দণ্ডবায়স
মূল কবিতা: The Raven
একদা এক নিশীথ রাতে শ্রান্ত করুণ মন
ঘুরে ঘুরে মরছে শুধু প্রাচীন কথার কোণ,
শরীর আমার লুটিয়ে পড়ে, এল কি চোখ ঢুলে?
কিন্তু কে ওই নাড়ছে কড়া, কে এল পথ ভুলে?
স্পষ্ট আমার স্মরণেতে, সে এক শীতের রাত
নিবন্ত সব অঙ্গারেরা ধরছে আঁধার হাত
বৃথাই আমি করছি আশা, দুখবিহীন এক উষা
পুরাণ পুথির পাতায় পাতায় পাইনি যে তার দিশা,
হারিয়ে-যাওয়া লেনোর আমার, দেবদুর্লভ নারী
ভুলেছে [আরো পড়ুন]
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জলের মতো সহজ লিমেরিক
(১)
ডক্টর রায় খোঁজ চালিয়ে আকাশগঙ্গা জুড়ে,
নতুন গ্রহ পেলেন খুঁজে আলোকবর্ষ দূরে।
কিন্তু আরও রিসার্চ করে,
দেখেন গ্রহ গ্যাসেই ভরে,
জল নেই, তাই হতাশাতে চশমা ফেলেন ছুড়ে।
(২)
মহাকাশে ঘুরতে ঘুরতে ফাইটার স্পেসবোটে—
আলফা গ্রহের সৈন্যরা সব পৃথিবীতেই জোটে,
যদিও দ্যাখে নীল রং তার,
সেনাপতির মুখ হয় ভার,
বলেন রেগে, “জল থাকলে প্রাণ থাকে না মোটে।”
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পাঠ প্রতিক্রিয়া: কল্পবিজ্ঞান সমগ্র ১
📕 বই : কল্পবিজ্ঞান সমগ্র ১
✍🏻 লেখক : শ্রী বিশ্বদেব মুখোপাধ্যায়
🖌️ প্রচ্ছদ : রাজীব দত্ত
🖨️ প্রকাশক : তবুও প্রয়াস
📄 পৃষ্ঠা : ৩২৮
💰 মুদ্রিত মূল্য : ₹ ৫৫০/- (হার্ডবাউন্ড)
🍂 বিষয়বস্তু :
শ্রী বিশ্বদেব মুখোপাধ্যায় মূলত একজন প্রাবন্ধিক ও কবি। কিন্তু তাঁর কলম থেকে বেরিয়েছে বেশ কিছু বিজ্ঞানভিত্তিক গল্প-উপন্যাস। পদার্থবিজ্ঞান নিয়ে তাঁর পড়াশোনার ছাপ [আরো পড়ুন]
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Before The Flood
Prologue
West of Mexico Bay, 65 Million Years Ago:
The titanic herd of Alamosaurus, closing to their breeding ground, looked up at the east sky as a bright radiance caught their attention. There was a bedazzling light, a second sun in the east horizon. Burning hotter and brighter than a thousand volcanoes, the meteor was losing altitude at a staggering pace. The alpha male contracted his eyes. Split second before it hit the ground, the meteor cast its permanent shadows on the ground and blinded them. Before the impact, the male thought it saw a behemoth pyramidal structure inside the light. It was no meteorite that kissed the shallows hard.
Three seconds later, the shockwaves and the tremors hit the Yucatan Peninsula, vaporizing everything in their path. The pyroclastic cloud, the tsunami, and the flames followed them.
1.
The Great Rift Valley (The Cradle of Humanity),
70000 years ago:
The morning came like a sudden reality as the sun rose between the clouds after a night of thunders and showers. He opened his eyes slowly under [আরো পড়ুন]
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His Last Journey to the West : Introduction to The Complete Wu Cheng’en Omnibus
In the 96th year of the Qìngyáng era, July, Clan Wu, the largest family in the Jiangnan region, once again embarked on the compilation of their genealogy. Unlike the routine decennial genealogy updates, this time representatives from various branches gathered for a singular purpose: to decide the fate of one individual.
This person, bearing the name Wu Cheng’en, had been exiled from the family since the founding year of the Jìngníng era for treason. However, everything changed with a single imperial decree, which praised him for his literary contributions, enumerated his lifelong achievements, posthumously honored him with the title of “Nobleman of Knowledge and Loyalty”, and ordered Clan Wu to recommend a worthy talent to travel to the capital on an auspicious day to complete the revisions of Cheng’en unfinished work, The History of Longevity. Such recognition was nearly unprecedented [আরো পড়ুন]
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In High Spirits
“Who are you? What do you mean, my son Atul is in a coma?”
