Life Stories
Everyday moments, memories and what I learned from them.
A memorable day at Bon Bhaban
A seminar on threatened and invasive plants at Dhaka’s Forest Department headquarters, a five-hundred-taka mix-up, and a long hunt for an empty CNG home.
8 min readIt’s all fate
I went to Nilkhet to buy books for my twin brother, and the bookseller mistook me for him. What followed could only be called fate.
6 min readBack to Dhaka, or stay put?
May 2020: the lockdown is easing and everyone is heading back to Dhaka, yet cases keep rising. Stuck in my village, I can’t decide whether to follow the crowd.
4 min readA plan alone is not enough
Before the 2020 lockdown, I stocked up a month of groceries in Dhaka, then went off to my village on a whim. A perfect lesson in the gap between planning and doing.
2 min readA day the three of us will remember
An aimless day out with two friends after exams: the garden, an underground museum, a roadside tree-naming contest and a biryani feast.
6 min readA day at the plant taxonomy conference
At the annual meeting of Bangladesh’s plant taxonomists, I learned that real respect comes from knowledge. There were plenty of tough questions, and a meal I still remember.
3 min readThat wild vegetable
On my way home from work I spotted a wild vegetable I last ate as a child, sold on the footpath. It got me thinking about the hardy old crops we are slowly losing.
6 min readMy first university picnic
Our botany department’s picnic at Bhawal National Park. An early bus, red water lilies from a boat, a ride through the forest and a three-legged race we won.
5 min readWas he really a rickshaw puller?
Cramming before an exam, we were stopped by a rickshaw puller with a compound interest sum and an English grammar question. I still don’t know who he really was.
8 min readThe battles of life
An afternoon with visually impaired students at a SOJJA event, and a fresh look at my own life, which has everything and still feels like it lacks something.
2 min read