"Whereas many of my peers were motivated by escaping economic poverty, I was motivated by escaping cultural poverty..."

I was born 27 years ago in Tower Hamlets which, prior to recent gentrification, was dubbed Little Bangladesh (and Little Sylhet) in both an equally derogatory and affectionate sense.

Dad was born in Sylhet, part of East Pakistan in 1960, but grew up in London. A British citizen who moved to Britain preschool age, he has very little to no recollection of his early years in Sylhet.

the internal 'battle' begins

The Indo-Pakistani war of 1971 resulted in the ancestral home relocating from Sylhet to Silchar, India. For Dad, it meant that whenever he went ‘back home’, home was India and not East Pakistan/Bangladesh where he was born. Despite the move, he was still very much a Sylheti Bengali by culture and remains so after almost 6 decades of living in Britain.

My mother is Indian by birth, a proud Indian citizen and a proud Bengali who seamlessly transitions between the two main languages of Bengal (Bangla and Sylheti Bengali).

There I was, born into a Sylheti Bengali speaking family, which is Indian whilst living and growing up in a community which is synonymous with Sylheti Bangladeshis. Thus began my battle to understand where I fit into this bubble of British Bengali.

the 'outsider'

During primary school I was never considered ‘Bengali’ by my peers. School consisted of primarily British Bangladeshi children who spoke Sylheti as their mother tongue.

My class had mainly British Bangladeshis and two outsiders. A white British child and the British Indian who spoke Sylheti Bengali (me).

Two main parts of my identity meant that I was not Bengali in the eyes of those precocious young children - religious differences and the British Asian Indian/Bangladeshi/Pakistani/Other tick boxes which fail to capture the cultural core of the very ethnicity it seeks to classify.

This was especially difficult to understand as my family shared a beautiful relationship with a Bangladeshi Muslim family who lived in a flat two floors above ours. We would spend evenings sharing stories, playing Dosh Poshich (the Bengali version of ludo) and carrom. However, the family had outgrown their Shoreditch flat and moved before I started year 3. I’m glad they managed to avoid becoming yet another ethnic minority housing statistic.

I mention this as the London Borough of Tower Hamlets has the largest Bengali population in the UK. It also has one of the largest disparities in wealth distribution. It contains some of the poorest and richest people in the country. As of 2017, there were 18,726 people on the social housing list… in a borough where a 2 bedroom flat costs over £650,000. 37% of households still live in overcrowded accommodation. I am no exception. Currently I share a 2 bedroom property with my parents and two younger siblings. Plans to move out have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

And I am one of the lucky ones. There are still countless families in Tower Hamlets living in multi-generational homes - sometimes 8-10 people living in 2-3 bedroom properties. Back in the nineties and noughties this was commonplace. Reflecting on this, it was maybe this deprivation and disparity which caused the animosity between my fellow Bengalis and I.

Hence I spent the majority of my early years disillusioned with the idea of being British Bengali as I was consistently reminded in the playground and classroom that I was not a ‘real Bengali’. It was easier to connect with my White British friend and black and white British teachers than it was with fellow Sylheti Bengalis.

British indian?

Where I grew up, Bengali meant being Muslim and Bangladeshi - there I was, Indian and Hindu, a painful reminder of post-partition Bengal in East London.

I remember walking down Bethnal Green Road with my parents and speaking to the cockney market traders who enlightened me with stories about the East End of London and coaxed out of me a faint cockney accent. Walking down the same road I would hear disapproval from onlooking Sylheti Bengalis, Hindu and Muslim alike, aghast at my parents and I being so comfortable speaking to cockney Brits.

Needless to say, my early years ticked the British Indian box perfectly.

My 5-10 year old selves often perplexingly asked my mum’s best friend, a jolly Bangladeshi Hindu lady, how she could possibly be Hindu and Bangladeshi. In reply, auntie would jokingly ask me how I could be Indian and Bengali at which point mum and auntie would both crack up with laughter. At the time, the humour was certainly lost on me.

During those disillusioned years, mum tried her best to make me appreciate and engage with my Bengali culture. I refused to learn how to read and write Bengali when she attempted to teach me. I made excuses to skip the evening ‘Bangla School’ where mum sent me after her own attempts failed to bear fruit. It certainly didn’t help that the same children who didn’t consider me Bengali at school also attended those evening classes. Even before my teenage years, the racialisation of Bengali culture had made a major impact.

