Richi Barua

Professor Ewan

FIQWS

25 February 2019

How I changed for Bengali

From what I can remember, Bengali has always been a huge part of my life. I grew up in Bangladesh, where I learned to read, write, and speak Bengali and learned to speak Hindi. I recall sitting by myself sometimes, holding a children’s book, and reading for hours at a time. I collected articles and cut out pieces from the daily newspaper and kept them in a small folder. I loved reading in Bengali. Its scripture beautifully unfolds and its elegance never fails to amuse me. I am proud that I acquired to read and write in this language but it wasn’t the easiest experience to learn it and accept it as a part of me.

Learning Bengali was a challenge for me when I was young. The issue was that I was enrolled in a primarily English spoken school consisted of English structured classrooms. This had prevented me from learning the language completely. I was able to read, write, and speak but my knowledge was limited. I was a novice and I was disappointed with myself because I was not able to comprehend the language as much as other kids. It was a very devastating period for me but that situation did not remain that way for long.

Bengalis take huge pride in their language. I grew up seeing this through my mother who read books after books in the corner of the room. Whenever I woke up in the morning, I would see her holding the newspaper, reading pages after pages. I am who I am because of her and I am proud of it. Anyways, the pride of the language actually extended further. Every year, around February, a huge book fair is held in order to pay tribute to the language. I always loved to go this fair because it was a haven for me. Being with my family in such an amazing place made me happy. I still remember this one particular visit to the fair very vividly and it was mos likely one of my first visits. I was very young and had just started to read and write.  I picked out this specific book in Bengali called Children’s Short Stories by Ahsan Habib, who is a bengali cartoonist. As the title suggests, Habib’s book consists of several stories filled with lessons for young kids. For some reason, I was attracted to this book very much even though it was written in Bengali. I had a sudden drive of reading in Bengali and it was perhaps one of the best decisions I ever made.

I immediately started reading the book and fell in love with the way how stories were written.  Since the stories in the book was short and easy to comprehend, I was able to read it with my basic skills.. One short story which captured my heart was “Mahir’s Problem.” Habib wrote the story about a boy’s realization about respecting where he comes from. Mahir, the main character, wanted to fit in with his friends who shows off because they could speak English. When I had first read this, I did not like Mahir’s friends. To me, it was more than showing off. I interpreted these boys as someone who degraded their mother tongue and thought of themselves as something greater. On the other hand, I felt bad for Mahir since he didn’t know better. At the time of me reading it, I related to him very much because I wanted to fit in others who were fluent in Bengali. Since Mahir wanted to fit in, he thought of himself less and wanted to learn English. In the midst of his dilema, Mahir met his uncle and talked to him about his problems.This conversation awakened a realization. In the conversation, his uncle told him that his motive was not right and that he should always appreciate his mother tongue no matter what. Reading this part made me feel guilty. I felt disappointed that I was not the best in my mother tongue. I had a lack of understanding of the language and I was not happy about it. What I decided that moment changed my life forever.

I started to read Bengali texts a lot more since then. I read books after books because reading them made me feel satisfied. At the time, all I had in mind was a Richi who can understand Bengali more than anything. Reading all these texts had actually made me feel confident within myself. I improved my reading a lot and I  knew I did because I read faster and I understood the texts very well. Habib’s text was difficult for me when I first read it but after practicing, I realized that his text was very easy to read. This development brought joy upon myself but I was still not content.

My first focus was on improving my reading skills and then I was hoping to transition on practicing writing but that did not happen. While reading different stories, I had the drive to write. I usually practiced with grammar and punctuation since I lacked at it. If I was going to have to improve my writing, I would have to know how to spell words. At one point, I force myself to actually write something. When I first started writing something, I thought in was going to be easy, but it wasn’t. I was obviously practicing so therefore, I was expecting my writing to improve. Nothing was getting better even though I gave my best. Could you imagine the frustration I was facing? I cried and I cried because I was disappointed with myself. During those moments, my mom was always there to help me. She taught me more and gave me more confidence. In order to keep going, I always thought about my mom and that book which started it all.

It’s not easy to improve on something. In order to reach something, you have to practice and practice. Thinking about the result always kept me going and when that result finally came, I was amazed. I wouldn’t say that I am an amazing writer. I need a lot more practice even to this day, but the amount I improved back then seems amusing to me. Since I was consistent with my goal,  I was able to move ahead as a result. I was finally able to pick up the pen and write something nice. I actually wrote several stories growing up, and thinking about it now, brings tears to my eyes.

Although I don’t have the text with me momentarily, I still remember it vividly. It was the first writing piece that I established. It was called “Two Birds” and it was a short story about two birds falling in love. It was very childish but I loved it because it was a result of my hard work. In the story, the two birds had to go through discomforts and challenges but everything went well for them in the end. It kind of related to my story because I felt as if I struggle a lot in order to improve. In a way, that story was a result of the experiences I felt.

Now that I look back to Habib’s story, I feel a sense of happiness and appreciation. I appreciate that book very much because that book sparked my drive. I interpret that story the same way as I did years back. I. The story did a good job of putting its point across because both back then and now, I always thought that this book wanted its readers to take pride. I loved their message and learned to apply it to my own life. That story made me confident and literate in my mother tongue. This experience of me was an incredible one and it was a result of me reading Habib’s short stories. I always hope to improve in the future but we always have to remember where we started from and for me, it all began with that book.