Twenty six year old Tania fidgets the end of her orna (scarf) as we sit down to chat. Behind her, an entire floor of workers are on production lines in a factory of one of Bangladesh’s bigges ...
This Mother’s Day, let’s talk about depression
It’s difficult to look at our mothers as monsters. Be it the cultural background we’re brought up in, or the morally high standard that a patriarchal system such as ours holds motherhood t ...
Wheeling in a new revolution
Twenty six year old Tania fidgets with the end of her orna (scarf) as we sit down to chat. Behind her, an entire floor of workers are on production lines in a factory of one of Bangladesh’s b ...
F.R.I.E.N.D.S – an era (of homophobia and hypocrisy?)
More than a decade ago, when American TV sitcom F.R.I.E.N.D.S ended, it broke hearts across the world. Throughout the 90’s, it had made a mark on the different generations, reaching millions of ...
Lest we forget
Earlier this year, as people piled up in front of Shaheed Minar to pay respect to our language martyrs, a TV station somewhere in Dhaka got its best byte of the day: a girl saying, on record, that she ...
From the streets, a way home
Twenty five year old Ruma sits behind a table in her tiny room, as she speeds up the sewing machine in front of her. There is a captivating precision with which she holds each piece of cloth under the ...
Spoken word poetry in Dhaka
Poetry is one of our strongest cultural expressions. Whether in the form of small rhymes or recitations or rhythmic beats of Nazrul’s chol re chol re chol, poetry is instilled in us as a form of ...
Denial of parity for our male survivors of sexual abuse
On a cold winter evening two years ago, in the middle of what had appeared to be a smooth relationship, Kabir Kazi was raped by his partner. Twenty nine year old Kabir (not his real name) was livin ...
Talking sex – and sexual health
Sex and reproductive health, or just women’s health in general, is often talked about in whispers and muted voices in our society. But with increasing access to information in this era of the In ...
Unlearning – and relearning – gender
Dr Sara Edenheim, an associate professor in History and senior lecturer in Gender studies at Umea University in Sweden, was recently in Dhaka for two weeks to take a class on gender theories and femin ...
