Shohobash Tiffin (Love’s Tiffin)
Amina Shelly
Poetry · Love · Bangla
Somatic love poems.
At a Glance
Sixty poems of love, the body, touch, desire, surrender, separation and memory.
About the Book
The title does not have a simple translation. The Bengali word shohobash can mean living together. In everyday use, it also refers to sexual union.
Shohobash Tiffin is a collection about the body of love and the love of the body.
Here, love is not only an abstract feeling. It has skin. Lips. Fingers. Hunger. Scent. Blood. There is the desire to be close. To touch and be touched. There is also the desire to open oneself to another person. The title brings these different worlds together.
But love does not end with the body. Fingers, lips, skin, kisses and other languageু of the body appear beside waiting, trust, surrender and the need to be loved. Sometimes the body becomes the language of love. Sometimes an absent person returns to the body as hunger.
There is touch here. There is distance too. Two people can be physically close and still remain apart. Someone far away can remain in memory, habit and waiting. Sometimes a street corner, a cup of tea or a mobile-phone screen brings someone from years ago back into the present.
The woman in these poems also speaks of her own desire. She loves. She wants touch. She wants closeness. She waits. She calls. She does not hide the hunger of her body or her need for love. So shohobash here is not only sexual union. It is also living alongside another person. Sharing something of the same life, memories, hunger, absence and waiting.
In Shohobash Tiffin the love that begins with the body does not remain confined to the body.
Author’s Note
Love poems. Love doesn't happen out of the body. Yet love is beyond body. It never happens only in the heart. Eyes search. Fingers want to touch. The body wants closeness. And when that one someone is far away, the body carries their absence too.
I didn‘t hide my own desire. A woman can love. She can want to be touched. She can desire physical union. She can call someone to her. She can take the first step. I have written everything as raw as they came to me. In this collection there are 70 poems.
To me, shohobash is not only bodily union. It also means living alongside someone. Sharing body, mind, time, memories, joy and absence. And tiffin? A small store of love’s everyday hungers and satisfactions. Something kept for both body and mind.
And that is where the title comes from—Shohobash Tiffin.
— Amina Shelly
Book Details
Title: Shohobash Tiffin
Author: Amina Shelly
Genre: Poetry · Love
Language: Bangla
Number of Poems: 60
Pages: 128
Binding: Paperback
Edition: First Edition
First Published: October 2025
Publisher: Payasti Prokashon
Cover Design: Mostafiz Karigar
ISBN: 978-984-97704-7-3
Price: BDT 320
Get the Book
Available directly from Payasti Prokashon - Shohobash Tiffin (Love’s Tiffin)