Hello, and a very happy new year.
When I started thinking about my next topic to write about, I just simply thought, let it be on a lighter subject, add some laughter maybe, you know, this being my first write-up in this new year.
Interestingly, the topic that dominated my mind was my birthday, and the many comments I received on Facebook. Of course, I was overwhelmed with all the love and wishes (shhh ... cannot be disclosed).
When someone asks me how old I am in every birthday, I have two answers always ready: “I am a year younger” or “I am stuck at 25.” I do not know why, but I feel I am as energetic as I was when 25 years old, and I genuinely feel that every year I am getting younger.
Many of my fans ask me how many children I have, and why I never post photos of my wife on Facebook. I always say that I have 10 children, but also, that I did not need a wife to have them. Their love for me and mine for them goes down so deep that many call me abbu or baba, even though they are not my biological children. I treat them as I would if I had my own, I guess. At least I try to.
Another of my children is my younger brother Naweed, his wife, and their children -- a 15-member family. When my fans come to know that I am, in fact, a bachelor, it is as if they have fallen from the sky. Did a girl ditch me? Was I terminally ill? Or, above all, was I gay?
Ha! Ha! Ha!
Our mindset is quite restrictive in thinking that one must get married and have a family. Sure, that is the way our social system works, but not everyone needs to get married if that’s the way they want to live their life.
Many of my fans ask me how many children I have, and why I never post photos of my wife on Facebook. I always say that I have 10 children, but also, that I did not need a wife to have them
I have crossed many a mile, and I have never regretted being single because of how much it affords me as a self-reliant individual. I can quit my job any time I want, and not think much of the consequences. I can decide in five minutes to travel anywhere in the world ignoring the fact that I had very little in my bank account.
Above all, I have found my father’s grave 36 years after his martyrdom because I could stay on with my mission, whereas my married siblings could never afford to do something like that.
A girl once dumped me. Well, when you are young you get dumped and then do some dumping yourself, that’s how people work. Perhaps I never found true love, but what I do know is that I am happy with my “dostos” and the love, blessings, and yummy food that they give me.
Even old girlfriends are good mates now, and we often laugh at our “incidental experiences” when we were young and the habit of falling in and out of love at a moment’s notice, without really knowing what we wanted.
If one is ill there are all kinds of herbal (Gulistan area) treatments that they can make use of. From the juice of a plant to many kinds of blessed oils to get going! Ha! Ha! Ha!
Last of all, what does being gay or straight even mean? We’re all human beings, at the end of the day. Nobody goes around saying they are straight, so why ask people if they are gay? When I reached puberty, we did not have any of the word gay.
Once, my friend Mujib Khan and I stumbled upon the word “homosexual” in a newspaper article. I asked my mother (who was also my father after 1971) and she said “same sex love.” Well, without love, how can one be friends? So Mujib and I went to Dhaka Central Library, but the dictionary was vague, but it gave us a better idea in the days without the internet.
I was often asked when I was 30, what would happen to be without a wife at 50. Now I am told what will happen to me at 80.
I don’t know about others, but I am doing great at 50 (thanks to Allah) and hopefully will continue to do so if I ever make it to 80.
So, please, pray for me, the happy bachelor. Happy Birthday Capricorns, especially those who are single like me. Have fun, you only get one life.
Nadeem Qadir is the Press Minister of Bangladesh High Commission in London.
