Introduced by Udayan Mitra, the session titled Exile: A Writer’s Journey featured a conversation with Taslima Nasrin and Satish Padmanabhan. Tracing Taslima’s life from her childhood to her evolution as a writer, she said about how she led a secular childhood with a religious mother and an atheist father. It was her elder brother who influenced her to write poetry, she added. Speaking of her career as a writer she said how she spoke for women through her writing and how she encouraged them to come out and fight for their rights. This was the reason for hurting the religious sentiments of the people, while was talking about human rights.
“I got many awards, but I didn't feel at home,” said Taslima further speaking of her exile and how she had neither a country nor a home. “I was banished from the cities and countries she wanted to be in,” she added. She also mentioned that it was not always the government who asked her to leave but the fundamentalists. Adding on to which she said that, though she is wholeheartedly welcomed at many places, especially the European countries, but she wanted to live among her people. "I am not allowed in Bangladesh but I write in Bengali, I think in Bengali, I dream in Bengali and I love that language."
When asked if people could criticize the laws today like she did in her time she simply replied by saying it's impossible. "When I fight fundamentalists, I fight all fundamentalists," saying that it's not only fundamentalists from one community rather those from every section of the society.
The session came to an end with Taslima reciting a very powerful poem You Go Girl which ended on a strong note 'and the women among them would want to be a white, a white like you.'