Blogs

Re-Balance
Remembering 1971: Bangladesh’s year of tragedy and triumph
So, my motherland – Bangladesh – turns 50 this week. The 1971 Liberation War, in which Bangladesh eventually won its independence after a brutal armed struggle, is a poignant and significant moment for both the narrative of Bangladesh and Bangladeshis across the globe. For a number of years now, I have been exploring, researching and documenting the experiences of British-Bangladeshi communities…

Re-Balance
Growing Up In Newport
Growing up in Newport, a small town in Wales, my experience of Bangladesh was through the narration of my Parents. For my Parents, being Bangladeshi in some sense meant feeling connected to the natural land. Their rose-tinted lense painted a picture of vivid green paddy fields, mango orchards and hot summers. My Brothers and I were desperate to visit this utopia and enjoy the experience for…

Re-Balance
Empowerment for Change
My Father arrived from Sylhet, in Northern Bangladesh, to London in 1963 [at the age of 27]. As a student, he worked, like many of his peers, at a series of Indian restaurants upon his arrival. My Mother joined him shortly after, in 1968 [at the age of 18] as his new bride. For my parents, London was a new world that presented new beginnings in the 1960s – and they had aspirations to build a…

Re-Balance
Fifty years ago
By day the streets of Dhaka were quiet. Some shops and offices were open, some were shut. The buses were half empty and not many taxis were operating. Now and then an army jeep would come roaring up the road, making pedestrians and rickshaws dart swiftly out of its way. Although the bustle and gaiety of normal civilian life were missing, law and order prevailed. But at night a hidden giant rose…

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When I Speak Bengali - Mohsina Alam
If you ask my father what the best day of his life was, he won’t tell you it was his wedding day, or the birth of me or my sister. He will tell you it was a day in April 1986, when he received his British passport. As he has told me so many times before, the passport symbolised freedom, opportunity, and the chance to start a new life. It was in this movement, one family’s migration from…

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The '71 Connection
To be a British Bengali. What does that mean to me? How has the last half century made me the person I am today? We as proud Bengalis stand proud, wherever in the world we may be! What defines us from our vast heritage, existence, the struggles, challenges and victories we have experienced?

Re-Balance
School Lunches
My earliest recollection as a child was of primary school and school lunches. School dinners, what a revelation; my typical home meals consisting of rice and spicy curries were now replaced by sticky heaps of spaghetti hoops and fried chips. Then there were afters: desserts like sponge and custard and treacle pudding. I remember the summer school fete and sports day, were my favourite days in the…

Re-Balance
My Father
My father, who is originally from Rangpur, came to the U.K. in the year 1962, six months after graduating from Dhaka Medical College. He began his hospital jobs over various locations in England, and in 1966 he married my mother (originally from Gopalganj). My elder brother was born shortly after, in Birmingham, and in 1974 my father settled down as a G.P. in Wolverhampton where both my second…