What the Ink?An endeavour by Bangladeshis writing in English

What the Ink? was launched at the Hay Festival, the first of its kind held in Dhaka, on November 21 at the British council. What the Ink? is an anthology of some aspiring writers from Bangladesh and some other countries who have at some point of other have resided in the country. For the past few decades South Asian writers are making their voices heard in the world literary arena. Our very own poet Kaiser Haq has already reigned the genre for quite some time now. Expatriate Bangladeshis like Adib Khan, Manju Islam, Mahmud Rahman, Tahmima Anam as well as Bangladeshi born British writer Monica Ali have paved the paths for the newer generation. What we see in this book is a swarm of aspiring writers who want their voices to be heard, their stories to be told.
Fifteen writers anthologized their short stories, poems and excerpts from novels in the 185 page book, published by the Writers Block.
The first story Gift can be mistaken for a drama on one of the TV channels. The writer Arup Sanayal takes the reader through the events in the lives of a couple who have moved to a new neighbourhood. And the readers are hooked to the page from the first very page and are awaited for a great surprise by the end of the story.

Farah Ghuznavi’s story The Mosquito Net confession has a feminist point of view, a woman with dark complexion finally realizes that she can also be important enough to be someone’s good friend, that there is more to life than what people look like, it seemed like a self exploration of the narrator in many ways. Saad Z Hossain’s excerpt from his novel Baghdad Immortals definitely amuses the reader with the fictitious characters whose actions are that of real life soldiers and criminals. The reader is enticed to read the novel as the events unfold during the war in South Gazalia. Munize Manzur’s story Shifting Plates is a vivid picture of a Bengali family where the domineering father is all in all, where the mother works out of her wits to keep a congenial atmosphere in the house. But the first born of the family breaks the silence, the silence the women of this country have kept for so many years, centuries. In the process she manages to shake the plates of the earth, causing an earthquake. Rachael’s story’s author Masud Khan Shujon showed the plight of American woman with a past that kept haunting her. The author aptly depicts how she moved from one lover to another both of whom were Bengalis and best of friends. Some how he shows there is always a ray at the end of the tunnel:
‘God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the Wisdom to know the difference.’
In Beginning to End: Drops of Monsoon Iffat Nawaz shows the fragmented psyche of an artist. Her writing is more like an abstract painting where the sky and beyond is the limit. The readers are taken on a voyage through the North America, the South America, Morocco, pubs in Italy, Blue Mosque in Turkey, and the Himalayas in the Nepal finally to be landed in the delta of Bangladesh. Then the deep forest of the Sundarban at the far South west corner of Bangladesh seems to beacon her wounded heart and soul.

Lori Simpson sketches an intimate relationship of a woman named Lauren who seems to be a in a faraway land. As she depicts the new found hope in a relationship with Antonio, the love that was lost, the one that evaded from her life is portrayed as the other side of coin. A love that comes naturally, that needs to boundary or no explanation, a love that is bound in the four walls of a mental health care hospital where her mother lived. M. K Aaref, an architect by profession has a dreamy eyed middle aged woman named Shefali as his protagonist. Shefali is longing to reconnect with her childhood in Uganda while living somewhere in South America. Aaref has a post colonial approach in depicting Shefali’s children
‘Shefali’s daughters were obviously most comfortable with the American upbringing. At the same time, looking at the mirror, there is no escaping from their Indian identities. So the girls played themselves up as exotic Indo –American chicks; deliberately dressing up in embroidered blouses and skirts and wearing occasional bindis to school.’
Sadaf Saaz Siddiqi’s poems take the reader to a vibrant and colourful world of Tikli and Glass Bangles as well as a melancholy world of an addict who tries to put up an act.

Are they not addicted
As predicted
Signalled, sealed and convicted
By us.
That’s the illusion
To create the confusion
Part of the collusion
By them.

Sal Imam’s short story could well be described as a compressed novel. Life of Tabarak, how it had taken turns from being a street urchin to a thriving business man could be explored a little more. It seemed as though the 9 paged tale of Tabarak and Shagufta is struggling to wriggle out of a short story and metamorphose into a 900 page novel. Tisa Muhaddes’s ‘Two Pink Lines’ takes the reader through a plot that is all too predictable. In fact the story is unfolded in the first paragraph when the narrator watches ‘three cargo planes stacked horizontally.’
The narrator brings up the issue of cross cultural marriage between a Bangladeshi girl and a Shaada man as
‘A welcoming emancipation from my rigidly Bangladeshi family.’
Shazia Omar’s story depicts a very interesting concept of mentally transmuted disease. Saira Khan who met a talented but unpublished author and stole his manuscript became a best seller over night. In the process the writer transmitted an incurable skin disease to her which was only possible at metaphysical level.
The biography with a photograph of each of the writers along with their piece makes the book much more interesting. It is commendable the way young writers have been working together, supporting each other in making a place for them selves in the world of literature.