“Emon desh ti kothao khuje pabena go tumi, shokol desher rani sheje amar jonmobhumi.”
These famous lines have made many a Bengali take immense pride, and feel a sense of mistaken nationalistic solidarity with their country folk.
I felt it too, when I was young-ish, new to the growing sense of patriotic nationalism that was being sewn country-wide, song by song, speech by speech.
These songs mystified oneness -- one culture, one view, and one “people.”
As if, a nation was not merely a demarcation of geographical land, used for political power.
Fast forward 10 years, when I slowly became exposed to the nooks and crannies of what nationalism entails, I started analyzing and discovering everything that was wrong with these songs, and I began to understand all that it said, without really mentioning it.
Firstly, it already establishes the nation as the queen of all nations, as if nothing can touch it, nothing can cause its downfall.
Secondly, the next few lines of the song talk about the immense love between mother, brother, and all family members, as if it is specific to this very nation, and not others; as if it is above and beyond other nations, in other words, it is the supreme power.
Looking at these lines, from a current standpoint, this false sense of patriotism, as if a country can do no wrong, also goes on to preach that it is forever the duty of the nationals to fight for the country (a country that has given it so much), even without getting anything in return, without expecting the most basic form of human rights, dignity, right to free speech, and right to social security.
Such issues are consciously not made to be part of mainstream discourse, establishing an untrue narrative of pride that runs from one generation to the other, thereby making citizens inactive, and weary to think for themselves, of themselves.
Now I drew these conclusions mentioned above, slowly but steadily, from various discussions with very many people, who pushed me to think differently, think beyond what was shown and prescribed, to think even when thinking is difficult.
However, another turn of events occurred when I had become a so-called global citizen, lived in many different parts of the world, became accustomed to accepting different cultures and traditions, almost instinctively shedding off my own.
Somehow, I longed to return to my own country, to work there, to live and grow in my homeland.
I was still not a patriot, let alone a nationalist (and hope to never be one), but I slowly began to automatically search for things of the past -- family lineages, remaining mementos of my grandmothers, songs of the past, that I suddenly remembered my father singing to me, as he had seldom put me to sleep.
These images and memories suddenly became as vivid to me as the coral sands I had visited not too long ago, in Maldives, or the pristine quietness in the mountains of Nepal.
These new feelings, also I believe somehow resonated with the passing of my father, and they grew in the years since he has been gone.
My father was the traditionalist amongst both my parents, and with him gone, suddenly my mother and I found a sense of belonging to his hometown, to family back there.
I always detested the question, “desher bari koi,” and disliked even more when people put us in boxes, based on our social circles, our family lineage, and our “desher baris.”
However, now when I end up going to my father's home, I love being in the room he grew up in as a boy. I love hearing about her-stories and histories, the ones that played their part in shaping him, and thus me.
The small home that we now have at my father's birthplace is a reminder that he existed, and was loved by his own, as are we.
The two-hundred-year-old poles stretching towards the skies pay tribute to all that this land went through, and are placed apart, steady in its four corners, facing its ancestors, retelling their stories.
Recently, my mother showed me a piece of a plate that belonged to my grandmother: It was cracked, and broken, the colours in it were dead but one could see stories residing in the thin blue and white lines -- of how it had been served only to the most special guests. I decided to keep it.
This plate was one piece that we still had, while the others in the set were missing. Coincidentally, a similar plate surfaced the internet some time ago and it said that this plate went back to roughly 100 years ago.
The pride I felt in owning a piece of this broken, forgotten, memory-clad plate, was something I had never felt before.
And it only took me closer to my father, his mother, and her mother, and tales I had never lent my eyes and ears to.
I do not know if I am reaching the exact space which I had vouched never to reach, or if I am simply getting old.
But my hope is to unite with the roots of my parents and their ancestors, through revisiting stories, writing about them, and living through them.
Syeda Samara Mortada is a feminist activist, and Co-Founder of Bonhishkha, a feminist organization working to un-learn gender, and in creating a platform for youth to share their gender-based experiences.