I sought refuge in the British and Indian parts of my identity. I became an avid Arsenal fan and cheered on the 3 Lions and Team GB during World Cups, Euros & Olympics.

I accompanied mum to the local mandir, a pillar for the Indian Hindu Bengali community and for those adopted by India. I would lose myself watching Bollywood films and be able to recite Hindi songs from K3G and Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai but unable to utter even a single line of any Bengali song. I supported my cricketing heroes which included Dada himself, the Prince of Bengal, Sourav Ganguly.

With India firmly established as dad’s adopted home country, the household was unanimously united in their support of the Indian cricket team and Ganguly was our undisputed favourite player. A Bengali who captained a team carrying the hopes of almost a billion people! For many British Asians, cricket support is reserved exclusively for the nation our parents identify with - a connection to the ancestral motherland.

discovery

Rediscovering my Bengali self began at the Udichi Shilpi Goshti. It is an organisation founded in 1989 by Bengali performing artists who sought to promote the wonders of Bengal within Britain. It was run by Indians and Bangladeshis, Muslims and Hindus, who were all equivocally ‘Bengali’. Every Saturday morning I was dragged away by mum or dad (they alternated weekly) from watching Ant and Dec’s SMTV Live to learn Bengali folk songs and poetry. This was where I first encountered the magic of Rabindranath Tagore (Thakur) whose work remains an inspiration.

I understood, accepted and believed that religion was not a prerequisite for Bengali identity and finally shared that belated laugh with my mum and auntie.

The secondary school I attended was not in East London but in Old Street - geographically very close but demographically very different. My fellow pupils were from a vast range of backgrounds including African, Caribbean, Bangladeshi, Indian, Latin American, European and Turkish amongst others. A blessing in disguise. Although still an outsider (most kids had friends from primary there and I went solo), I no longer felt that I did not belong. I became friends with Sylheti Bangladeshis during secondary school who I am still very good friends with today. One of the myths created during my primary school years had been dispelled. Diversity really does breed inclusivity.

the rise of the british bengali...

I became increasingly studious during my secondary school years. Inspired by Thakur’s writings on his travels, I devoured literature on as many cultures as I could find. Whereas many of my peers were motivated by escaping economic poverty, I was motivated by escaping cultural poverty; I studied so that I could one day afford to travel.

Prior to taking my GCSE’s we were taken to visit KPMG in Canary Wharf - as I gazed out of the floor to ceiling windows overlooking Poplar - I envisaged working there someday. Fast forward 8 years and there I was, gazing out of the very same window, only this time wearing a KPMG staff ID and admiring a transformed skyline.

The road to KPMG wasn’t straightforward. I fell into the trap of picking certain ‘Asian A-Level subjects’ AKA sciences. Against my better judgement I allowed myself to be talked into Maths and Physics even though I’d rather find elaichi in my biriyani than do equations. I also picked Business Economics and to every brown parents horror, Sociology. I aced Business Economics and Sociology. AS Maths, I became one of the rare people to be awarded an ‘X’ (failure is always better when spectacular) and AS Physics a ‘U’. Parents were about as happy as Rahul’s parents in K3G when he married Anjali. Don’t blame them, it looked as though i’d blown my chances of getting into uni before fees went up. Fortunately, my love of literature saved me. I convinced the Head of English to give me a shot at doing AS and A2 in one year. It paid off and I made it as the first in my family to go to uni and even did a placement abroad in France instead of taking a year in a financial institution in London as advised - talk about pushing the Asian boat out! Eventually, I made it to KPMG and began to end the cultural poverty which marred my childhood. So far, I've been blessed to visit over 25 countries.

What began as a personal journey to understand my own identity has led to an adulthood motivated by travel and a desire to explore new cultures past and present. Fittingly I’ve reconnected with some from my primary school days and had poignant, tragic and enlightening conversations about life then, life since and life now.

We all accept now that I am of course Bengali. That we are all British Bengali. We laughed. We laughed that same bittersweet laugh my mum and auntie laughed all those years ago.