for your kind words on my blog. Yours is wonderful too!