Bengal Cafe, DC

It is a week now I am beyond the protective wings of my family-disproportionately female dominated as it is manned by just three ladies of three generations: Ushashi, her mother and her mother's mother (in law).

I can't exactly remember the title of a Boston Globe article published in praise of the lone Bangladeshi restaurant "Bengal Cafe"in greater Boston region. As far as I can recollect, in an exclamatory tone the article's title read, If Mom had come all the way from Bangladesh! The reporter sort of vouched that for those of us, the Bangladeshi students and other fellows who were scattered across the Charles River far off the touch of mothers, the delicious foods served at the Bengal would fill the void! Ali Bhai and Bhabi's (the couple who, thankfully opened and have still been running the Bengal Cafe) personal care turned the restaurant into more than an eating place for us.

My wife's general rating of myself as a social being is that I am a boring person since it's unkind of any family man to get cordoned off by stuffy readings at weekends that again are systematically depleted and only to come after painstakingly extended weekdays!" Your daughter will just be pissed off someday"-one of her parting warnings before catching the flight to Bangladesh.

As time and again I re-assure my reasonably anxious family that thanks to the generosity of my colleagues and their families in DC, Maryland and Virginia I am taken a great care everyday: at home, at office and honestly, wherever I am! Because of my batch-mate colleague Nazmul and his wife, Rawnak Bhabi , I even have the opportunity to overeat! They together have endured to attempt Amma's cooking style and take care of my calorie-intake around times they saw me taking meals last one year; (as if the mother's part in perpetuating her kid's inability to independently handle own life is not enough!) All I can say, never can I repay the debt they have encumbered me in! That's at home.

On the office front, I don't know, how exactly could I narrate the mental support I've received from my senior colleague, Jashim Sir, who unfailingly asks me how I am in absence of the family before entrusting me to every single task! So kind of him.

When I was first employed at the Foreign Office, my family and I myself were not just in the dark in respect of such job placements in this particular livelihood. We were mentored to remain mentally prepared for a life as a stranger both socially and institutionally (at the Foreign Service Academy, for instance, we had mandatory cooking sessions ! I might have had a passing grade at Rahmat's magnanimity.).

In case I appear partly pulverized today, would just like to refrain from any aggressive marketing for my foreign life/service which came either by fate or choice as I see past the first week away from family. Should I disqualify someday!

My mother leaves Washington

Just one week shy of one year since we arrived in Washington, DC, my mother along with my wife and the baby has left for Bangladesh. Though my memory is not that vivid, I think the last time it such happened was at my infancy when my mother left me at her mother's (my grandma's) place-in Kapasia, Gazipur- in order for her to attend a primary Teachers' Training Programme. During my mother's long and extra-ordinary ordeal- which predates my birth and was very much the same till her last moments at our Apartment on the Willard Ave-a number of occasions only she saw me off. Barely did I notice before Amma's departure that- an ever so industrious lady as she is-not only cooked foods for me as much as was possible to ensure I do not go unfed at the family's absence; Amma just could not be careless enough to forget about putting on the dining table one jug full of purified water.[ I apologize to Bayezid Bostami if had insulted the great Saint with an anecdot on life saving water in a riverse direction between mother and son! ]

My colleague Nazmul and his wife (Rawnak Bhabi) accompanied me to the Dulles Airport when I for the first time saw off my mother in a foreign land. Last one year Amma found them very much as the same family members.

As the summer harbingers, I found Amma praising the Montgomery County people for keeping the county park near our Apartment so clean . This year's winter is not yet over and I suppose, the Park's regular summer time visitors have not yet started returning. To the annoyance of Swarna, last year Amma took Ushashi to the Park lake and Dolna a number of occasions making it the one year old's most favourite outing.

When Ushashi is back in mid-June, she is most likely to miss out adventures on another summer unless her mother is convinced that the one year older baby's health is at reasonably less risk in the bushy corners than last year which was braved by an indulging grandma.