The Blog of Cafe Dissensus Magazine – we DISSENT

Posts from the ‘City’ category

Nafisa and Hyderabad: The Social Activist and the City

By Mosarrap H. Khan
Nizam’s Hyderabad metamorphosed into a shiny, new city with wide roads, modern steel-and-glass structures, swanky cars, and multinational eateries. Ten days into my stay, I was on my way to the Old City, originally founded by the Nizams. Once on the periphery of the Nizam’s city, the landscape was perceptible different.

Film: An Overview of the 19th Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF)

By Rafikul Islam
Mamata Banerjee, the Chief Minister of West Bengal, presided over the inauguration. Sukalyan Bhattacharya choreographed Down Memory Lane, which showcased 100 years of Indian Cinema. Dev and Koel felicitated Big B. Ranjit Mallick gave the inaugural speech. In the opening ceremony, a clipping of Brand Bengal was screened.

City: Vignettes of Kolkata’s Underbelly

By Rafikul Islam
If you walk from Park Street, past the Birla Planetarium, to Rabindra Sadan, late at night, you will find other women and girls like these two, waiting under the shadows of flickering street-lights. Women in saris, girls in closely-fitting western clothes emerge at every nook and corner of this stretch.

Photo Essay: Geneva Camp, Dhaka

By Mosarrap H. Khan
There are around 5000 families living in the camp and there are only about 200 toilets. There are no schools and healthcare facilities in the camp. There is a high drop-out rate among school-going children. Most of the inhabitants of the camp work as mechanics, drivers, cooks, and domestic help.

‘Are you a Bangladeshi?’

By Mosarrap H. Khan
To my horror, I found that my passport application was withheld because the space for citizenship verification had been left blank in my police verification report. The report neither confirmed nor denied my status as an Indian citizen.

No ‘Kashmir’ in India: A Film Festival Vandalized in Hyderabad

By Abu Saleh
The opening day of the festival was at the L V Prasad Preview Theatre. Before the inaugural session, around forty people gathered one by one and started shouting. At first they broke the entrance door panels, windowpanes, one TV screen and began to throw flower vases. They went inside the projector room, damaged some of the old film reels of the institute/distributor (LVP).

No Muslims, please!

By Nazmul Hussain
The statement shook me and forced me to think that the discrimination is not only based on religious background but also on culture and language, too. I felt a tremor but, taking control of myself, asked the couple gently: ‘Do you think I am not Bengali?