Born in the UK but made by Bangladesh

It was a huge crowd of people and I remember gently being pushed forward. The bag of rice felt heavy in my small hands, had I been carrying it all the time during the demonstration to number 10? I don’t remember.

I looked up at the Prime Minister. It was Edward Heath and next to him was Harold Wilson. They looked like giant men to me, standing in front of flash lighting. Harold Wilson had his smoking pipe and both looked just like I had seen them on the television, except they were in colour and little me was standing in front of them.

 I was gently pushed forward. As I handed the bag of rice to the Prime Minister and said please help Bangladesh and our people he smiled down at me and someone took the bag. I had done my job and was helped to turn around and walked out of the crowd.

Today this would have been a photo opportunity, splashed on social media, interviews etc. During the Bangladesh liberation war, efforts from the Bangladeshi community in the UK were huge. Most people were not interested in photos, they wanted change. They worked tirelessly to help the efforts in Bangladesh. Many of the people that were part of this movement are not alive after 50 years, they have passed on, some people are old and fragile, and their memories are not so good anymore.

It felt as though every day we were on a rally to Trafalgar Square or to Downing Street from our SW1 address.

I still remember walking and shouting the slogan ‘not a penny not a gun, Tikka, Bhutto, Yahya Khan’, again and again. I did not know who Tikka, Bhutto or Yahya Khan were as a young child, so much went over our heads. We walked what seemed like miles, myself and my younger sister with my mother pushing our baby sister in the pram. So many women such as my mother were part of the liberation movement.

Most women, especially those who are traditional, who played pivotal roles are not invited into the Bangladeshi television studios. The people who run the TV stations do not even know about their contribution. They have quietly preferred to stand in the background and pray that their intentions and actions for Bangladesh are accepted by Allah.

Saleha with her mum and auntie

Our restaurant, Shah Noor, was a hub for meetings. They started in the afternoon and went on some days till daybreak. I wanted to stay up and listen to the discussions, some heated, some emotional. The large party room would be filled with cigarette smoke, with plates of food and tea being constantly served. I would be reminded that I needed to go to bed and would reluctantly do so.

Saleha’s Father outside family restaurant, Shah Noor
London, UK

Sometimes my uncle (sasa) would put us to bed whilst my parents were out at rallies and meetings. My father was crucial to much of these political discussions. I remember him being vice president of the Green Cross Society, similar to the Red Cross, and the community raising money for ambulances and clothes and food to be sent over to Bangladesh.

Outside of Green Cross Society Membership Card

Inside of Green Cross Society Membership Card | Person in photo: Saleha’s Mother

Thousands of miles away there was a war. We had uncles, aunts, cousins, who everyone was worried for. Some parts of Bangladesh had more attacks than others. We heard nefarious individuals used the war as an opportunity to get revenge on people, getting them killed, so that they could get their hand on property or just because of old feuds.

The BBC news and radio were watched and listened to closely in our house. I remember listening to snippets of the concert that George Harrison from The Beatles and Ravi Shankar did for Bangladesh. It was definitely the precursor to Live Aid.

Years later Pandit Ravi Shankar said that ‘In one day, the whole world knew the name of Bangladesh. It was a fantastic occasion.’

The images and news that were shown were traumatic to say the least. I can never forget the image of vultures eating the flesh off dead bodies, no graves, just bodies heaped upon one another. I am not sure how I would have reacted to this if the television was in colour.

As a young child I felt helpless that these people were suffering so much. What could I do? We would pray to Allah to relieve their suffering and I would shout at the top of my voice at the rallies, maybe that would make a difference, someone would hear our voices.

Even though we all go through childhood it is interesting that most adults do not think about what is going through a child’s mind. They forget that children face worries and fears differently based on their life experience and to this day I try my best to listen to the child’s voice.

The world did eventually help, and after a year of intense fighting and millions of innocent people being killed, Bangladesh was liberated. Banga Bhondu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman came to the UK to meet the Bangladeshi community who had so ardently supported the cause.

There was an atmosphere of expectation. We were all so excited that we would get the chance to see him and listen to him and then I heard my mother tell us to turn around. My father and another man shook hands emphatically and then embraced. It was Sheikh Mujib. He had his trademark white panjabi and off-white Mujib coat on.

My father was a tall figure of a man and Sheikh Mujib seemed to be even taller than him. He walked over to us smiling and spoke to my mother, his wife next to him, a diminutive lady with a beaming smile dressed in a saree. He looked at all three of us with such love and warmth. He took my youngest sister in his arms and said looking at us, ‘you are the future of Bangladesh.’

Saleha’s youngest uncle with a picture of Sheikh Mujib in family restaurant

I have always cherished these memories because they were pivotal moments in my life, and in many ways, the work that I went on to do about human rights, justice, equity, and fairness were subconsciously embedded whilst I was growing up.

