“You know, if you didn’t tell people, they wouldn’t guess you have a 19-year-old daughter,” I said to my mother as I put on my coat. We were going to pick up my brothers from school, and my mother looked beautiful. She had her hair down, styled to perfection, and a bright pink dress on. She looked exquisite, put together, capable of taking on anything. This wasn’t new. My mother always had the ability to both grab and hold the attention of any room she stepped into — a true beauty, impeccable with her words. 

 “I know, but I like telling them I do. I like telling people that I’m a mom,” my mother replied as she closed the front door. 

My mother and I were reflecting on a conversation she’d had with a new friend and how they hadn’t expected her to have a daughter in college.

As I walked up to my car, I drifted off into a whirlpool of thoughts.

My mother was 18 when she got married, and she had me the same year. It was a decision that changed the course of her life, and it’s something she was never keen on talking about. She went through the joys and agonies of being a new mother, a new bride and a new daughter-in-law, all in the span of a year. And my mother, if and when she talks about her first year of adulthood, speaks about how different it was and how it was a new experience for her every day. 

In retrospect, if I had to take on even a little bit of what she had to at such an age, I don’t think I would be able to carry myself as gracefully as she had. 

My mother juggled college and raising three children. Education was an important virtue instilled in her, and nothing would stop her from getting her degree — not a long-distance marriage that proved to be much harder than she anticipated or three kids all under the age of 10. Her dreams for herself always included being educated, whether that was through institutions or through self-teaching. She would tuck my siblings and me into bed at night, and I would fall asleep watching her study for a test the next day. If one of my school projects was due the same morning as a project she had, she would help me finish mine before staying awake to work on hers. If she had a weekend class, she would let me tag along. 

Her days started at dawn, hours before mine and from the outside, it looked like she balanced everything perfectly. 

I remember asking her if it ever got hard and if she’d prefer not to do it. 

“Yeah, of course it was hard. It was a lot of energy and time and strength and focus, but no, I don’t regret it. There were times when I’d be like, ‘Why do I have to do so many things at the same time? Why me?’ I had to do things for myself and for you guys, but I’m glad I did it.” There was no second thought in her statement. Her take was overwhelmingly positive, and it left me feeling inept. In fact, the act of comparing myself to my mother grew to become second nature to me. She was poised, unapologetically took up space and warmed rooms with her laugh. When she spoke, people would make sure to listen. I wanted to be like her, in every way. And this feeling of inadequacy seemed to intensify every time my mom would be brought up in conversations. Comments such as “She’s so young!” “I can’t believe she’s your mom” or “Your mom is an inspiration,” were ones I’d internalize. Was I less than because I was pursuing something different than she had? In terms of the propriety of women in Bengali society, my mother lived up to standards, she thrived under them. She got married, had kids and stayed determined to her goals for herself. She took on the responsibility of a lifetime, and though it was not always easy, she made it look as such. 

It’s a hard act to follow. 

I pride myself on being a hard worker with big dreams to go through law school and pursue a legal career, but the responsibilities my mother had to take on always seem much larger than my pursuits. On days I am incredibly overwhelmed with my course load, extracurricular activities or future grad school applications, it is easy for me to dismiss my struggles by convincing myself that nothing will ever compare to my mother’s sacrifices. Even if it did, I question if I look as put together as my mother always did. 

All of this produced a layered, complex and nuanced relationship with my mother. We are different, and we have different dreams for ourselves. 

It took time, and there was no singular moment that allowed me to realize that though different, our struggles were both valid. I had to grow up, dedicate myself to pursuing my own passions, not recreate my mother’s legacy, but to make myself content and immerse myself in experiences unique from my mother’s to realize that we were allowed to be different people. 

“Alifa, get in the car!” 

As I recollected my thoughts, I smiled. 

My mother continues to be an example of a headstrong woman. And even though it took drowning in her dreams for me to learn that I will stride through life differently than she did, we share the same strength. It’s how I know I’ll be okay. 

MiC Columnist Alifa Chowdhury can be reached at alifac@umich.edu.

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Friendships were never my strong suit. They were relationships I could never get right. I romanticized portrayals of friendships I saw on TV, yearning for a best friend that lived next door or climbed through my window whenever I needed them. Sincere friendships were reserved for fiction — they weren’t something that was actualized in my life. 

At least not until I came to college. 

Friendships are unique in the sense that they are different from any other relationship you’ll ever be in. You create its structure: there are no predetermined milestones you are trying to reach and they are strangely voluntary. We aren’t obligated to our friends, at least not in the way we are to our families, partners or work. Because friendships allow for so much independence, they are subject to life’s volatility. Priorities shift and responsibilities pile up and friendships are put to the side. People grow up, they go away — friendships are the relationships most likely to take a hit. 

For a long time, I didn’t know if I was ready to put work into a type of relationship that, to me, seemed very fickle. I was bound to things like my family and my work. They weren’t tough to navigate, and even if they were, they had a sense of perpetuity to them. Because I knew my family was always going to be there, I wasn’t worried about how much time I should’ve dedicated to relationship-building with them. It was also partly due to how my family functioned. Valuing family above all else was a mechanism my family used to fight against Western ideals of individualism. Phrases such as “blood is thicker than water” and “family comes first” frequently repeated by family members left me thinking that friendships were too capricious, less intense and unreliable. Even if it wasn’t explicitly said, it was an expectation to put family above all else. I internalized the message and used it as an excuse to push any friends away, running through new friends every year and leaving friendships whenever they got too hard or meaningful. I turned away when friends knew too much about me, wanted to be there for me or expected the same from me. 

