Is it time people stopped seeing Tasher Desh (The Land of Cards) as a children’s play? “Oh yes,” chuckles Q. “We’ve f****d it!” The pride in the ‘achievement’ is unmistakable. It is no different from that of a child who has just broken the glass panes in his classroom to protest being thrown out for not getting…
The Bosepukur Sitala Mandir Durga Puja pandal is difficult to miss. From a distance one can spy the spherical structure looming above the tall fencing of corrugated sheets on the Rashbehari Connector in south Kolkata. The space is cordoned off from public view, but inside, it does not take much effort to locate Kajal Sarkar. The secretary of…
Mumbai-based artist Samir Mondal remembers the day 40 years ago when he first set his eyes on the Writers’ Buildings in Calcutta, as the city was then called. The young man who grew up in a village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district could not believe it was man-made. “I could hardly blink. I…
KOLKATA – Despite his reputation as a tough, no-nonsense police officer who has stood up to the government on several occasions, Nazrul Islam is soft-spoken and gentle, even when refusing to discuss the controversy surrounding his latest book, “Musalmander Koroniyo” (What Muslims Should Do). “My intention is not to create, or fuel, any kind of controversy,” he…
Read more A Conversation With: Author and Police Officer Nazrul Islam
Most of the residents in the Sundarbans in West Bengal live in mud homes, but only until they get the money needed to build concrete houses. Bidyut Roy, an artist and architect, is on a mission to persuade locals that mud and other natural materials can make for a modern home. For the past three…
CHUNAKHALI, West Bengal — May 25 was Ayantika Mandal’s third birthday. At her home on May 23 in Chunakhali, on the Indian side of the Sundarbans Delta, she changed into her dotted white dress for a picture, but refused to smile to the camera. “She is shy with strangers,” said her mother, Rina. “Otherwise, she…
Read more Three Years After Cyclone, Changed Lives in Sundarbans
Aamra ekhon-o boli ni kon kagoj porte hobe, kintu agami dine kintu setao bole debo. (Till now, we haven’t told which newspapers must be read, but in the future, we will do that as well.) — West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, speaking on March 29 in defense of her government’s decision to bar all…
Anuradha Sharma 