“Bonding, which is stronger than any ionic bonds.”

“Bonding, which is stronger than any ionic bonds.”

Fondness, I was floating in it. Rancorous, I was pushed to be one. Separation, it was thrown onto me. And bondness? It was caused by all of the previous. Would I regret anything that had occurred, that wasn’t so facile as I thought it would be? Nope. That’s why, I send my kudos to the Almighty for his judicious decisions on my changing world.

It was 2011. As a 7th grader, I hadn’t had much interaction with the outside world, so I surely was lacking some knowledge on how this world actually worked. I would consider myself being dumb as a rock, but that’s not the main thing about the story I am about to tell. It’s just ...there.

I ran after one girl for two years. Not literally running, but as in when water, minerals, lactate and urea mixed together that would be dripping from my head as a formation, which we call “sweat”. Dripping to the concrete below my feet, while running. 2012 was the year when I stopped running and finally got her as a trophy. I will say she’s worth more than any trophy. Everything was pretty ecstatic for days. This nascent love actually felt like a typical indian romance movie. Even though I am not Indian, my family have watched many movies from that culture due to it’s popularity. Those movies generally have scenes where the actor and actress falls in love and soon before you can blink your eyes, a choreographed dance song comes on from the background. As the actor and actress see each other from distance, the wind starts to blow, the birds start to chirp, because of lust, and the rain starts to fall when they look at each other. Ehh, I guess it felt similar, a languid feeling whenever I saw her. Than some undesirable things happened that I didn’t hope for. It was as if I am running from a tiger and now I’m at the end of the cliff, no choice but to jump off.

Summer of 2013. My dearest parents came to my room one day with an intriguing question.

“Want to visit Bangladesh over the summer?” My dad asked. I was jubilant with that question and replied with a big YES!

“Why should we visit Bangladesh out of nowhere?” I asked.

“Well, we need go make make sure that our land that we purchased years ago are fine and that anyone didn't take them over.” They’ve replied with a worried tone. That’s reasonable, I thought. In Bangladesh, stealing lands from people is as easy as 1-2-3. Just buy a standing billboard, print a name of any popular corporation, go to the land you wish to steal, and place it there. All done. No paperwork needed and nobody is going to speak against you in the court. The land is now yours.

“Hmm, we still complain about our country being so corrupted.” I murmured to myself.

I made sure all my necessary things are packed neat and clean inside my luggage, especially my summer work for the high school that I’ll be attending in September. Oh boy, packing the luggage was as easy as fitting a new harness to an old horse.

I told the girl that I chased after that I’ll be gone for three months, that I was going back to visit my homeland. Seconds later, waves of tears started to come upon my way with terrifying loads of questions. I guess I was kind of good stopping her before she influenced me to cry as well.

Started the journey in a metal beast that acts as a deadly knife ripping through the night sky. The lady dressed in a white top and a black skirt came up to me and lended me a hand as I was putting up my bag.

“Sir, do you need anything at this moment?” She asked with a ebullient tone.

“No, thank you,” I replied with an vacuous smile, even though I needed some help on how to work this 10 inch monitor that’s in front of me.

The ride was pretty cramped. Weirdly, they ran out of seats in the economic class so we got transferred to the business class. Thought to myself,

“Wow, that was some easy vip transition.” I told my mom.

“Yeah…” She replied without caring much.

I could smell the mashed potato and turkey from the kitchen as they were preparing to serve us the dinner.

“Ah, my mom is going to have a fun time eating dinner tonight.” I thought in a sarcastic manner.

The landing of the plane was pretty hilarious. As the wheels touched the runway, I could just imagine about the family members that are waiting for us at the airport. Everyone was garrulus as the plane landed safely and was clapping as well. We escorted to a private microbus and was taken to our house with the rest of our family. We chose to go to my mom’s side first and I didn’t have any objection to that.

Couple days passed and things did not feel right. I missed the girl. Even though there were friends and family all around me, I felt like the last leaf on a tree before the winter begins. It felt like my world have suddenly changed. Did it really change though? I did live at this same place for 12 years before I came to U.S. But my own home didn’t feel like home anymore. I started to question myself about my relationship with others. Why am I not feeling close? I started to get distracted more often. I could feel the warm wind passing by me and reminding me about the girl every morning I woke up. I started to distance myself from others in an ignorant way, which I didn’t appreciate and I believed they didn’t either.  

Before beginning my journey, I planned to spend my time with my family and friends in a passionate manner but I couldn’t. Her thought was always on my mind and I was afraid it might look suspicious to others. I couldn’t afford to let them know about this relationship! That’ll ruin everything. It’ll be worse than taking a candy from a crying baby. Disregarding all the facts. I started to make secret phone calls from Bangladesh to her. That’s the only way I felt a little close to her. She didn’t have the intention of distracting me from meeting my family members and exchanging conversations with them, it just happened naturally. From U.S. to Bangladesh was a huge change for me. It felt like I’ve changed my whole world and the changes in those world felt my skin was being lacerated. Transition from one country to another wasn’t so easy for me and felt like separations took place.

It was as if I was Lieutenant Jimmy Cross from, “Things they Carried,” and the girl was Martha. Just like how Jimmy have deep love for Martha, which caused him to be distracted on the war ground. That then resulted in consequences, the one that caused Lavender to die. Even though I am not on the war ground, it felt like I was in one because of what happened next.

I hear loud voices through the walls, coming from the other room. My heart sank as I heard my name being called.

“Tahmid, come here right now!” My mom commanded in a bitter tone.

As I stepped inside the room, I notice my dad, my mom and my uncle all sitting on the bed looking at me as if I drank the last water bottle in the Sahara desert.

“Will you leave that girl or not? If you don’t, we can stay in Bangladesh and not go back to U.S.” My dad said in a rigorous voice.

I was more rooted to the ground than a tree after hearing what my dad said. I finally understood the whole reason behind coming to Bangladesh.

I got rejected every time as I tried to explain what I felt for her. There is no room for understandment but commands from elders. I do respect their consciousness regarding my future and how the girl might play a role in it but that’s not the whole story. They are categorizing her only by the culture she’s from and not as a person.

I couldn’t react to the changes that would be forced upon me, the my world was changing around me. The world, as in my family not being able to understand, and react in a positive way about my changes. They felt great shame for me as their child and were careless about my affection toward the girl. I didn’t disrespect that because I recognize their situation and why would they do such thing. I was vacillated with what to answer to my dad’s question regarding leaving the girl.

“Yes, I will leave her.” I answered a weary voice.     

I became more taciturn. I didn’t feel that close to the ones that I thought was close to me when I returned to my second world, United States. I’ve came to learn that your perspective of things might not always match up with the world around you. But at last, the changes in my world couldn’t really destroy the bonding between myself and the girl, but made it even more stronger.