It was close to midnight in Satara, a small town in Madhya Pradesh, when Kailash Agarwal’s phone rang abruptly, disturbing his sleep. The ringtone was the one he had customized for Atul. So, although half-asleep Kailash had had no misgivings when he had picked up the phone. Atul was in Melbourne about four and a half hours ahead of Indian time. He never called very late at night but maybe he wanted to share some news that could not wait till a more decent hour. Of course, any time Atul called was a good time for Kailash and Sita Devi. Atul was their only child.
Kailash wasn’t ready for the strangely accented voice that broke the news to them. His loud reaction woke Sita Devi, who then tugged at his arm; incoherent with worry.
“This is Atul’s friend Noah. Atul is in a coma. Can you come down to Melbourne as soon as possible, sir?”
That was the first of a flurry of phone calls.
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Hunting with Gods
The forest groaned under the summer sun. Leaves rustled. Twigs snapped. Birds sang. Insects hummed. Vikkel walked softly, the sound of his footsteps lost in the thick undergrowth. He kept his spear poised and his godmind open. Everything around him was alive with secret movements—a fine day for hunting.
“Above you,” his god whispered. Vikkel looked up and saw the grey form of a silver monkey. It sat on a branch, oblivious to the world, and chewed on a piece of violet leaf. The sagging shape of an animal past its prime.
“Not what I am looking for,” Vikkel whispered, his tone accusatory. He didn’t need to speak aloud to communicate with his god, but he still had difficulty with his non-verbal speech. Mudda would’ve scolded him if she had seen him now, talking loudly to the god while hunting.
“Use your mind,” she would’ve said. “He and you are always [আরো পড়ুন]
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Mission Rovus
The cramped cockpit hummed with nervous energy as Captain Ananya Petrova and Elena Rodriguez, the pilot, expertly maneuvered their shuttle through the swirling atmosphere of the planet Rovus. Below them, the alien landscape stretched out in a breathtaking tapestry of ochre plains and emerald mountains, shrouded in an eerie mist.
“We’re almost there, team,” Ananya announced, her voice a reassuring counterpoint to the thrumming engines. “Brace for impact!”
Elena gripped the controls tightly, her knuckles turning white. “Ready, Captain,” she replied, her voice filled with a mix of nervousness and excitement.
Kaito Tanaka, the astrophysicist, peered intently at the holographic display before him, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Readings are still unstable. The composition of the atmosphere is unlike anything we’ve encountered before,” he muttered, his fingers flying across the console.
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The Re-rise
It was pitch black, as black as it could be at the bottom of hell. Yet, a warm moist endless vacuum clung heavily, almost embracing me at the point of the rise of my consciousness. I realised I was taking birth. I lay stark awake, gathering my surroundings. Where have I come? In the numbing darkness, questions haunt me about my being. Am I born well past the apocalypse, after the universe had died into the null and the void? Will I lay in eternal darkness for the rest of my days? More importantly, then, who am I after all? What is my origin?
A shrill cry somewhere overhead made me break free of my reverie and intuitively pop my head out the surface. Oh, blinding light! I shut my optical sensors as I just began to realise, I was not levitating in the endless cosmos. I am serenely embedded on the surface of the Earth. The moist embrace is all soil and water. Now, light [আরো পড়ুন]
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A Ghost Can Be a Lot of Things: Mike Flanagan’s Take on Horror and Trauma
“Most times, a Ghost is a Wish”
Steven Crain remarks in The Haunting of Hill House (2018)
The popular American filmmaker known for creating horror flicks, Mike Flanagan doesn’t just use horror for scares—he uses it as a plot device to confront horrifying traumatic events one would rather bury. In Flanagan’s world, the real horror lies not in what we see, but in the pain, we try to escape.
Horror is often associated with darkness and jump scares, ghosts and demons, strategic silence, and screams. Though there is a good chunk of movies that portray horror like that, Mike Flanagan’s work proves how versatile a plot device horror can be—serving not just to terrify, but to tell profound, emotionally charged stories.
