“There is no place like motherland”. I can go to beautiful France, elegant England or Prestigious Russia, but there is no other place in the world where I will enjoy being more than my motherland. What’s about my motherland that makes me eager to go back? Definition says that, a country is consisting of the people that live on that land. Does that means I crave for my people of my country’s company? I don’t know. All I know is that living in my country, Bangladesh was the highlight of my life.


Don’t get me wrong, I love United States. I love the friendly people in U.S, who took me under their wings soon after I came here. I love my friends who make me laugh in the rainy days. Still, at times when I am alone in a room, left with nothing but my memory, I become nostalgic. I go back to the streets of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, where I grew up. I revisit the places in the city where I was frequent every day, for school or for regular needs. I walk to the roads where I had once walked, sing the same song in my head that I was singing last time, when I’ve been there. Its like memories are my friends, who I have left in the path, just to get them back again when I revisit. I don’t have to close my eyes to see the road side general stores that I would see on my way to school. I feel the same restlessness when our rickshaw would be stuck in traffic jam for an hour, making me let for my class. The smell of name unknown flowers would wrap me like a shawl the minute I would put my feet in the school boundary. I am even surprised to find out that I don’t even get sad when my teacher would criticize me for being late in class. I would try to relive those times when I helped the school librarian organize the books in the library in lunch break and check out books to read. Every Wednesday I would run around like crazy just to make sure every one who signed up for the Reading club would get a new book. It was impossible to count how many times I had been called The Bookworm by my friends. At 12.30pm my school will end and I would wait for my mother to pick me up and buy me an ice cream. I can taste the creamy taste of the Bangladeshi ice creams I used to get from ice cream carts after school.


No one can ever get bored in Bangladesh. Just in a 20 minutes journey way back home from school would prove it. Every minute there would be at least one car that will almost hit a rickshaw in process to get out of the way of an over speeding bus. Garments workers would come out of a garment factory in launch breaks. Launch break time looks like a river of people are going in different direction toward their homes to get their launch. I would always notice the sadness or tiredness in their faces after long time working. There would be happy faces, happy to get a break out of the work. Van-pullers would take a nap in the shade of tall buildings on their vans. I would get really upset about how our rickshaw puller would sweat from all the hard work. I remember, I asked my mom that why can’t they take some rest? And she answered that, they have a family to feed too. I wondered, why can’t I have enough money so I can give them all equal amount money so they didn’t have to do all these hard work. It was a child’s wonder, but it still makes me laugh when ever I think about it. If the world would be that easy then this world would be a much less complicated place. I would go home do my homework and fall asleep with colorful dreams in my eyes, mostly are from scenes I have seen that day.


I lived in Bangladesh as a child who goes to school. My life was all about going to the school to and coming back home. My childhood was colorful and ever exciting. I came to U.S three years now. I am more grown up now than I was three years ago, but a part of me stayed still in my fourteen years self, left in Bangladesh. Now whenever I think about those days my fourteen year old self comes in front of me and guides me through all the streets, all the paths and places from my childhood. I will grow older but part of me would never change. A piece of my heart will always search for ways to get back what I have left behind, my country.