I was born and raised in England, however that did not stop my mother from teaching me the values, cultures and traditions that she was taught while she was growing up in her small village in Bangladesh. She always told me that me and my brother were fortunate to come here as we don’t have to walk 40km to school in the blazing heat and that we can actually have a proper education and have a good future. Though, Bangladesh’s education system has changed overtime, people still have to walk in the blazing heat.
Despite living in England and having a life that was different than what life is like in Bangladesh, I have always appreciated my culture and where I originated from, I had never hated it or been ashamed to be apart of it. My parents always took me to different temples and even though overtime visiting various temples growing up became a little boring, I didn’t disrespected it, I sang the songs (even if I didn’t know what the words were)
I self-taught myself on my own religion, which is Hinduism, I found the different traditions and celebrations interesting and my parents also encouraged me to follow these traditions and carry out different the celebration but I didn’t need my parents to tell me to do it as I wanted to do it by my own choice. Last year, I was dealing with extreme anxiety and panic attacks and when going through that period I found out about the Bhagavad Gita, which I already knew about but I had a limited knowledge on it so I researched about it and ordered the book online and I also got another one for free whilst I was at one of the festivals that took place in London. The Bhagavad Gita is apart of the epic Mahabharata, it’s different verses between the Hindu god Krishna and a prince named Arjuna. The version I brought online also included other information on spirituality and this made me feel closer to my culture and made me feel better on calming down my anxiety and how I felt.
When I was younger and me and my family went to festivals, I either used to wear jeans and a top or I wore an traditional South Asian dress like Lehengas but as I got older I retired the jeans and tops and now I only wear Lehengas or Anarkali suits and I love wearing them to festivals and parties because they make me feel part of where I come from
Just because I was born in Britain, it never took away my thirst for learning about my ethnicity and where I come from. I love living in Britain (I mean to an extent because right now, I’m ready to ship myself to another country) living here made me learn about other things and broadened my knowledge on different things and made me think in a different, non-conventional type of way. I haven’t visited Bangladesh since I was 14 and I miss the busy and noisy streets filled with rickshaws and street vendors, visiting relatives at night and the freezing cold breeze of the AC in department shops that made you feel like you’re in the North Pole because outside felt like you were being heated up in a never-ending micro-oven but it was home and I appreciated the quirks of it.
People always thought I was Indian and that I originated from India and when I corrected them and said “No, I’m not from India, I’m from Bangladesh” their answer would always be that they’re the same thing and it isn’t. Bangladesh has it’s own history, it’s own language that’s different than Hindi, it has it’s own personal beauty and it’s nothing like India and I feel anyone would say that if they came from a different part of South Asia but they were labelled that they came from India. Different places in South Asia have their different traditions and cultures and they might have similar aspects to cultures in different places they are not completely the same.
I have embraced being Bengali while living in Britain and I am still learning everyday, the different aspects of my culture and where I’m from and the different celebrations that I should partake in and I’m happy I have and I encourage any other South Asian to embrace their culture and the beauty of it.
Comments are closed.