Shiuli

Life was simpler then.

When ‘hartals’ meant ‘no school’; and heavy rain meant ‘rainy day holidays’. Rain was ‘fun’ by default- walking barefoot on the grass under that ‘Shiuli’ tree during school ‘tiffin time’, picking up the fallen white and orange from the grass, making beautiful garlands, pretending we were fairies in an enchanted garden.

God’s own…, originally uploaded by Devdatta Bhattacharya.

I always thought Shiuli was a beautiful flower. It’s been a while since I last saw one. I miss it sometimes. I miss the freshness, the newness. It’s amazing how fresh a handful of Shiuli always looks.

Life is not as simple now. Now, fun trips mean planning for them- packing bags, calling the cat boarding, filling out leave forms, making lists….

Life is still good- with shared laughters, cute purring kittens, pulling your leg, new hairstyles and rude jokes at your expense- or mine… but sometimes, on a sunny day like this one- I wish I had some time for the beach- for the deep blue water with white foams and the light blue sky with white fluffy clouds, or for the white and orange flowers I used to love and still do, and that life was as simple as it was before…

… a long long time ago.

Ilshe Guri

It drizzled this morning, and I missed the bus to the station.

I walked in the rain… not rain, sorry, I meant the ‘drizzle’. My head, as usual, was filled with lazy meaningless morning thoughts… things like ’if it kept drizzling a little longer, I’d have ‘that’ word swimming in the poodle in my head’- then realizing that that word was already swimming in my head!

Gondola Orseolo VI, Venice, originally uploaded by Rita Crane Photography.

Ilshe Guri.

Yea, that’s the word for drizzles in Bengali. I have no idea how this word had incepted- it means ‘tiniest Hilsha’ (Hilsha is the name of a fish that’s exclusive to the part of the world I am from)… and it sounds funny when I translate. This word is swimming merrily in my head now.

Ilshe Guri. Ilshe Guri. Ilshe Guri.

Yup. It’s very much swimming in my head today. It was a walk in ‘ilshe guri’ after ages.

Rain: here and there

Raindition, originally uploaded by Ehtesham.

It’s been a rainy few days, on and off and on- sunny- rainy- windy- rainy- sunny- rainy- in that order.

I love rain.

I come from a place with a lot of rain, lots and lots: monsoon rain, summer rain, autumn rain- crazy rain with thunders, mellow rain with dark clouds- rain going on for days and days; small poodles on the road, slippery roadsides, rain washed roads

I love them all. There are a very few things in the world that makes me as happy as rain does.

It does not rain like that in Melbourne. Melbourne rains are brief- if you see it raining- give it 10 minutes and chances are that it’ll stop by then. The drops are much softer and smaller- unlike Dhaka rain where it takes only a few seconds to fill out a glass if you stand with it in rain- fat strong big drops of rain that can drench you in just a few seconds.

I miss Dhaka rain. I’m the ‘crazy rain girl’; I like those unruly, uncivilized rains. More unruly and uncivilized they are, the better I find them. They are like my valium, they calm me.

I miss my rain smell; I miss my green rain-washed palm trees. I miss Dhaka rain in all its glory.

It rained in Melbourne the last few days. I watched it plenty sitting in front of the window, coffee mug in my palms. It was pretty, I’m glad it rained. I really am.

But it made me miss my Dhaka rain even more.

She

She sat opposite of me in the train… dressed in formals- much like I was, straight hair pulled back in a ponytail, reading a book. She was just another girl in the train of (I thought) Indian origin and we did not even look at each other twice.

Then her phone rang and she started speaking- in a low voice that did not hide the thrill in her voice- it must have been someone special, perhaps a call from the home that she has left behind. This happens every day. Every day in the train someone or the other speaks over the telephone- what’s so special about this one?

Well… she spoke my language. There is a strange kind of freedom if you are ‘brown’ but not Indian- not every ‘brown’ person you meet speak your language and usually if you overhear a native language in a public transport- it would be Hindi, not Bangla. We automatically assume all the other browns are Indians, mainly because they are more in number here than we are. Maybe she assumed the same about me.

I did not mean to pry, but I did- I could not help it. It felt so good hearing a stranger speaking my language. I’ve been out of Dhaka for so long that it has not happened for a very long time. She must’ve thought I did not understand her language, just as I had assumed at the first glance that she doesn’t understand mine.

She spoke of Dhaka, of the puppy she left behind and misses dearly, of the roses on her window tub, of her mum who was sick. She was speaking the language that I think in, dream in, reason with myself in- the language I am most fluent in, the language closest to my heart.

And I realized how we are not prepared for the small things and how capable they are of making us happy- sometimes sad, too… it’s been such a long time I have not heard a ‘stranger’ speaking in Bangla… MY Bangla!

It did warm my heart a bit.

Cold Feet

Forgiving, forgetting and moving on…

Why did I always find it so hard to do these? I cannot forgive easily, I am cursed with a good memory- so ‘forgetting’ is a ‘fail’, and moving on? Ha! How can you move on if you cannot do the other two?