Very soon afterwards my parents decided that we were going to go to Bangladesh. My mother had come in 1963 as a young bride and had not gone back since, although, my father had travelled back and forth several times. My parents’ obtained permission from our primary school to take us out but we were not sure for how long.

My father was a pioneer in that he was one of the original second world war seamen that jumped ship after the second world war, so my father was in the UK since 1945.  My dada (grandfather on father’ side) had also been a seaman in the Royal Navy. We even found his logbook until an overzealous cousin took it and we never found it again. My dada had been imprisoned in the first world war and had injured one of his eyes. He suffered with loss of sight from that injury and also from migraines until he died. He was informed that he could get some compensation but decided against it.

Interestingly enough, even though my father knew about the whole East India Company and the politics, he was incredibly patriotic regarding the Queen. He would say that whatever the reality was we needed to make the most of what we had been dealt.

He was future-focused and tried to make changes the best he could. He was a unique man helping to bring over so many family members and others through what they called boy vouchers. He was also a feminist, he never ever made us girls feel we were inferior to any man. His pep talks were amazing again. He is my hero and mentor.

Saleha’s father with hooqa

My parents prepared us with stories of our relatives in Bangladesh and who we would meet and see and travel to. It was like an adventure. We had only travelled within the UK and so this was our first international journey.

Our house became an emporium for suitcases. Not any old suitcases but huge trunks with bolts on them. I felt as though there was no one left in Bangladesh that my parents had not bought something for.

Saleha is the girl on the left with a necklace on.
The man in the middle is her boro abba

We landed on a hot sunny day. We looked out the window to see an array of faces. Matchstick men with white shirts and lungis on, women with sarees covering their faces. It was so hot the air was vibrating, and it looked as though the people were shaking.

Then slowly, just like when a mist clears, we saw people who had no arms and no legs. Some using wooden sticks to advance near the plane. We screamed. All three of us. My parents could not do anything to calm us down, we wanted to go back home to London. The Pilot came out and could see we were distressed. We were the only children on that flight. He spoke to us in English and invited us over to the cockpit and when we heard his dulcet English voice it calmed us down.

I want to go home, I said, those people outside scare me, why have they not got arms and legs? We later learned that the war had of course affected the infrastructure of the whole country. These so-called professional beggars were able to find a way onto the concourse once planes had landed, on the off chance, they could get some money from the bideshis (foreigners). Normally they would not have been there.

After some time, we were escorted off the plane and again there was a rush of beggars rushing towards us. We screamed and were rushed into cars. I really thought they were zombies, and they were going to eat us. I wanted to go home; this was not my home. I wanted the warmth of my room, of my surroundings. I did not want to be here at all. I demanded, as did my younger sisters, when could we go home? My parents just smiled and took no notice.

The journey to our ancestral home was adventurous to say the least. We did not know a single person who claimed to be our blood relatives and, even though everyone was so kind to us, it was such a vast change to what we were used to. We were truly scared of what would happen to us in the coming days and weeks.

For my parents they were in their element. They were seeing their relatives and friends and they did not imagine the fear and trepidation we all felt.

Saleha with extended aunties and uncles in park in Dhaka

My youngest mama (mum’s brother) was the only person who was able to grab our attention by his ability to speak in good English and calm us down by talking to us and distracting us with other things.

It took us a long time to get used to life in Bangladesh, from the food to using the bathroom, even though we had English toilets. It was such a shock. The change from a UK grey city to a green and luscious village, but fear can prevent you from even enjoying heaven if you feel that you might be in hell.

I am not sure how long it took me to become comfortable, but I did. Soon I did not even remember London, the high street, the shops, the sweet shops, relatives, friends. Everything seemed so far away. In fact, over the months because we did not speak in English as often, I forgot how to speak and could only do so in my head.

We lived in an area where we were surrounded by hills and sandy area. I have to admit we were well off and my family had vast land and staff and plantations full of different varieties of mangoes, pineapples, jackfruit, star fruit and lychees to name a few fruits.

Everyday my cousin would take me to where the best fruit was and we would sit there and just break the skin of mangoes, or peel lychees or whatever was in season and use a ‘da’ (long curved knife) for other fruit that was too difficult to use our hands.

Saleha’s cousins on motorbike outside family home
Sylhet, Bangladesh

I learnt to swim in our huge pond whilst fish nibbled at my feet. The water was so clear that I would dive down and try and catch fish with my hands. Children used to sit outside in the warm night looking up at the night sky filled with millions of stars, the likes of which I have never seen. We would sit next to a fire where we would tell scary stories and make each other laugh. We would eat rice cooked in bamboo in the fire, with butter made from churned milk.

