Mizan Rahman
It has been absolutely miserable weather
the last few days. Thick grey clouds like a huge sheet of paper covering the entire
sky. Somewhat like the ominous lull before the storm in Bangladesh during the
monsoons. Except that this cloud bears
rain that freezes as soon as it touches
the ground. Everything that it touches gets slippery. Often the snow follows.
Big branches of tall trees can buckle under the weight of snow and ice, and
sometimes do. Power lines snap. This rain is not the ordinary rain, it is
called the freezing rain. I’m mortally afraid of it. During freezing rain the
best thing to do is stay home. Stay home and look out. So I’m staying home all
day. I have kept my drapes and blinds wide open. Little beads of ice have
nestled on the windows giving them an unreal aura. The view is quite
spectacular, to tell you the truth. Two days ago there wasn’t a single leaf on
any of the trees. They stood like skeletons covered in a blanket of dry bark.
But not today. Today they look like dressed in beautiful white robes lined with
precious rubies. For 5 full days there was near continuous freezing rain. Feels
like forced confinement inside, but Mother Nature out there was in a
celebratory mood. The trees, bowed under the weight of heavy ice, were looking
like just-married brides, with their lowered heads in bashful modesty. Every
tree was looking like a timeless work of art by a master sculptor. The light
from the street lamps had added an additional glow on the trees. Like beautiful
women shining in their glittering silver jewelry. Looking out from behind my
drapes I find it hard to take my eyes off. I feel enchanted, mesmerized. My
mind wanders at far-away places. Thoughts swarm in my head. Questions clog the
mind. Is my own world like this? A world made of glass? Is my soul, my love,
poetry, my life made of ice? This charmed life of mine, built with a lot of
blood and sweat, is it all a dream? Deep
inside nothing but a dead branch of a tree? An empty shell?
I must admit that I don’t like Canadian
winter much anymore. Wouldn’t mind that much before as I do now. I had my
health before, now I don’t. Not too long ago I wouldn’t think much of picking
up a shovel from the garage and clean the snow from the driveway. If the car
got stuck in a pile of snow I wouldn’t hesitate to give it a push by the brute
force of my shoulders. Not any more. It’s more than 2 years I haven’t touched
the shovel. The job is done by the professionals now. For me it would be stupid
to try to push that snow----strictly forbidden by the doctor. Life has drained
away the strength out of my body. Canadian winter is not for the weak and old.
One has to fight the forces of Nature to survive here. When you are on the
wrong side of 60 you may not have the strength to fight anymore. At least I
don’t. That’s why now I watch the storm from behind the blinds. I don’t dare
step out of the house. I hear the roar of the cold arctic wind over my roof. My
house shakes nervously when the wind blows. Light bulbs blink at times. In
those moments my old little house seems so fragile. As if the bricks have all
become as brittle as ice. I get a funny feeling----that shy young man from Hashnabad has come to Canada to
build an ice-house! I don’t even feel myself a resident of the house----I feel
like a refugee, an asylum seeker. It has been a long journey from that tiny
railway station of Hashnabad with nothing more than a bundle of rags in hand.
Do I have a permanent address, I wonder. This house of mine appears to me like an
object made of glass.
Many if not most escape to warmer climates
after they retire. Those who were born and brought up in Canada, and are
reasonably well-off will normally pack up and head for south. Or some dreamy
island in the Carribeans. Summer months here, winter months there. They
wouldn’t probably come back at all if it were not for the health
insurance-----you won’t be covered if you are more than 6 months out of Canada.
At our age you can survive without a credit card or a debit card, but not
without your all-important health card. So you can’t move for good even if you
want to---it’s not practical to cut your umbilical cord. For me, of course,
umbilical cord is not the problem since I wasn’t born here. Granted that my
sons were born here, and that over the years I too have become more than just a
bit fond of this beautiful country----I feel a real attachment for it. My
little house may not mean much to me, but this is the house my sons will want
to come back to because this is where
they grew up, played with their friends, had their birthday celebrations. They
are as emotional for this glass-house of mine as I am for the earthen hut I
left behind in Hashnabad. By ‘home’ I still mean that little village of
mine----not the house in Ottawa, not the one in Fredericton, nor even the 3
houses I lived while I was growing up in Dhaka. Only the village hut where the
roof had a leak that couldn’t stop rain from soaking us all during the
monsoons. Likewise my boys will call Ottawa their “home sweet home”. So I don’t
think I’ll be able to leave Ottawa forever even if I can afford to. It’s not
the health card, not the old friends, not the money, it’s the emotional shelter
for my children. I do not wish them to feel like refugees as I did most of my
life.
