TASLIMA SEEKS HOME

The world should be home for a post-modern writer. But not in Taslima's case. The exiled Bangladeshi writer, having lived in Europe for over a decade, is now seeking a permanent residence in Kolkata, and has recently applied for Indian citizenship.

She says that since she writes in Bengali, it would help her to live in a place where she could hear and speak the language. Bangladesh would not take her back, so Kolkata is her option.

Of course a justified ground, and it makes a lot of sense. But one reads in it a tinge of desperation as well.

Taslima, it seems, has never felt comfortable in Europe. She has failed to adapt herself to the alien milieu. Also,she has not learnt much out of it except in dresses.

She is no longer in her once-attractive shape. Much thinner, somewhat fading, she has of course left hehind her best creative years.

She's welcome to Kolkata, but being the kind of essentially a naive person, she may not find the city as suitable for her writing life.
MRINAL BOSE