We had cousins galore, both boys and girls, some younger, some older, and we lived in an extended family where we developed such strong bonds that they still exist today. We played, we laughed, we fought, but we still loved each other whatever happened.

 The Eid celebration was out of this world and little things meant so much. It was never about material things but a smile, a hug, conversations from the heart, forming relationships, with aunts and uncles, close and extended. The enjoyment that I got from these experiences was phenomenal and when I reflect on my experience now, I tell myself that the time I had in Bangladesh was the best time of my childhood.

We ended up staying in Bangladesh for nearly two years. We were still very young, and my father tried to get us into a primary school but one of the teachers hit my middle sister one day when she visited with a cousin. He hit her with a stick and my parents were so disgusted with this they did not send us to school but had us join the private lessons that most families had.

It was soon evident that I loved Bangla. In a short time, I was reading and writing. I loved poetry; I was buying books beyond my age from the library at the market and I especially enjoyed detective stories. To this day I do the multiplication tables in Bangla and then change it into English. Even though I was only seven I was going through all the books for children who were preparing for their metric exams (GCSE equivalent.)

Boro didi, who was our teacher, was a widow who had decided not to emigrate to India during the war with her only daughter. She was of the Hindu faith, and I loved learning from her. Till the day she died she would tell everyone what a brilliant student I was. I learnt so much from her, she was a really important person in my life.

Being in Bangladesh in Sylhet, I became so creative. I received such a holistic education and social life. I tried to do this with my two eldest children when they were young, and we were able to be in Sylhet for a year. I tried to replicate a similar childhood that I had and to an extent I did, but after a year of being there I missed my family in the UK too much and came back.

In Sylhet I learnt about both sides of my family. I visited and stayed at relatives’ houses. I was able to receive so much love and attention from people who really did care for me, and this was such an amazing foundation. I really do understand now that it takes a village to raise a child and how wonderful that experience can be.

I was exposed to my natural surroundings. I ate fruit and vegetables that were seasonal, that were natural with no harmful additives. The colours that I was surrounded by were magnificent to say the least. Varieties of green against flowers that smelt better than the costliest of perfumes and colours that would make a rainbow shy.

 I was running around all the time. I learnt to ride a bike. Some people in the village were not happy about a girl riding a bike but not a single person said anything to my parents or uncles, they would not dare. My father, like my uncle, wanted us girls to succeed to the highest level we wanted to, and they would always talk proudly about us girls and let us experience life to its fullest.

We were religious but also forward thinking. My uncle had a dream of me becoming a doctor and he would tell me where the clinic would be. I would laugh at his dreams for me.

I felt so much love from my uncle, he was called boro abba, (big daddy) and like his name he was a giant of a man, but so gentle with it. Through him I was exposed to the sufi teachings of Islam and aspects of the unseen realm. Again, my curiosity and ability and intellect enabled me to learn about matters that were way beyond my years.

He gave me a few of his books that he kept and asked me to keep them from him and gave me ijaza permission to use them. This is required in traditional teachings. I instinctively knew that these were special gifts and I have these books still to this day. After his death most of them were gone, some torn to shreds, not looked after or moth eaten.

 I feel so blessed that my parents did make that arduous journey to Bangladesh, because although in my mind’s eye it appeared like a nightmare those two years were really the making of me.

I think that all the love and relationships I developed in Sylhet helped me to cope with a lot of the trauma that I faced over the years, especially racist trauma. I knew that whatever these racists said to me, or physically hurt me, deep down I knew that I was loved and cherished by not only my parents but relatives thousands of miles away.

 I was involved in so many fights from primary school all the way to college. I used to wear knuckle dusters so that when I boxed someone, they would get a bloody nose. The only thing was the knuckle dusters weren’t that good. My sister did judo and all of us learnt some martial arts moves, just to be safe. I had to be hyper vigilant always assessing a situation, looking for exits and safe routes.

 One such incident whilst in secondary school was based on the fact that me and my sister were too pretty to be ‘Pakis’. We didn’t have the oily hair and plaits that others had. We were not submissive, and we wore fashionable clothes and shoes and were confident. So, a group of girls ambushed us on the way home and beat us. We gave as good as we got and the next day, whilst I was visiting the BBC with my class, my younger sister was fighting off about 40 girls. My cousins came to pick us up after school and in the process one of the girls who was trying to help her got knifed.

It was splashed in the media, on local news but nothing was mentioned about the racism involved. My parents removed us from that school because the teachers said they could not protect us; it was outside of their jurisdiction.

Years later one of the perpetrators met me through our mutual work and she remembered me and apologised for her actions. She was a seventh day Adventist and said she was ashamed that as a black woman herself she had resorted to be involved in this sort of behaviour.

