America or Banagladesh? by Sultan Reza| DesPardes.com

As I visit Bangladesh, for the second time within a year, I sit and wonder. Which one is my home country and which one is the foreign one? I am still not sure if Bangladesh has signed a dual citizenship agreement with USA. But in my heart, I am a citizen of both the countries. The question is, where do I want to reside at? Since I am retired, I am free to decide because leaving or getting a job is not a factor. Still, what a difficult choice!

It is a debate that goes on, between my mind and my heart. The heart says �Come back to the place where you were born".

�Are you mad?� questions the mind. �Can�t you see, what is happening in Bangladesh? How will you cope with the corruption and the poverty around you?�

�So what? What do you care? You are not starting a business or looking for a job. Nor are you so poor,� the heart responds.

These questions and answers, the quarreling of mind and heart goes on within me. Just like me, there are many retired Americans of Bangladeshi, Indian and Pakistani origin, who I am sure, are torn between the two loves -- between their country of origin and their country of adoption. And they keep shuttling back and forth.

After having lived exactly half of my age in Bangladesh (which includes 10 years in West Bengal - Calcutta) and the other half in America, I find myself in a good position to weigh the pros and cons and share them with my fellow immigrants, whose mind and heart are not at peace with one another.

At my age, money is not the main factor. Though its importance in life cannot be denied. As death approaches, our activities shift from material to spiritual pursuits. A decade back, a nephew had suggested: �Your�s and Mamani�s friends are in the highest government position today. It is the opportune moment to make a kill.� My response to him was: �I am trying to kill the greed and lust in me for the wealth that we will all have to leave behind,� I remember telling him. Perhaps I have made some progress. A brother-in-law recently asked �What do you do for a living?�

�Breathe� I responded, trying to dodge the question.

�You know what I mean. Aren�t you doing some consultancy or planning to go back to your old job of selling Real Estate,? he persisted.

�I have stopped chasing money� I finally answered.

That is the truth and it has given me such a peace of mind. I no longer have to run after the donor and recipients of aids and grants for consultancy or look at my friends and relatives as a potential client or customer for selling or buying their homes. The fee and commission are good to have but the rejection of it all gives me a sense of relief. I feel better. There is a difference between working hard and hardly working. The former is supposed to take care of the latter. Yet, I see people work and work until they are disabled or dead. The poor have no choice. And the rich, they think time is money and get busy like bees to convert time into money - until their time is up and they have to go under - without that money or anything that money could buy.

Getting back to the debate between my own heart and mind, the former says:

�Why not come back and live in Bangladesh. You will get an annual increase in your retirement fund. A few years ago, a dollar was worth Taka 50, now it is 70. Stretch you dollars here. It is already shrinking in America. Look at the gas prices there. It has doubled. The salary of a maid has tripled. The cost of living? Deadly! Live in Bangladesh. The quality of life here is so much better. With different servants - to cook your food, clean your house and even polish your shoes. You can ride a Chauffer driven car like your nephews and relax at mortgage free home like your uncles. Go to Clubs. Watch the games of cricket and soccer that you grew up playing. You have lived in a foreign country for a long time. Come back and die where you were born. Be a salmon, not a pooti mach� The heart thinks. It has a mind of its own.

But the real mind that rules the head comes out with a rebuttal.

�Do not be crazy? You live in the best country of the world. Why choose the worst? You are getting older and need good medical attention. Your children live in America. What will you do in Bangladesh? Talk to them over the phone and fret? Be where you are. So what if Bush is still the President. He will be gone in two years. But Begums Hasina and Khaleda will make your life miserable for as long as you live. With the pollution and the corruption in Bangladesh, you might not even live longer�

The heart starts singing �Amar Shonar Bangla. Ami Tomaye Bhalo Bashi�

Buy a CD and play it in America. It will even sound better. The mind intervenes.

Actually, when I think back of the years that I spent in Dhaka, I come up with a lot of fond memories. A visit at the Dhaka Club the other day reminded me of the days when my cousin Bobby and I used to go there every day to play billiard or a game of bridge and hardly had to work more than four hours a day to earn a comfortable living. We were not the only ones who did that. There was a whole bunch of lazy boys like us, who could not wait for the billiard rooms to open at 11 a.m. While Khaled Ibrahim remained glued to the table, Uncle Mashooqullah would call and instruct the receptionist on our behalf as well: �If our wives call, we are not here,� acknowledging our nods of approval. Quite often, we would have lunch at the club and play bridge in the afternoons. Those were the �Good Old Days� Even today, in Bangladesh, a day has a morning, a forenoon, an afternoon, an evening and a night. Not so in America. There is the day, the night and then, the next day.