I got a letter from Abdul Matin, a dear
friend who has been living in Victoria for a number of years, inviting me to be
a permanent house-guest at his place, where he says he set aside a private room
for me. An attractive proposal, no doubt. Victoria is known as the senior’s
capital of Canada----as much as 60% of its population is supposed to be
retired. There isn’t going to be any health-card problem there. Just as
importantly there isn’t going to be any snow, any freezing rain, and all the
other weather related hazards in Victoria. At the same time summer is supposed to
be more moderate there than in Eastern Canada. An ideal place for an elderly
nomad like me. Everything fits---so why not? Yet, my mind hesitates. It may
give me an ideal home out of home, but still it is not my sons’ birthplace. It
is not the place where I played
hide-and-seek with them when they were very young, soccer when they were in
their adolescence, and went fishing at the lake. All those memories are here,
not in Victoria. This is their native land. No, I do not yet feel the urge to
sit in a rocking chair on the sandy beaches of that lovely town and spend the
rest of my life staring at the mighty waves of the Pacific Ocean. No, thank you
very much, Matin Saheb.
Of all my Bengali friends and acquaintances
there was only one I knew who bought a condominium in Florida. He had a lot of
money, so he could afford one. He rented it out, of course, that only helped
add to his already impressive bank balance. The real reason was, however, to
move there permanently, or at least for six months every year, after
retirement, like many other good Canadians do. He is a different kind of
Bangladeshi----doesn’t like to socialize much with other Bangladeshis, doesn’t
follow the same ethnic culture as others. At one time our two families happened
to be quite close, but not anymore. Perhaps he became a bit too Canadian for me
and other Bengalis to cope with. Apart from atypical Bengali individuals like
him most others, including me, have started worrying about how and where to
spend our retirement years. Some are already in there, others are close. How to
manage all that extra time is one problem, but the bigger issue is where to
live. Temperamentally we do not seem to be cut out to live comfortably in
places like Florida, California or Bahamas. By a warm country we can think of
only one country----Bangladesh, our homeland. The way we see it, if we indeed
need to move to a warmer place then why choose Florida instead of Dhaka or
Cox’s Bazar? Granted that one can cite a host of reasons why it’s not a good
idea to move to Bangladesh these days, rather than Florida. First of all there
aren’t as many power outages or political strikes or traffic jams in Florida as
in Dhaka. Then there is the pollution, shortage of drinking water, chronic
floods and droughts and hurricanes. Yet the bottom line is that Florida is a
foreign land to me, Dhaka isn’t. Bangladesh is where my heart belongs. Dhaka is
where I spent my youth and childhood. So my raw emotions urge me to head back
home to Dhaka. But then the logic intervenes----are you a fool, it asks? I
realize it’s no longer possible to move anywhere----Dhaka or Florida. I’m stuck
here, where my sons were born. When we are young our home is where our parents
are. At old age our home is where the children are. Sometimes I get this
sinking feeling that apart from the simple hut dwellers in villagers who live
their entire life at the same place everyone else in the world is a nomad,
looking for a home---- a refugee. At least in their minds.
My son and daughter-in-law in California
have been writing me to seriously consider moving with them after my
retirement. They bought a new home, custom-designed so that my wife and I can
live in a separate section of the house without being bothered by
anyone----complete with a separate kitchen, bath and toilet. Just like an
independent apartment. It is their wish that we spend a better part of our lives there, if not the whole. We haven’t made a
decision yet. It’s a great idea, no doubt. We may indeed have no choice but to
accept their offer some day----one or both of us may have a stroke, or
Parkinson’s or whatever. At our age anything is possible. How can we survive
without their help? We pray and hope we never have to face that situation. Some
of our friends had indeed fallen there----they couldn’t think of any other
choice. But are they happy? I don’t think so. When I look at their vacant look
I feel we might be better off in a seniors’ home. Living with a grown child at
old age is a part of our tradition. But not here in this country. Times are
different. Yes, we do want to live near
our children, but certainly not with
them. It’s not just our independence, more important is their life. No matter how cautious we are in keeping a respectable
distance from them our presence in the same house is bound to create some
problems for them. A little inhibition is completely unavoidable. Isn’t it then
better not to even think of moving with them?
So you see, the crux of the matter is that
at our age there is really no place for us to live. Yes, we have a house, a
property, a car and so on, but no place where we can live the rest of our
life---a home. Those poor farmers who live in villages do. Even if their roofs
leak, it’s still where they live, they have
to live. They are not homeless refugees like us. Especially like us---- the
homeless expatriates.
(Translated
by the author from his Bengali article “Shoronarthi”, first published in 1996,
in the weekly Toronto paper “Deshe Bideshe”.)
মীজান রহমান
Mizan Rahman