In 1985 I was recruited as the Bengali speaking interpreter for a leading hospital in Tower Hamlets. Tower Hamlets was the second home of Bangladeshis after Bangladesh. I was also a higher clerical officer so when it was quieter, I was dealing with patient files and records. We had friends and extended family in East London. I had grown up visiting the area, shopping with the family, visiting people, going to watch Bollywood films but always feeling the undercurrent of racism that existed in the area.

The amount of racism that existed during those times was so bad that it was palpable. Racism from hospital staff, from low-ranking staff to consultants, their inability to understand or want to understand culture or faith in the context of psychological and even physical illnesses.

So much work has been done over the years by people like myself and so I am hoping things are much better now, but for the record in those days’ incidents happened that are absolutely atrocious.

I recall being told by women how they were dragged out of their beds and lying on the floor screaming whilst they were in full blown labour. All because they could not speak English and could not understand the midwives.

Women ending up in psychiatric wards because of racism they were facing and being unable to discuss this. Women provided with contraceptive injections that affected their mental and physical wellbeing.

Women and children being unable to talk about their own family dysfunction, sexual abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, so many issues were covered up. It was shame and dishonour for a girl or woman to talk about anything that was against their family but also anything that could incriminate them as being loose. Being sexually abused meant that they were at fault, even if they happened to be as young as five years old!

The sad thing was that, if anyone did find out the first people who would tell you not to say anything would be other women. Your own mother, grandmother even mother-in-law. So many women and children suffered in silence, and whilst I worked on these cases I was even threatened with violence. People ringing up and telling me to stop working on such and such a case, but I did not give up because I believed that Allah had put me there to help them and I would make sure I did my best.

I had to lead beyond authority because I had such a junior role but was dealing with such serious issues. I tried my utmost to get people to complain, but fear, and retaliation as well as not having the strength to complain when one is ill is not easy. In the process I became an activist and then I realised that I needed to rise through the ranks. It was not going to be enough to remain in this role.

I had several options to develop in and based on my experience of life I decided to train to be a social worker. It was not a profession that was known about in our community, let alone understood and to this day most people think it is about removing children from their homes. The time I qualified there were probably one or two other social workers who were of Bengali heritage and being fully bilingual was so beneficial.

In my personal life and work in Tower Hamlets, I watched Bangladeshi families live in abject poverty with outside toilets, mice, rats, and cockroaches running around their flats. Sometimes the stench of nappies would make my nostrils go into cardiac arrest. I felt as though I were walking around Dickensian London. How people lived in these conditions and could justify sending money over to Bangladesh at the same time is a mystery to me.

Most people could not even eat a meal without thinking of their family back home and significant amounts of their sparse earnings were still sent over. If only it were for feeding family, but sometimes this was not the case. It was about buying land and building palatial homes that most of these people did not even live in. The dream of one day going back never happened and these uncles and aunties are now buried in a country they did not even think they would stay so long in.

Walking the streets around the hospital I would come across many people who had mental health issues. It was also violent, fights breaking out, racists chanting, openly unafraid, gangs of young Bengali men also walking the streets trying to keep a balance. The death of Altab Ali was still in the memory of people. Parents reminding children to be careful, but you can’t keep children locked in like animals; when they came out it was chaos.

I would notice the dirt on the streets, sometimes there would be rubbish thrown out of the windows. Nappies would miss my head by a few inches. I had a love, hate relationship with these people, who were they and what possessed them to do these things.

I came from a family that pride themselves with cleanliness. We were probably the first household in the country where we would make people take off their shoes before they came into our house. Children would politely stand at the stairwell and ask people to take off their shoes. My mother would say she is not having dog droppings come into our house.

Why would people ruin the places they lived in? Why did they not possess pride in their homes and surroundings? The more I looked into their lives through my social work the more I realised people were living in tough situations. Their external issues reflected their internal states. Women were depressed. They lacked in basic needs. If they did not send money over, they would have had a decent life. But most men worked all hours God sent and were still not able to keep family happy here or in Bangladesh.

I have been promising myself and my children that I need to write about my experiences and those of my parents. I have a particular perspective that most others will not have. I am a British born Bangladeshi woman that has lived in both Bangladesh in my formative years and alhamdulillah I am a very successful professional in my own right.

Inshallah I hope that this piece will demonstrate that whatever we face, we can rise and make a difference. We have a heritage that we should connect to. That heritage has really made a significant effect on my life and helped me to be the person I am today. We can only truly be ourselves when we join the dots to all aspects of ourselves, whatever shape or form that comes in.

I know my culture is not perfect, but no one’s is, after so many years I can shout and say I am proud to be Bengali from top to toe.