Dhaka Part I: Finding Rootedness

An overdue trip

As I left NY to visit Dhaka after five years, I looked to feel rooted and hoped for perspective.

Despite being in the US for a decade and half, it sometimes feels difficult to feel rooted. You could call me an assimilated immigrant. I have native fluency in English, I am a well behaved W2 employee who pays his taxes, and I will vote in the upcoming US presidential election. My partner is here and so are my closest friends.

I retain some elements of my Bengali-ness. Bengali food is still the best food I’ve had, and I have tasted the cuisine of the world. I maintain that Cricket is a vastly superior to Baseball. I’m skeptic of having pets.

My intentions before departing

At times, I feel the lack of roots. Often I have this vision of a boat in the ocean in choppy waters. The waves shift the boat around, and once in a while the boat is capsized and needs to get back up. The boat strives to be a cliff, accepting the waves shaping it gently over the years.

The question of where home is a moot point now. Home is not a fixed place. Home is wherever I am settled and content in my body, mind and community. I have felt both at home and not at home during my current stint of seven years at NYC.

Even feeling at home does not replace history, it doesn’t replace ancestry. It doesn’t replace the formative years of my life that shaped my choices and values.

Besides my brother in California, rest of my family are in Bangladesh. So when I go back, I arrive with a hunger for my roots. The roots are in the local food, places that were familiar, the climate, and spending time with friends and family.

Perspective is a gift that I hope for as well. I seek to observe my origins in a slightly different way then before. To see if there are new understandings to be made, new dots to be connected by looking backwards.

In a way, it’s not that difficult. Going over to Bangladesh may as well be going to a different planet compared to life in NYC. The sights, sounds, taste, smell etc are radically different. Good coffee is impossible to find, but the cuisine is so comforting, nuanced and sumptuous. My responsibilities would be different, primarily to support my parents handling the challenges of aging.

My month in Bangladesh

The first few days back were quite challenging, as I needed to realign my baseline expectations on air quality, street hygiene amongst many, many things. It was gloomy and overcast for over a week on arrival too, which added to the ennui.

The tides turned with the unrelenting love that I received from my parents. It’s not entirely unconditional, but perhaps the next best thing. My boundaries and routine, however, were challenged, and I let them be. I was not there to maintain militaristic rigor, and I allowed myself to be unproductive.

I travelled with my mother to Chattogram, the origin of all my relatives. I am a creature of great interest when I’m there. The attention can be overwhelming but is well meaning and the endless curiosity understandable. I am greeted by older versions of people I used to know, and likewise an older version of me arrives with each visit to Bangladesh as well. My life has diverted from theirs greatly, and at least to them, in positive and desirable ways.

The latter part of the trip is busy and bittersweet. I spent time setting things in motion such as visas for parents and discussing different variants of family future. For my parents, the farewell was very difficult even though I plan to see them later in the year.

Stay tuned for my next post regarding my realizations during and since my trip. I appreciate your patience in reading through the post!