Cover Story

FINDING FENI

Often overlooked, regional towns in Bangladesh have a lot to offer the visitor. Bustling, relatively wealthy Feni is an example of a regional success story. Once part of the Tripuran Kingdom and bombed by the Japanese in World War II, Feni is also a town with an intriguing history.

Andrew Eagle

PHOTOS: ANDREW EAGLE By the half-light of a kerosene lamp an old man would recite, in the evenings and some decades ago, the memories of Feni captured in his putipora rhymes. His regular station was on the bank of the…

FILM

We Are Listening

Upashana Salam

Living in the comforts of a big city where we seldom have to worry about disasters brought about by nature, we tend to ignore the pains of those who are constantly fighting against nature to ensure their right to existence.…

Musings

Delhi Days . . .

Syed Badrul Ahsan

The owner of the little bookshop at Shankar Market in the Connaught Circus area is a scholar. It is in his talk of books, in his ability to know what sort of books you need that you assess the man.…

Chintito

0222 22: News, Breaking or Devastating

Chintito

The notification tone on the mobile is now a matter of great unease. Passenger dies of burn injuries hours after miscreants bombed a three-wheeler in Savar ahead of hartal. JCD man killed in cop firing at Patgram, Lalmonirhat. Ten vehicles…

Food for Thought

Becoming a Writer

Farah Ghuznavi

This is the sixth in a series of articles written by Farah Ghuznavi as Writer in Residence at the Commonwealth Writers website, based in the UK.Commonwealth Writers is the cultural initiative from the Commonwealth Foundation, and Farah is their first…

Remembrance

Remembering the Four Leaders

November 3, 1975, Dhaka Central Jail. Some soldiers with machineguns entered into the jail. After some tense minutes, cracks of brush fire from their machine guns killed the four national leaders of Bangladesh. The eyes which once dreamed of an…

Human Rights

MUZZLE ME NOT

Md Shahnawaz Khan Chandan

Many millennia ago Persian king Cyrus asked a sage how he could rule his empire more justly and what his subjects actually needed from their king. The wise sage replied, “O king! Let your subjects know what they want to…

SPECIAL FEATURE

A Father’s Last Letter

Captain Rajib Chandra Karmaker was the master of the Bangladeshi cargo ship MV Hope which was struck by large waves on the night of July 3, 2013 in the stormy seas of Phuket while it was heading from Malaysia to Bangladesh. MV Hope's story was on all the national and international newspapers as soon the accident occurred. Then we start forgetting the missing sailors and their families. Ronika Karmaker, daughter of the ship's captain shares with us a tale of a loving father and a brave sailor.

Fayeka Zabeen Siddiqua

Year 2012. Ronika Karmaker (Pritha) was living in a girls’ hostel in Bashundhara for her study purpose. “ No matter how much I put myself out there, settling down in a new environment and living miles always from my family…

Art

Sound Eating Silence

Fayza Haq

Both Mozai Zeevan Safori and Samir Majumdar who had their joint exhibition at Bengal Lounge, Gulshan, are greatly indebted to SM Sultan, who personally groomed them. One artist is from Jessore and the other from Narail. Their display goes on…

BOOK REVIEW

Buddha’s Brain

Buddha's Brain by Rick Hanson and Mendius delves into neuroscience and Buddhist teachings and shows how you can shape your brain for happiness, love and wisdom

Amitava Kar

Intrigued by its title, if you were hoping for a virtual forensic dissection of the actual brain of the Buddha, you would be disappointed by Buddha’s Brain. Without trying to proselytise, the authors blend Buddhist teachings and neuroscience to explore…

Current Affairs

The Same Old Formula

Shakhawat Liton

Politicians in our country love to speak of the past whenever they find something to feel proud about it and also as a weapon to castigate opponents. Whenever they are in power, they hate to take lesson from history to…

Endeavour

Social Media for Good Policing

Ananta Yusuf

A desk in a police station is covered with a pile of foreign and Bangladeshi books, magazines and office files. The PC is constantly on the move from the last few weeks and officers are busy either with a Facebook…

HOME AND ABROAD

Festivity Turned to Grief Gunmen attacked a wedding convoy in Nigeria’s northeaster state of Borno on November 2, killing more than 30 people including the groom in a suspected ambush, witnesses and survivors said Sunday. The attack happened on the…

Interview

‘The Deeper the Roots, the Taller the Trees’

Syed Manzoorul Islam's first collection of short stories in English, The Merman's Prayer and Other Stories, will be launched at the Dhaka Hay Fest on November 14. The author himself has translated all the stories from Bangla. In this interview, he talks with Rifat Munim about the different aspects of his stories.

Rifat Munim

How did your fiction writing career begin and how long did it take you to finish the stories compiled in your forthcoming collection? These stories were written over the last twenty years. I started with a story in Bichitra in…

Picture of the Week

All Souls’ Day

  On November 2, Christians all over the country celebrated All Souls’ Day, a day to pray and ask mercy for all souls who have passed away. This picture was taken at the Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Farmgate.

Science

With Romantic Partners Men Walk Slower

When walking with female romantic partners, males tend to slow down by about 7 percent, according to new research published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, by Cara Wall-Scheffler and colleagues at Seattle Pacific University. People have an optimal walking…

Health

When the Red Devil Attacks Your Skin!

Most of us have had a run-in with some red itchy inflammation or rashes at some point in our life. In some cases they are the skin reaction left by any food or medicine intake while in many scenarios the…

MAD GENIUS

SEAN CONNERY

“I am not an Englishman, I was never an Englishman, and I don’t ever want to be one. I am a Scotsman! I was a Scotsman and I will always be one. I have always hated that damn James Bond.…

Star Diary

No More Hartals  The distress of the people, specially the poor during hartal days, has moved all of us to despair and sympathy for our fellow sufferers. But the hartal callers seem to be oblivious to the sufferings of people.…

Voicebox

“Now for what and in whose interest are you [Khaleda] trying to bring in an undemocratic government again. What will you get? Where is the assurance that the person you are trying to put in power won’t put you in…

THE WALL

MAILBOX

The Smelly Side of Hatirjheel A couple of months ago I went to Hatirjheel along with a friend of mine to find an escape from the maddening crowd of Dhaka city. We both had come back home after many years…

Postscript

Killing Talkers

Aasha Mehreen Amin

As a nation we are known for being resilient, hospitable, easy going and a bit confused. We are also famous for being great talkers. People here just love to talk. Think of all the addas, formal and informal, talk shows…

DESTINATION FENI