February [21st | Ekushe | একুশে]
The Journey
I woke up at five o’clock in the morning. I had to get ready. That is not why I woke up though. It was jet-lag. It worked in my favor.
I was going for the ‘probhat pheri’ parade at six — for the first time ever. Probhat means morning and pheri is parade. This event is sixty three years old. It commemorates the shooting and loss of life on 21st February, 1952. It marks the inception of our identity as a nation — that we cannot be Pakistanis, we our something different.
It is a very popular and festive event now. I went to school and college within a quarter mile of the monument. Yet I had never attended the parade before. I was not allowed to. While at college, all my friends and boy friend had already attended many times. Nobody was as interested as I was. I heard the same thing as I did from my parents — “I have been there many times.” “it’s boring.” “It’s too crowded.” “The lines are too long.” “It is not as safe as used to be.” Have I mentioned one needs a male companion everywhere in Bangladesh for safety?
One of the main reasons I flew in on the 20th was to attend the parade. Those excuses were not going to make it this time. I kept asking all friends and family. When Abdullah heard that this was going to be my first time, he couldn’t believe it. he readily agreed. Isn’t he a sweetheart? Though its called the morning parade, it starts at midnight nowadays. He suggested that 6:00 am should be a good time to be there. I called and woke him up at 5:45 a.m. My cousin, Ripa, had bought a shari for me. It was about $45. I couldn’t believe how expensive things had gotten here. I couldn’t remember buying an outfit that expensive recently. Specially, one that I could wear only for a day. The attire for the day is black and white, symbolizing ink and paper, and red symbolizing the lost lives. That is not an every-weekend-party shari. Suddenly the MK I got for her on sale didn’t seem a worthwhile gift.
I picked up Abdullah and got to the intersection of Polashi. Abdullah suggested we hitchhike with a big group attending the parade. It’s safer that way. Just as we got in through the blocked roads. We saw the Vice Chancellor of my alumni, BUET and her team slowly marching with a big banner. Yes, we have a female VC, our first ever. We tagged along at the tail of that group.
The groups approaching the podium were announced extremely loudly. Other than that, to my utter surprise, the crowd and chaos that kept me away from there for all those years were no where to be seen. It was nice and easy. Traditional ‘ekushe’ tunes were running in a loop on a loudspeaker but not too loud. The weather was breezy. There was no need to lug along with the official BUET group. I introduced myself and went my own way. Madam told me she recognized me from college, I was humbled.
We had plenty time to take photographs. I had to train Abdullah a little. He did well eventually.
We were done so early that nothing in and round the huge campus was open. We walked around the campus. The photos tell that story. Eventually we ended having a hearty breakfast at Nirob, a staple but kinda ghetto restaurant for the students at my college. Water, 45 tk, a big speard of food 80 tk. That’s about a dollar and fifty cents. Finally it felt like I am in a developing country.
Soon it was 10:00 a.m. We went to the book fair. This book fair runs during the whole month of February. I have not seen a book fair like this any where else. In USA, book fairs are usually for antique books. This is new, freshly printed books. Publishers save their best publications for February. The stalls are decorated elaborately. I used to get money to buy books from there when I was a kid. We were not allowed to watch a lot of TV. It was like an hour a week. But we read a lot. I read most of the bangla best-sellers during high-school. During college I moved more into classics. Now I am very detached from Bangla literature. I dont know who sells or who gets the awards. Yet, I had to go. I had spent many afternoons in that dirt-filled ground. I sweated like a pig for the humidity and that dirt would just stick on skin. Yet I would be excited to go every year, almost everyday of February.
As we walked, in Abdullah pointed me to an ex-relative. I was not sure if I should say hello. Then I saw the Boston uncle. They were visiting home with their twins. They took care of me like their own. They have been there for me during impossible times. He gave me a big hug. Hugs are saved for the most precious moments in the Bangladeshi culture — for moments like death, birth or other celebrations. Yet I got one. Then he hurriedly ran off to get the aunt. He knew she would just love to see me. Abdullah kept the conversation going with the relative. But it was awkward.
This was written on the eve of International Language Day, 2015. It took me over a year of back and forth figure out how to publish this. Its neither a travelogue nor a personal experience. Yet it did not feel fair to drop a part of the morning that I had strong feelings about. A year from that day I realized, the memory of that day is the probhat pheri. But the feeling was memories of other days that I did not have tools to express. My upbringing did not allow the existence of ex-es. We do not talk about them. We do not use words like “divorce” or “ex”. We do not have words for “visitation rights” or “co-parenting”. When I was a teenager I realized some cousins of mine were not “real” cousins. Once in a blue moon this middle-aged guy would desperately try to visit them at school. Those events were referred as the “incidents” and the father as the “trouble-maker”. Neither name nor relationships were mentioned. Growing up that’s what I saw and I repeated the same behavior. I have never asked any of my friends about their kids if they are not staying with the parent. On the other hand, the first thing I ask others is how the kids are or parenting has been.
Nowadays, sometimes I can observe myself from the outside and see the girl of last year or three years back and be proud of this outsider. The word ‘divorced’ still doesn't roll off her tongue easily. But she has unlearned many things she knew about life and love once from a traditional upbringing. She is like a fresh jar of play dough — ready to be formed. She is figuring out what that form could be. She is an engineer by trade. She needs a formula. But she is ready to redesign often. She is like a toddler; looking forward to all experiences — quite scared but very eager.
When I was a kid, the newspapers and the TV would repeat the words “ekusher chetona” (একুশের চেতনা) — the spirit of the twenty first. How our sense of freedom as a nation was born from it, how the chetona is lost now, or worse lost on the millennials. I never understood chetona. But suddenly I feel I get it, I have it in my own millennial way.
The photos are in a separate post.
