NYMPHIA'S PAGE

Rourob is the name of a Hindu hell. In this case, it symbolizes individual affliction. Leesa Gazi, an expatriate and an actor, has had her first novel published --- at this year's Ekushey book fair The story is about a woman who enters into marriage with an impotent man in all senses of the word. But just as many Bengali women accept their fate without any complaints, she does it too. In the process she suffers and makes her two daughters suffer as they grow up, so much so that so that they all inhabit their individual hells. The girls never go to proper educational institutions, have never made any friends and are always locked up in their own territories. The older girl Lovely always hears a man talking to her. She is more outgoing whereas Beauty prefers to stay alone in her room. She is addicted and gets the grass from the boy working for her as a servant. The sisters are somewhat neurotic as they hardly have any connection with the outside world. And they are just the opposite ...

I was mesmerized as I listened to a reading of Saleha Chowdhury's short stories. It was a regular meeting at Gantha, a literary platform for Bangladeshi writers to meet --- for individuals who write in English as well as for those who write in Bangla. The book that was discussed at this meeting was the author's collection of short stories, Shotogolpo. Saleha Chowdhury has been writing short stories since 1967, and all these stories have been collected in this compilation. There are but a few writers who have published a book with one hundred stories. If translated the title of the book would be 'A Hundred Stories.' It was published by Bidyaprokash in 2008. It may be mentioned here that Saleha Chowdhury was awarded the Annanya Shahitya Puroshkar in 2009. The writer points out in the introduction that she rewrote the stories with the maturity and experience she had gained over the years. Though the stories remain the same, the language, grammar and imagery have been reint...

Jharna Das Purkayastha is very well known to Bengali readers. She has written numerous short stories. She won the Annanya Shahitya Puroshkar in 2008. The Blue House is a collection of twelve short stories which have been translated by different writers and edited by Niaz Zaman. As I was reading the stories an all too well known picture of my surroundings, indeed the surroundings of most Bangladeshi women, came alive in the writing. The trivial events that we seldom take notice of, the humiliation women of this country face with no one taking note of them are the subjects of Purkayastha's stories. It seems as though these happenings are not important enough to be noted but Jharna Das Purkayastha does just that, makes readers see them. She depicts very ordinary events in such a way that she de-familiarises them, makes us see them anew. That is her expertise, her talent. She makes use of it in all her twelve stories. 'The Blue House' tells the story of young girls disappea...

The word Oshtorombha is in fact zero. It is Papri Rahman's third collection of stories and her fifth book. Papri Rahman carries the banner of a writer, an editor and a critic, quite comfortably. She doesn't write about the issues related to women which we commonly see in other contemporary writers, as she claims. Whenever she finds a story that is out of the ordinary, she tries to colour it in the canvass of story telling. This makes her somewhat different from other female writers that we come across. The book Oshtorombha has eight stories, six of which are in a rural setting; and the remaining two are narrated from an urban point of view. One of the stories, Shodh, depicts how a village woman takes revenge on her husband's second wife by urinating on her bed. It is a tempestuous night when the first wife is given shelter at their place. Everything is going on as usual, except that when she leaves the bed it is wet with a pungent smell. Both Hasna and Mohor Ali were asto...

Mircae Eliade's famous book La Nuit Bengali was translated into Bangla by Shoshodhor. The book was originally written by a famous Romanian author and philosopher Mircea Eliade in 1933. La Nuit Bengali meaning The Bengali Night by Mircea Eliade acted as the catalyst for Maitreyi Devi to write her version of the same story. Even though there was a deal between both the writers that Mircea's book would not be translated into English in either of their lifetimes, it was made into a movie in 1988. This made Maitreyi very upset and she even filed a lawsuit against the making of the film. She complained that it had misrepresented Indian culture and their religion. One cannot help but think that La Nuit Bengali is more like reading someone's personal diary. It gives the feeling of authentic real-life occurrences as all the characters share the names of the real-life people. The magical description of Calcutta in the 1930s and its surroundings makes the reader travel back in time a...

P erek , a nail that pricks. Minhazuddin feels the prick after coming across a one -legged person while his car waits at the signal. His younger brother Zahirul was one-legged. He died during the war of independence. His mother could never forget the fact that one of her sons was dead. She waited for him for as long as she lived. This is the title story of the book Perek, a collection of short stories. Jharna Rahman a contemporary female writer has earned her name in short stories. Most of her stories revolve around trivial everyday events, which are turned into powerful stories by Jharna's relentless playing with words. She defamiliarises the very intimate and insignificant events that take place in our lives. Perek is one of her most recent books. The writer has a very natural flow in her story telling which makes her narrative reader friendly. The visual effect of the writing is very strong. So strong that when we read the story Perek we can almost see the nail in Mi...

A whistle tore through my eardrum as I walked along, I could see a teenaged boy through the corner of my eye. He was standing beside the tea stall and making the noise with his hand in his mouth. I was returning home through the street with my grocery. apacket od salt which I ran out of last night, some flour and some candles in case we have powercut later the day. I didn’t need a rickshaw as the shop was just around the corner. The boy whistling must be someone from the neighbourhood. I didn’t turn to look at him. It didn’t really matter. After all what else can one expect where eve teasing is considered as a norm of the society! It’s not only pretty girls who get harassed everyday.But any woman with a vulnerable age (meaning less than 40) will be facing this kind of assault. Now it’d be different if it were a girl who wears the attitude “I mean business” with a tomboyish look then, perhaps, no one would bother her. After climbing four flights I let sigh out of relief as I put the ...