Using horror as a narrative tool allows the realistic horrors of trauma to be discussed in a way that provides emotional distance for the audience because of the inclusion [আরো পড়ুন]
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The Slapstick Joy of Speculative Horror Comedy
Mel Brooke’s 1974 work ‘Young Frankenstein’ features the delectable Gene Wilder in the role of the grandson of Dr Frankenstein, also Dr Frankenstein. Shelley’s seminal work (Frankenstein, 1818) laid the groundwork for horror as a genre in the nineteenth century, and when it is adapted to this absurdist comedy set in the atmospheric eeriness of Frankenstein’s Castle, the band of odd characters and their grotesquely comic interactions gives us gems like these: a student asks the junior Dr Frankenstein, “but what about your grandfather’s work, sir?” The ensuing response breaks viewer immersion brilliantly as Dr Frankenstein emphatically responds to the student, “My grandfather’s work was doo-doo!”.
The adolescence of horror-comedy, after skirting around subversive adaptations of classic horror, gets us to the Beetlejuice (with Michael Keaton’s legendary, “It Show [আরো পড়ুন]
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Hypnotizing Nature in Hariye Jawa and Pasangmara
The Dilemma Between Science, Nature, and Literature Too
Progress is a corollary to sacrifice. Science has given us rational amusement and partially eclipsed the magical effect of unnatural phenomena. With the invention of scientific gadgets, human intervention in the forbidden territories of nature has increased, significantly leading to the destruction of ecological balance. The recently published article, Ghostly Past and Colonial Uncanny by Tithi Bhattacharya fetches our attention to some narratives of Rabindranath Tagore’s Chelebela (Boyhood, 1940), where Tagore narrates about the bygone days of his supernatural belief about Brahmadaitya (a Brahmin Ghost). Tagore’s narrative juxtaposes the condition of Calcutta with its modern arrival of lights and the childhood faith in supernatural existence associated with the veil of a dark and shabby environment. Science, with its rationality, brought light to remove [আরো পড়ুন]
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Steampunk Avarice Review
Author: Sumit Bardhan
Language: English
Genre: Steam Punk, Science Fiction, Detective Thriller
Country: India
Published by: Kalpabiswa Publication
Blurb
IN A WORLD OF AIRSHIPS AND ALCHEMY, ONE PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR MUST UNRAVEL A THEFT LEADING TO A DEEPER ENIGMA
It is the early twentieth century in an alternate-reality Calcutta. Here airships fly in the air, alchemy is an established practice and mythical races live alongside humans. Against this backdrop, private investigator Dhoorjoti is tasked with solving the case of a theft at the prestigious Indo-British Clockworks. But what looks like a simple crime, soon deepens into a deeper mystery.
The Effect of Avarice
The opening sentence provides a sense of laidback ease in the life two adults engaged in casual conversation of life. Sumit Bardhan draws the setting of the bachelor’s pad with the help of carefully chosen words and thus transfers the readers to be a part of [আরো পড়ুন]
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মৃত্যুগ্রহ
মূল গল্প: দ্য প্ল্যানেট অব ডেথ
ব্রেকফাস্ট টেবিলে বসে উইলিয়াম শুনতে পেল, খবরের কাগজ পড়তে পড়তে বাবা বলছেন, মড়ক শুরু হল চিন দেশে—কেউ আর বাঁচবে না।
শুনেই খটকা লাগল উইলিয়ামের। চোখ তুলল সঙ্গে সঙ্গে। কিন্তু বাবার মুখটা দেখতে পেল না—খবরের কাগজের আড়ালে ঢাকা রয়েছে। মায়ের মুখে কিন্তু বেশ উদ্বেগ ফুটে উঠেছে।
ব্যাপারটা কী? বেশ চিন্তায় [আরো পড়ুন]
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চক্রবৎ
মাননীয় আইনপ্রণেতাগণ। কার্বনিয়াদের কৃত্রিম বুদ্ধিমত্তা নিয়ে আমাদের সিলিক সমাজে যে তীব্র আতঙ্ক সৃষ্টি হয়েছে, সে বিষয়ে এই সিলিক সংসদে বিশেষজ্ঞের মতামত দেবার জন্য আমন্ত্রণ পেয়ে আমি গর্বিত।
তবে শুরুতেই বলি, এই সমস্যার সমাধানের কোনো পথ আমার জানা নেই। এ-বিষয়ে আমি একজন সমাজবিজ্ঞানী হিসেবে কেবলমাত্র আমার নিরপেক্ষ বিশ্লেষণটুকুই [আরো পড়ুন]
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