The days come and go. Week days for office work and week ends for house work. As a visiting Urdu poet from Hyderabad once aptly read this couplet from his poem that he had composed to poke at us:

� AAYE THAY YAHAAN KARNAY ZINDIGI KO BEHTUR
KAAM WO KAR RAHE HAIN JO KARTAY THAY MEHTUR�

(We had come here to make our life better but have ended up doing what the sweeper used to do back home.)

How true! But it is also true that the picture of George Washington in the dollar bills have turned out to be much more attractive than the pictures of Gandhi, Jinnah or Sheik Mujibur Rahman in the Rupees and Taka notes - unless the legal tender is earned illegally! Even then, earning in America and spending in Asia is much more fun than doing the vice-versa. That has kept us here for 35 long years. Though it is also true for both the countries that when people come into power, very soon they start turning that power into �buying power�. That is, in currencies of Dollar, Pound and Euro that is appreciated usually and accepted internationally.

Migrating to America was not my choice. It was forced upon me by the circumstances. I was merrily managing my jute purchasing agencies of foreign buyers, when Bangladesh became an independent country and the Bangladesh Government decided to nationalize the jute trade. It not only killed my job but left the jute trade half dead. It is still gasping. But here I am, going around the world and always coming back to Bangladesh. My American passport helps but my wife�s Bangladeshi passport always lands us up in the Immigration Officer�s desk for a question and answer session, even when we are going to Canada and even though she has a G-4 visa to live and work in America. Every country suspects that if allowed to enter, she might never exit from there. And here I am, with an American Passport, seriously considering if I should continue to live in America or come and settle back in Bangladesh.

Three years ago, when my wife decided to call it a day, retire from her job at the World Bank and come back home to Bangladesh (she still holds a Bangladeshi passport), I readily agreed with her because her parents were getting older and they needed us. We sold our house and she even notified her supervisor that she was quitting at the end of the year 2003. Come September, and her heart started pounding. In October, she attended a seminar for retirement and found out that with the gratuity and pension plan, we could live very comfortably in Bangladesh. But the thought of leaving her children behind in America made her feel very uncomfortable. She had promised her mother that she was going to come back for good and the mother was anxiously waiting. But my wife started feeling bad for her own children. They were getting mad and we were promising them that every year we will come back and spend four months in America. �My mother needs me and I must go,� my wife kept telling this more to herself than to the children until one day our six years old grand daughter walked up and asked:

�How does a Nana and Nani leave their Nati and Natni and go away?� That clinched the issue. At least for the time being.

We did not have an answer to this difficult question. Today, Inshira is 9 years old and her cousin Ali is 7. She has a sister, who is 4 and our 4th grand child Omar, has recently celebrated his 1st. birthday. We still live in America and it looked like we were going to be here for the rest of our lives. But looking at my father-in-law, who has just completed his 84th birthday and my wife�s mother, who has to look after him at the age of 80, we have once again started thinking �are we doing the right thing? Our children are married. They have their spouses. There children are their concerns. Shouldn�t we go back and look after the old parents?

Once again, the heart seems to be putting the pressure on the mind. We are telling our friends that in July 2008, my wife too will retire and we will go back to Bangladesh. Let us see, what the mind comes up with in January 2008 when a six month notice has to be served at the place of my wife�s employment, furniture and 220 volt appliances have to be purchased and a home has to be built in Bangladesh. But we are still scared to break the news to our grand children. Once we have finalized everything, we shall ask their mothers to tell them that their grand parents are leaving to look after their mother�s grand parents.

This is our tradition and traditions are not made by one generation.

The views expressed herein are the writers' own and do not reflect those of DesPardes.com

Other articles by the same author:

When East Pakistan Became Bangladesh

Remember, I Remember; How Can I Forget?

When East Pakistan Became Bangladesh

Have Your Say >

Dr Rehana Sayeed, Islamabad
Enjoyed the article. It is well written and relates with the lives of many of us who moved to the States in the 70s. May Allah guide us to make the right decision. Ameen!

Faiz Al Najdi, Riyadh
Article by Sultan Reza speaks volumes of the "state of mind and heart not at peace with one another" experienced by every soul that leaves his/her native place in pursuit of better life elsewhere. "Once a Refugee always a Refugee." Congrats to Sultan Reza for such a wonderful article.

E-mail it to:Articles@despardes.com

The author is a Bangladeshi born American businessman turned freelance writer. He lives in Falls Church, Virginia, USA and speaks Urdu as fluently as Bengali and English. His email address is: sultanreza1@aol.com

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