Rahad Abir

The monsoons have passed. Moti has grown so healthy, so strong and so big that no other cocks even dare to be near him.

You Are a Rickshawallah

You land in London with £210 in your pocket. It is the year 2009. You are able to pay the first month’s rent for the room, but not the deposit. You have to share it with an acquaintance from Dhaka. He arrived a week prior.

A young white officer asks her in heavily accented Bangla, “What’s the purpose of your visit?”

One year, a week before Eid-ul-Adha, my grandma, Dadi, came to Dhaka from the village and broke into tears. “What happened?” we asked.

The Baishakhi fairgrounds is just a stone’s throw away from the Doyagonj Bridge, where grandpa always takes Rony for afternoon walks.

I’ve seen many hues of yellow. Colorful, gray, unadorned. The pristine bokul podium, the vibrant spring awash with the fragrance of yellowy brilliance, the mournful memory of my adolescent day—the wedding ceremony of “Aaj Amenar Gaye Holud,”

And we two—a lovey-dovey couple, get married one day. Always be true to the truth, be honest to each other—we harmonized on that point. Years later, it is our fifth marriage anniversary evening. She dresses up gorgeously, stands before me and asks, “How do I look?”

Kusoom twiddles her thumbs again, her nineteen-or-twenty-year-old face pale and gloomy. She is small, short and near neckless in a kameez with denim pants.

Nineteen ninety-nine. Dhaka, Bangladesh. My college is over and I am having the pre-kingly hours of my life—waiting for results before applying to a university.

Arriving at Heathrow Airport made Robiul fidgety. He'd been waiting over an hour to pass the immigration desk. Back home, he'd heard a few unpleasant stories, where immigration officers would refuse entry to anyone they were not satisfied with, even if that passenger had a visa.

It had been raining lightly since morning. During the monsoon, the North-Eastern Bengal Haor wetland areas would go under deep water, the water remaining for half of the year. Boats would become the prime mode of transportation.

I am Bengali. I am a writer.

Imagine a world where you are the creator and the decider. And where you are the king in a kingdom of critters. It's a dream land, of