Connection to culture

My parents have always been my fundamental connection to my roots to Bengali culture. At one time it was pure torture. Yet when I moved to the US, I missed them so much, I actually turned to associating with Bengalis at Purdue to feel closer to them. Speaking in Bengali, eating the food, participating in cultural activities made me feel that I had carried a part of them to this distant land. My first year in graduate school I missed them so viscerally that those newly formed Bengali connections made me feel at home in those cold winter nights. As did my roommate Subhangi with whom I shared the probashi connection as well as our deep sense of missing home and Ma and Baba. 

During those days, the folks that gave us that warmth were Ira Mashi and Jayanta Kaku. Their home filled with long conversations, laughter and lots of Bengali food. For five years they nurtured us and in particular, helped me through those difficult initial years of living away from my parents. They didn’t take away the yearning but they filled it with their own love. 

Over time my connection to this culture has receded to the background as I moved away from Purdue and went to Chicago and Austin. Ira Mashi and Kaku also receded to the background but we still talked regularly. 

This year I lost those two parental figures to long battle to cancer. And then my mother. And now I feel as lost as I did then. I missed them so much then and I miss them all so much now. And not just to them, to the culture of Bengal is what they gave me.