Columnists

Daud Haider

Haider is a Bangladeshi poet who lived in political exile in Kolkata before moving to Berlin.

Bangladesh @ 50: ‘Will you give me a flag of Bangladesh?’

Mon, Dec 13, 2021

Fifty years ago, in the aftermath of a difficult war in which India played a crucial role, a new nation — Bangladesh — was born. Bangladeshi poet Daud Haider remembers the day when freedom came to his people

How Bangladesh was born

Fri, Mar 26, 2021

In the 50 years since its independence from Pakistan, Bangladesh has moved past religion and the two nation theory.

In a globalised world, the mother tongue is increasingly losing life force

Sat, Feb 20, 2021

Indigenous languages increasingly have a localised and restricted existence — overwhelmed by global markets, global economics and global corporates. The mother tongue is gradually being dwarfed by these staggering influences and is relegated to a marginal space in the global village.

Revisiting the Berlin Wall: Political and economic divisions continue to haunt Germany

Sat, Nov 09, 2019

For those of us who saw the fall of the Wall, the history of the fall is not yet in the past, the 30 years in between seem like yesterday because the Wall still exists. The fall isn’t complete. This wall is made of politics, economics, discrimination.

Why Rabindranath Tagore is a poet of Bengal, India, the world

Thu, May 09, 2019

Rabindranath Tagore Jayanti: Abroad, too, cities with large Bengali populations celebrate the phenomenon called Rabindranath. New York, London, Chicago, Toronto, Paris boast Rabindra Sangeet academies, the number of students increasing by the day. The real reason is the desire to keep close to one's language, the land of one's birth.

Eye 2016