Hey, you’re Indian right? Indians always got that luscious black hair, said a patient at the hospital where I volunteered. Swallowing the urge to say I wasn’t technically Indian for the thousandth time —I simply nod and don’t tell them I’m balding.
Technically, I’m Asian. More specifically, I’m South Asian, family from the Indian subcontinent. Although—really— I’m Bengali, family from Bangladesh, land of the rivers, a pretty brutal independence war, and thus home of the free —sounds familiar, I’m also American.
Baba, I’m doing a history project and I have to interview you about the war, I said in high-school at our off-white couch in the living room, before learning for the first time how his family was tied up by Pakistani soldiers and beaten down by batons till 4 in the morning to the birds chirping and bees buzzing over the dewy moss and then just as one of them was about to die, all bloody red onto the Earth’s canvas —they left
—Now it’s the present and I left my culture. I’m the pride birthed from history, and my battlefield is struggling to understand directions on finding a Mojo from an auntie, and my telegraph is trying to learn more about Bengali cuisine other than butter chicken —which is Indian by the way…
And then I try to be an American, but it’s a melting pot. I dilute myself more, stressing the red, blue, and white, —but holding onto the green of my origins.
So if I’m not Bengali enough, and I’m not American enough —then I’m just a bee in a wasp’s nest, pining for the next honey-comb in a world full of wasps’ paper-combs, all saliva and brittle wood fiber.
Then I’m also just a person who needs to paint a new canvas —deciding if I should keep the colors of those who came before me.
*
Idle Talk
After graduation, an acquaintance and I head to a Tiramisu Café under the scorching sun. At the counter, I ask for a menu, only to be met with the triumphant declaration: “You have to scan the QR code”. We sit in a room of empty birch tables. The tiramisu is dry and overpriced.
a fan keeps turning two single people sit still suddenly aware
*
Shah Nabil is an emerging Bengali-American poet hoping to explore the humorous side of poetry. He is a Biology major with a minor in Creative Writing at New York University. In his free time, he likes to read fantasy fiction, weightlift, and cook fusion dishes.
