The Family. Part Two.

An update on the family I know if you read the last blog. I was looking at the last one I wrote and how lamentable the ending was. Rather sad and lonely you see. Well I decided I didn’t want to leave it like that so I bit the proverbial bullet and made contact with them. I’ve been learning a lot of Bangla recently and so my confidence with language has increased. So I used the old tactic of making friends with the kids first as they larked around on the roof of the house. The ploy worked. The indomitable Sheela came over and chatted to me. I understood in my own muddled way that she’d seen all the plastic bottles I’d accrued and that she wanted them. So I said, why don’t I bring them over? She said fine so over I went.

The change in perspective was revelatory. For a start I saw a world that I’d only seen from above from ground level. The goats and cow were bigger than I imagined and the people were smaller. Perhaps that wasn’t the most astonishing discovery. It was actually feeling I was experiencing the family and being a part of it rather than just peering at it from the outside. They invited me to eat with them and so I finally got to taste the source of the beautiful evocative smells that had come drifting into my window for so many months. It was delicious. Piles of steaming rice accompanied by potato curry, meaty pieces of fresh fish and stewed green vegetables peppered with aromatic cumin and coriander. They kept forcing more food on me until I genuinely feared I was going to bring some of it back up. My protestations finally stemmed the relentless tide of food and I subsided into happy burps (which is fine here) and chatting in very broken Bangla. I went over the next day and started taking some of the pictures you see here. I also went to the shop and gave them some of the copies which they were dead chuffed with. It felt like a nice way to repay them for their hospitality.

Maybe I was shooting myself in the foot because now I’ve finally got to know them it’s even more of a wrench leaving them. Still, I’m glad I did. It can be a risk making friends when I have to do so much travelling because I’m always sad to leave them but I can’t really see the point of shutting myself away just because my life here is transitory. I feel honoured and privileged to have been taken in as a friend by that family. And memories of Sheela’s cooking will stay with me for a long time to come.