Her name is Bina, and this is her story!

A couple of days back my mother and I realized that we had never clicked a photograph of my Dida (her mother, and my grandmother). Almost 86 years of her existence, and not a single photograph that showed her, really and only her. She had posed for the lifeless pictures of a voter ID, or an Aadhar card, or her ration card, but never a photograph that showed her, in her element. But, you know that is not shocking.

My Dida grew up in Noakhali (now in Bangladesh). Born in a family of 4 children who hardly had 2 square meals a day, poverty in Bangladesh, gave way to violence during the partition. Fed up of the violence her family made their way through to India, bereft of any material possession, except some food and the clothes on their backs.

At 18, my Dida got married, but the marriage didn’t end her penury, neither did it bring her prosperity. My Dadu (grandfather) never had any money saved — although he worked at a Government spinning mill — because he had to support almost 12 people, including my Dida, my mother, her 4 siblings, and some relatives. Dida lived all her life in a ramshackle hut made mostly out of Bamboo, and corrugated tin for a roof.

As a matter of fact, my mom grew up in that house (in the picture) and most of my maternal cousins and their family still live in that Bamboo house. So, you would see, a photograph — usually considered a useless sign of vanity in our culture — was never a priority, neither was it ever on the list of things to gain. Food, clothes, slippers, were the priority. But, not only surviving was the priority, No one wants to tell the stories of the poor and neglected in our culture. We bemoan them, we pity them as a ‘species’, but we don’t realize that they too are the protagonist of a story — their story.

My Dida’s life was no different. Nobody cared enough for her story, to have it enshrined in visual memory. But, I think my privilege coerces me to think differently.

A 12-year-old, who saw violence, bloodshed, abject poverty, but still survived to land up in a new country. As a mother of 5, who never had more than a couple of sarees to wear. As a grandmother, who is as resolute today as the day she was born. Her name is Bina, and this is her story!