From Mirpur to Massachusetts

Most of us are familiar with the devastating occurrence of a very close friend or relative moving to another country in search of a "better future" and abandoning us for a lifetime. The most unpleasant thoughts of never seeing them again, Skype eventually getting dull, them meeting better people and forgetting old times start to build up inside you. Yet, one fine day, things take a 180 degree turn. This is the day your lost friend first says something with a hint of "I live abroad" conceit that could easily boil your blood, but you decide not to make a fuss about it, and label it as just a phase, out of respect for better times. 

For me it first began with something she said about streets in Dhaka being narrow, which my pea-sized Bengali brain failed to make sense of, because the same narrow streets of Dhaka that her stomach turns at today that did not seem to bother her the 14 years she lived here. It did not stop there, of course. On she went blabbering about how every time it rains in Dhaka, puddles and mud appear everywhere you look and her scrunched up nose told me exactly how big of a deal that was. What really blew my brains straight out of my skull though was when she next said the words "I don't think I could ever adjust back there," which is infuriating and rib-tickling hilarious at the same time.

The next blow came in a just matter of weeks. She was casually telling me about her plans to go to Target later in the day with her friends when, on the spur of the moment, she just had to ask me where I hung out with mine. That is of course a natural enquiry since "We don't have big brands here in Bangladesh". Even though we did, it was beyond the abilities of my stupid sensitive Bengali soul to comprehend and I got triggered faster than you can say "Stop acting like you were born in Massachusetts when it's Mirpur you are from". Inevitably, my immediate thought was "Apon Coffee House > Starbucks".

While I am the weakest human being I know when it comes to cutting people off, it had to be done this time because the things she said hit me right at my hridoy. On a side note, if you have not met someone who says things similar to what the last four hundred something words gave an account of, you need to personally contact me and feed me some ice-cream as a form of gratitude to the universe for just how fortunate it has made your life.