bangladesh | Pandaemonium

ON THE RIVER IN DHAKA

November 30, 2019 by Kenan Malik

These are photos from Sadarghat, the river port of Dhaka, which in many ways is a microcosm of the city itself – in-your-face, bursting with life, tumultuous and gritty, with people and goods and boats all on the move. There are huge multi-storeyed ferries, carrying both passengers and cargo, bound for destinations all over the country. The poorest passengers simply lay a mat on the lower deck; the upper decks have individual cabins for those who can afford it. In […]

Categories: International, Photos • Tags: bangladesh, dhaka, photography, sadarghat

TO IMAGINE, TO HOPE, TO TRANSCEND, TO TRANSFORM

November 11, 2019 by Kenan Malik

This essay, on the Dhaka Lit Fest, was my Observer column this week. (The column included also a short piece on a new survey of English dialects.) It was published on 20 October 2019, under the headline ‘Literary festivals are not a luxury, a bauble for the middle classes’. Sadarghat is not a place for the faint-hearted. The river port of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, it’s a microcosm of the city itself – in your face, bursting with life, tumultuous […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Philosophy & Ethics • Tags: bangladesh, bangladesh war of liberation, daniel baremboim, dhaka, dhaka lit fest, freedom struggles, gaza, kazi anis ahmed, louis kahn

A MOSQUE LIKE NO OTHER

November 9, 2019 by Kenan Malik

Faidabad, in the northern suburb of Uttara, is among the poorest areas in Dhaka. The narrow dirt streets and the shacks that line the main arterial road are witness to that. It is far from any tourist spot – it can take a couple of hours of driving through Dhaka’s chaotic traffic and legendary jams to reach Faidabad from the centre of the city. Faidabad is also home to a remarkable mosque, modernist, austere and strikingly beautiful. Designed by Marina […]

Categories: Atheism & Religion, Culture & Books, Photos • Tags: bait ur rouf mosque, bangladesh, bengal, dhaka, islam, islamic architecture, marina tabassum, modernism, mosques, photography

THE IMPORTANCE OF A LIT FEST IN DHAKA

November 2, 2019 by Kenan Malik

I am speaking next week at the Dhaka Lit Fest, something I am particularly looking forward to. In a place like Bangladesh, more known in the West for poverty and terror, a literary festival might seem a luxury, a bauble for the rich and cosmopolitan. It is anything but. It is precisely in a country like Bangladesh that such an event becomes so important. Between 2013 and 2016, a series of horrific murders of freethinking and atheist bloggers by Islamists shocked […]

Categories: Culture & Books, International, Kenan Malik • Tags: bangladesh, dhaka, dhaka lit fest, free speech, lahore lit fest