Abstract: Bangladeshi author Imran Khan's 2024 Bangla novel Besati o Basati ( Business and Habitat , loosely translated) highlights multiple environmental crises unfolding in the metropolitan city of Dhaka. All its rivers have become polluted with human as well as industrial waste. Most canals have either got filled up, illegally occupied, or turned into sewage carriers and waste-dumping grounds. Besides, a number of garbage-filled slums house low-income people, many of whom are internally displaced communities, including environmental and climate refugees. The ill-maintained dumpsters often overflow with waste. The authorities responsible for the ongoing environmental degradation of the city must be steeped in a garbage (govern)mentality. Applying insights from waste studies and ecocriticism, this paper endeavors to explore the many ways the destructive potential of waste, as both a materiality and a mentality, underpins the novel Besati o Basati .
Liton Chakraborty Mithun (Sat,) studied this question.