My possible impending trip to home has me worried, stressed and anxious to some extent. I’m worried that I will not be understood in my need to ‘not’ socialize with those I don’t want to; and it is causing a good amount of stress and anxiety in my ever-so-delicate mental balance. I’m weird, I know. Tell me something I don’t know please

For those of you who has never been to the East: life in the East is different, Collectivism rules in the East. Result? More social pressure, you live in a group of family and friends, you socialize a lot, you leave behind the differences and conform to the group you belong to- because external harmony, my friends, is very important! W-a-a-y too important…

The ‘socializing’ part is good when you are visiting perhaps- but when you have far too much enmity with far too many people and there for a limited time? Umm… Not really. My take on this? Life is too short to waste on faking the harmony that does not really exist. It’s exhausting when you are bound.

I am not exactly a conformist, nor am I a social butterfly. I am more like a cat- moody, choosy, stubborn and independent; a loner too, and don’t you forget the rebellion either. I handpick my friends and I don’t pick many; I don’t need many. My solitude gives me peace and I need a hell lot of personal time and space. I’m sometimes much too complicated, and sometimes much too simple, too, than one should be in a ‘Collective’ Society.

I’m not saying that the East is bad. Neither does it mean that I love my country and culture any less- it just means that I am probably much more individualistic than my average country-mates and would rather have my own freedom- especially when I am visiting it for a short time. It also means that I have found my answer to some puzzles like ‘why do I feel like I am the odd one out?’ and solving puzzles is always good- even when the answers don’t please you.

You know what else it means? I’m getting a cold feet, that’s what!.

The Bengali in me :)

A couple of years old, but this can still make me cry like a baby. This makes me miss Bangladesh.

I relate to it in so many levels… I can be the girl who is crossing the street while the boys stop their game to make way for me, I can be the little girl wearing our flag on my face sitting in front of the TV watching my country play, I can be the woman in the rickshaw who suddenly finds a cricket ball on her lap and throws it back to the players… THAT’s the extent of roadside cricket in my beautiful homeland.

And this video has another beautiful aspect of my country- the secularism. You’ll see people praying in mosques, mandirs, churchers, pagodas- all for the Bangladesh team to win, united by one simple fact: we are all Bangladeshis. Irrespective of anything else- regardless of if we win a game of cricket or not- I hope this never changes. That, no matter what happens, we are ALWAYS Bangladeshis, first and foremost.

Yes… it is sad that we HARDLY ever win, but this has never stopped us though. We keep on cheering for the ‘Red and Green’ and always will. Always.

And I’m happy it brings us together.

Go RED AND GREEN!

[Now I'll need some tissues, I'm so sappy ]

A dip in the Ocean

It is one of those days; one of those when wish you were someone else or that you did not ‘feel’ just as much.

On days like this- bad things depress you more, like being painfully aware that your beloved country is going backwards in time.

I always took pride in Bangladesh being a secular country- seems like it is being taken away from me- that pride. It hurts more than you’d know. I feel bare and cold without that warm glow of pride.

The love? Still there. But then, ‘love’ never was a logical feeling for me anyway. For me or for anyone I’ve ever met, for that matter. Those who disagree? Well, you just have to love enough to know that I’m right on this.

What can be done now?

Wash this whole thing down with lots of salt water, Tears, Sweat and a dip in the Ocean, and hoping- hoping hard- that we’ll again take a big leap forward and leave this black mark behind? And hoping (some more) that the salt water will ‘cleanse’ us… of out mistakes.

the proudly incurable Bengali

Translation of the first two lines of the national anthem of my country:

My Bengal of gold, I love you
Forever your skies, your air set my heart in tune as if it were a flute

I just realized that I have not really heard this anthem for more than three years now…

Pretty lines, eh?

cold, sad and ashamed

It’s extremely sad.

It feels so helpless to see our country topping the headlines of world news for something so savage.

I feel like asking the killers- how could they, who were hired to protect the countrymen from foreign invasion, kill the fellow countrymen over ‘poor working condition’ grievances.

And C’mon, poor working conditions??!!

Can you imagine HOW BAD the working condition would have to be, to be able to even remotely ‘justify’ this whole thing? You cannot even TRY to justify it, actually- however bad the ‘condition’ is.

Killers, you did nothing different than what Pakistan army did to us in 1971. In fact, you did worse: they were your own people! Shame on you.

red sun

the sun was red yesterday evening- it looked like the red circle of bangladesh flag. shaam speculated that it was for the smokes in the air for the bushfires. he was probably right.

we kept staring at the red sun all the way through to our IKEA visit. it was setting, the sun. it was that time of the day. like- you see it going down… down… down… down… and then drop- ‘off for the day, see you again tomorrow!’. reminds me of the bay of bengal- no sun sets on water as prettily as it does there !

i am biased. i know. been a while i have seen sun setting on bay of bengal. it’s my favourite bay in the whole wide world. one of the many reasons that makes me want to go back to bangladesh… one of the days, this may outweigh some negative events that happenned recently- which are making me feel quite the opposite. but oh well…

to continue about the smokes and bushfire- today is just a slight bit smokey… and the morning smelt of burnt trees. as the day grew older- the smell went less intense, it’s still smokey- but it’s a sunny day- so not as smokey anymore.

the fires are still there… it’s improving, they say. death toll is not as rapidly rising anymore, the area- i hope- is evacuated… fingers crossed for things getting back to some amount of ‘normalcy’ soon.