Startled by the grandeur of such a little life
I lie awake as the blackness of night dissolves into the dim blue of dawn; annoyed by the birdsong, held captive by life’s numerous varieties of heartbreak. A crisis. It seems as though I undergo a new one each day, often a combination of a few at once. Crisis of time. Crisis of identity. Crisis of faith. The list is exhausting.
The mention of return evokes an immediate flight response, the only excitement arriving in the brand of unadulterated anger. Fight or flight. Fight to flight. Fly. Flee. Flown.
A cousin’s wedding. Two cousins’ weddings. Possibly a third. Your aunt personally requested that you be there. What about family? What will people say? Don’t be selfish. Everyone misses you.
The mental photograph of “everyone” consists now of perhaps only three people. All else have ceased to matter for reasons of their own doing, which the majority, unsurprisingly, refuse to acknowledge at all.
I won’t get so many days off. It’s a bad time. I don’t even speak to those cousins. Who cares, honestly? It’s too hot, I’ll die. Mosquitoes. The food is great but really upsets my stomach and I get violently sick every time.
Perhaps twenty-five is a good time to start being selfish. Perhaps it makes one cruel. Perhaps one no longer cares.
The flight home, or the place I previously knew as such, is a perilous journey truly akin to a punishment I would dare not wish upon anyone. Everything is usually fine until the brief, sometimes not-so-brief, layover in some middle eastern country where the last flight is always filled with Bengali labourers headed towards the same destination. Uncouth. Illiterate. Country-loving. On a short vacation to see family and then return promptly to their Arab employers. Back to their leashes and their cages and inhumane living spaces. Indentured labour. Twenty-first century slavery.
Loudmouthed, pseudo-civilized, a mobile phone in each pocket, a giant drum of Ovaltine under the arm, a plastic shopping bag of toys and gifts bought at the airport duty free, last minute. In cash. Cash only. Always cash. Just cash. Cash. Cash.
The men dressed in large pants and unflattering shirts, some buttoned to the neck, some buttoned immodestly to reveal a dark forest of chest hair. The women dressed in salwar-kameez, some covering their heads with a loose fabric scarf and some not. Men, women, children all in sandals and flip flops. Crying children, faces slobbered with sticky coloured candy made only worse in the heat. The airport air conditioning is barely felt in such a wild presence. Everyone speaking over one another in every different dialect imaginable, loudly as if each were delivering a sermon of their own.
Upon boarding the last flight in the dead of night, the blankets would be gone before the plane even takes off. The flight attendants apologize when informed that we have not received any, that the plane, being much smaller than the airport, is actually quite cold. Most people have taken two each. They’re not supposed to. We’re so sorry. We’re so sorry.
Sir please turn off your phone, we are about to take off. He continues speaking anyway. Voices rise, the attendant almost informs the captain until someone nudges the man to listen. No English. But the man manages to say Bitch loudly as the stewardess leaves. Eventually the labour party, consisting of ninety-five percent of the plane, fall asleep, and silent has never been so peaceful.
A few hours later, the flight touches down in Dhaka and everyone stumbles to get off the plane first. We wait in our seats until the stampede has passed, unaware of greater hazards that lie beyond the peripheries of an aircraft full of indentured labourers.
This is how it goes. How it has always gone. How it shall always go. Everything beyond and in between arrival and departure is a haze of sticky heat, relentless rain, unreasonable traffic, rolling blackouts, and the immediate and unending cruelty of beloved relatives.
I have my reasons, I say at last, I can’t go back. Not right now. I don’t know when. I have responsibilities of my own. You have to understand.
Eventually, after much back and forth, only two tickets are purchased. My brother and I are spared. He is spared only because it would be unacceptable to leave one behind, so the only option is to leave both.
I lie awake as the blackness of night dissolves into the dim blue of dawn; annoyed by the birdsong, held captive by life’s numerous varieties of heartbreak. As the sky brightens, I am reminded of the city of my birth, of the mornings there, immediately contrasted with the absence now of the blaring horns and the calls of daily foot merchants selling their wares. A disturbing silence in the midst of a suburban dwelling. The silence of twenty-two years abroad, of a foreign education, a foreign job, a foreign income. Everywhere the evidence of foreign dreams.
I think, courageously, for the first time, how my life would have been otherwise. If my parents had not carried a three-year-ten-month old baby to a country they had never seen, never set foot in, never imagined a life in. Having left most of everything they had built for themselves behind, I wonder if I could ever do the same one day for my child. I wonder if I could throw everything away at this exact moment, at around the same age when my parents did. The answer is not one I spend very long thinking of.
It is difficult to imagine how big or small of a life mine would be if we had not moved. A car, maybe eventually two, maids and helpers, maybe a cook. Maybe some or none of the above, depending on how lucrative an opportunity presented itself, if at all.
I ask myself if I am afraid of my roots. Yes, I am. Not so much of my heritage, because I love everything there is to love. But I am rather afraid of being reminded of where I come from. Of what a life there would be like.
I think of the state of my self, my growth and evolution, the understanding resulted from the present circumstances as they have occurred. Would I still be me, or would I be someone infinitely different? Would I be having this conversation at all?
Suddenly, all things of importance in my life are reduced to insignificance. I look around me at the life that has been built, not by my self, but by those who have sacrificed everything for this edifice. The little things are bigger than I could ever imagine. The compromises are more than I could ever commit to. Every brick laid, every promise spent. I am startled by the grandeur of such a little life.
Every dream dreamt.
Big dreams.
Foreign dreams.
I am not ashamed in my fear of being reminded of who I could have been. Rather, I have resolved to focus on who I am now, the me I have comfortably become.
Still time. Shall we buy tickets? Everyone misses you. Everyone will be waiting for you both.
I know in my heart that no one really waits. Life goes on, as it always does. The city beats forward, the rains and floods and traffic and merchants and blackouts and family cruelty. None of it will miss us. Maybe only for a moment. But what is a moment in the sea of a lifetime?
No, it’s okay. Another time. Right now, we need to be here, right where we are.
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