Nusrat Jahan reached the old house on the bank of the
Kirtankhola just as the evening tide pushed the river over the ghat steps
behind her. She had spent a night on the launch from Sadarghat and two more
hours on a trawler that smelled of diesel and wet rope. Now she stood before
her Dadi’s tin roofed house with one suitcase and a heavy iron key. Dadi Rokeya
Begum had died in Choitro, and in all the years Nusrat had known her, Dadi had
never once sung a song, never once walked to the river...
