Culture and memory share a root, like branches of the same plant. That root is us, human beings, in our most creative and unself-conscious renditions. Once again, after the whirlwind of systemic violence and structural upheaval engineered through the COVID19 pandemic response, the time has come to honour the memory of those we love who…
Category: Manabendra Bandyopadhyay
Haiku of Mourning
This week, I joined RonovanWrites’ Haiku challenge, centering the words “time” and “slip”at https://ronovanwrites.com/2021/02/22/ronovan-writes-weekly-haiku-poetry-prompt-challenge-346-slip-and-time/. Some of you may know I lost my father last summer to Covid. I was trapped by coronavirus policies and my own chronic health issues and unable to be with him. I miss him lots, especially when reading literature from Africa,…
My Father and Soumitra: Mourning and Memory
What a year this has been. After the loss of my father to covid 19, I watched a lot of early Bengali films that I had seen first with him. Although I started watching Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy, I could not continue.I remembered being a small Bengali girl in a white provincial Canadian suburb, harassed…
Love in the Time of Coronavirus
Many people have started to ask me why I have not put anything on this blog in more than a month. Since I started this project a year and half ago, I have tried to respond to issues that have moved me deeply, created a moral restlessness, and an artistic response. I believe that art–…
Ear to the Ground 