By Faiza Chowdhury

Share:

A motherland and a mother yearn for the children they’ve lost.

In the ten years it has cradled my bones, the white cloth that wraps me has soiled. I lie in the depths of my homeland beneath the earth that I no longer know. Beneath the soil that my sons and daughter played on, and tucked from the air that once kissed their youthful cheeks, I sleep in the company of my ancestors. I am the last to join them; before long, this burial ground will be yielded to make way for the town’s newfound prosperity.

The children I bore have found a humble abode in lands my eyes never dreamed of. This motherland of theirs could never support the summit of their dreams and this I understand. A mother always wants the best for her children. I am lonely but shouldn’t complain when our family home is the loneliest. I hear it wailing not far from where I lie; it laments the loss of its soul. For it was born from the blood, sweat, and tears of our humble roots. The money we saved moving between mud-walled huts, cleaning houses, spreading the divine knowledge of Arabic, and teaching algebra was put towards this home. This beautiful bungalow¹ was our apotheosis, nourished by our happiness and strength.

Over the wire, my children have turned this bungalow into a rental and now vapid people come and go. Their rooms stripped bare, and no trace of them left behind. The kitchen has rusted and its floor is dusted with the aged longing for another family meal circle, where aromatic spices wafted through the air and plates were exchanged amidst the animated conversations echoing across the walls.

 Now the blood has run dry. Before my memory dissipated in the mortal world, my sons and daughter would call from abroad talking ill, demanding their patrimonial shares. 

Did they not arrive as bonded foreigners to that land? A land that was not kind to them in the beginning, whose people were not so kind either. Did they not only have each other, a warm gleam of hope and recollection amidst the harsh blue-collar work and English abuse? Their bloods interconnected, their mouths suckling on the same nipple. Like lateral roots seeking nutrients far from the mother tree, they have ventured far from their sole anchor in that foreign land. Or had they always been the roots of the Banyan tree, which even above ground appears entangled and twisted– scarcely whole, sufficed, and parasitically nourished until opportunities beckoned overseas?

No one has since stepped foot in this land, the motherland, not even in my passing. The mosque where the ancestors before me, myself, and my children learned the holy words of the Qur’an is not as it was. The sacred echoes of the minaret’s call to prayer, which could be heard kilometers away and kept me sane in my slumber, have faded. I wonder if my children keep the reminder of God on the tip of their tongues. 

In this soil, this bloodline has witnessed the rise and fall of great empires: the Gupta, Bengal Sultanate, and Mughals. It has survived British oppression, famines, a partition that nearly tore it apart, and a liberation war to preserve its identity. Like the lost art of Dhaka Muslin, I sense this lineage succumbing at the hands of the West. The echoes of my mother tongue ring faintly from the lips of my grandchildren. This bloodline has had a long run but with me, lies its demise. 

¹ Bungalow - An architecture style originating in the Bengal region. Although now referred to small cottage-like houses in the Western context, prior to the 20th century bungalows were associated with status and were of grander size. This definition is still applicable in South Asia.

Performance

Process

In my first-year college writing class, we were given a prompt to write from the perspective of an elderly person. ‘A Bloodline’s End’ emerged as a loosely based fiction, inspired by my late grandmother and centered around my mother’s childhood home. This was an interesting way to explore my South Asian heritage and my early childhood memories in Bangladesh. I believe this story is a reflection of immigration and familial ties, interweaving personal reflections with a broader context of generational experiences.