It was when I met my closest friends at UMich that I realized that friendships could be more than superficial connections. I didn’t have family around; I needed people to surround myself with. And when I finally gave in, by immersing myself in the company of people who weren’t my family, I realized that friendships were worth investing in, sustaining and putting the effort to be in. 

My friends and I celebrate each other on our good days and embrace each other on the bad ones. I got through some of my hardest days because I had friends to lean on and to find comfort in. When my grandfather passed away this summer, I found solace in conversations with friends. When I got into my summer internship or got a good grade on an essay that one of them probably edited the night before it was due, I wanted to tell my friends before anyone else. I found purpose in devoting myself to something bigger than just myself, my family and my work.  My relationship with friendship changed over the years with how much energy I decided to put into them, how real I wanted to be in them, and just how much I decided they were going to mean to me. This is not to say that my axis changed — my family is still very much my safe space, but it took a lot of me to understand that there was nothing wrong with growing that circle. My friends are my family. 

The fickleness I associated with friendships turned into an appreciation of freedom. There is a lot of breathing room in friendships and space to navigate it all — some friends I won’t talk to for months and it works, other friends I talk to every day and it also works. I feel free in my friendships and don’t underestimate their importance. My friends have taught me so much about life and so much about myself. I’ve learned what it means to love unconditionally because of them, and with them, I feel at home and at peace. It took me a while to get there, and I wish I could say I did it all myself, that a magical moment of introspection changed my life, but I think I just got lucky. 

To Lily, Zainab, Isha, Noor, Nahida, Rafee and Eli — thank you. 

MiC Columnist Alifa Chowdhury can be reached at alifac@umich.edu.

The post To friendships, appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

For my grandfather did not want this for him — he wanted this for me. 

For my grandfather did not want this for him — he wanted this for me. 

MiC Columnist Alifa Chowdhury can be reached at alifac@umich.edu

The post Relative to Dada appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

When I was younger, I would go to great lengths to explain how similar Bangladeshi society was to Canadian society. In my mind, that was how I was supposed to assimilate. Life in Canada was supposed to look like it did in the TV shows that played as I did homework. I despised aspects of my life that were defined by my Bengali culture. It was always about trying to make my Bengali identity more Canadian, never the other way around. I thought I could clear similarities by making comparisons. I fell into a habit of making Bangladesh and Bangladeshi culture more palatable for people whom I didn’t need to cater toward. 

Looking back, my bad. 

The two cultures are different; they’re supposed to be. The question was never about whether Bangladeshi culture was different — I knew it was, I just didn’t want it to be. The question was whether the culture was as different, destitute and coarse as the media painted it to be. 

It wasn’t. 

During a recent trip home, I decided to take portraits and pictures of people and places around my neighborhood in Chittagong, Bangladesh, taking my time to talk to those I photographed. We simply talked, not about anything in particular, but I caught onto snippets about aspects of their lives they decided were worth sharing with me. 

I am from Chittagong, Bangladesh. Through these pictures, I am intentionally showcasing life in Bangladesh through my eyes, not trying to represent a whole culture, country or community. It is me, showcasing a singular moment of time, through a singular person’s eyes, not necessarily telling other people’s stories but providing a space for the lives they decided to showcase when talking to me. I am merely translating. 

With that being said, here are the pictures. As you go through them, note that the pictures are not meant to be a series of generalizations. They are meant to provide an opportunity to understand the intricacies of the people and livelihood in Bangladesh. 

Rahim was the first person I met on my walk. My conversation with Rahim was short. His son worked at the garments factory down the road –– he spoke of him with great pride. “My son works at the factory down the road, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said no.” I asked him why. “Well, I like it here. I’ve been doing this all my life.” He then talked about his welding work, asked me if I knew how it worked and proceeded to show me. I compared it to glass welding, which he also knew how to do. 

Chittagong is known for its greenery, a beautiful place to witness it all is D.C. Hill Park, which is where I met Rubel. He worked alongside his dad in the park. “This is my father’s business. I just come here on the weekends,” Rubel said. I asked him if he liked working with his dad. “Yeah, for the most part, the machine breaks down time to time though. I can fix it most days.” We talked about the number of people that visit the park each day, both agreeing that the crowd can get overwhelming. The park remains his favorite part of the city, though. 

D.C. Hill Park is filled with food carts. Vendors fill the sidewalks and the lines for food can get pretty long. The fruit carts are my favorite. Summers in Bangladesh are synonymous with the gondhoraj lebu.

I met Shaheed in the park right after I met Rubel and right before I left the park. We didn’t talk much; I just asked him when the park was closing. “The park closes in an hour, but I’m packing up early today though.” I asked why he was leaving early. “It’s too hot today.” He was in a rush to get home, and he was right, it was hot.

A few miles away from the park is Chittagong’s famous port. Chittagong is a port city, the industrial capital of the nation. I met Abdul there; he was selling sugarcane. He said they were from his village, four hours away. Abdul and I talked about the port behind him. We both spoke of it with a sense of pride. “The port is a Chittagong staple,” he said. “It’s why I set up shop here.” 

The streets of Chittagong are teeming with three-wheeled cycle rickshaws. On my way home, I took pictures of a few. 

Kashem was the last person I photographed that day. He was also on his way home. When I asked him if I could take a picture, he asked me why and I answered honestly — I said I wasn’t sure. Maybe just for memories. “That’s good enough reason,” he said. And he was right, it was reason enough for me to take these pictures just to remember. To remember my people in my beautiful city.

MiC Columnist Alifa Chowdhury can be reached at alifac@umich.edu.

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