Jascim-bhai's house

As the end of my placement draws near, I’m being increasingly flooded with invitations and entreaties for me to visit people’s houses, to visit their villages, hell – even to visit their mothers, before I go. I’m trying my hardest to schedule all these invitations so that I get to spend time with my close friends and the people I really care about, while not offending those who are essentially just big boss men in the office who want to be able to parade their bideshi for the neighbours to see (call me cynical, but I know these guys).

A few months ago, going to Jascim-bhai’s house would have fallen into this latter category. He’s certainly a big boss man in the office, and until January, I’d really had very little to do with him for a whole year – except a few times when he’d called me into his office and talked at me in rapid, incomprehensible Bangla, and I’d smiled, tried to nod at the right times, and run away as quick as possible.

But since we started working together on a project in January, he’s invited me to his house several times. I was extremely sceptical the first time – I thought he just wanted me to set up his newly-bought computer. But it turned out he actually wanted me to show his kids how to play computer games (not exactly my area of expertise), and to have dinner with him and his family. I was surprised to find that, beneath the bluster, he’s one of the gentlest, kindest guys I’ve met in Bangladesh, with three of the cutest, most endearing kids I’ve ever seen to boot.

He invited me for dinner the other night, and, as usual, the visit restored my faith in the world a little. As usual, within minutes of arriving at his house, Jascim-bhai himself went out to see his mates, leaving me to eat snacks and play with his kids. All night. I’ll always be grateful to kids in Bangladesh for just accepting me as I am, and not treating me as something special just because I’m a foreigner. Jascim-bhai’s kids do quite the opposite in fact: they actually think I understand whatever they say, even if it’s an extremely long story told at top speed, or a Khazi Nazrul Islam poem recited over and over and over again, because I didn’t give the right response. We must have spent hours, playing bingo and snakes and ladders and other games that I’d never heard of before, and eating bananas and biscuits and chana chur. Then, when Jascim-bhai finally came home, we all sat on their living room floor and ate chicken curry and rice and dal and salad together.

It’s nights like this that I’m really going to miss when I go home.