A letter from Safiul

You know I have written disparagingly about Bangladeshi weddings in the US. [See below ].
“I have attended only a few Bangladeshi weddings in this country. Thus I’m really in no position to generalize. Presumably, by virtue of their having made it to this land, the families involved were well educated and sophisticated. Yet, just as in Dhaka, the emphasis was on ostentation. The women were decked out gaudily and overburdened with jewelry. Unfortunately, since almost all of them possessed not the discipline to watch their diet or do any sort of exercise and had let their bodies go, this costuming made them look rather ridiculous. Nor did the men give any better an impression. Puffed up with their own self importance, they looked equally ridiculous and comical. [By the way, I fit right in.] The rush to the food tables when dinner was served was quite unseemly. And, of course, over all there prevailed chaos. Being ourselves thus, how come we are quick to judge others of the subcontinent as lacking?
“This is why the wedding [and, next day, reception] that I attended of a Pakistani friend’s daughter was so enjoyable and revealing. The lack of airs being put on, absence of crude displays of material success, non-presence of undisciplined general behavior was quite palpable, extremely gratifying and utterly refreshing. It jibed with my own personal notions of what the comportment of attendees on such occasions should be. The women were perfectly at ease in talking to males and took the mixed company as matter of course. They wore more jewelry and dressed better than they would to work, just a tad more carefully, to grace the occasion, but not to gratuitously display. The religious and civil parts of the ceremony were brief, to the point, joyous – no attempt by the respective officials to take center stage and hold on – perfectly appropriate to the occasion.
“Upon talking to the guests, including the women, you discovered a very large percentage to be graduates from and working at the most prestigious academic, business and research institutions of America and Europe. But no one deliberately introduced such achievement into the discourse, these facts were revealed only in the normal course of conversation. The food was excellent, and people patiently waited chatting with each other when the buffet table needed to be replenished. Casting my haughty eye upon the scene from my culturally lofty
perch [my spouse and I were the only Bangalees there], I could not but be very impressed and conclude: our superior notion of ourselves is not backed up by empirical evidence. These folks had class. I was grateful and happy that I could count the father of the bride as among my good and dear friends.”
But I have had to change my views.

This May 29th and 30th, a Bangladeshi friend’s younger daughter got married in Boston. Several of the usual, who have now become unusual, suspects attended. That’s my backhanded way of saying that the occasion brought together very dear friends after many years of separation. I had the most wonderfully happy two days. Many pictures were taken but, in the way of the new digital age, none seen. The pleasure is in the act, not the result.
One fallout from this shebang is that I have revised 180-degrees my harsh opinion of Bangalee weddings. For, on this occasion, I found my fellow Deshis and cultural compatriots conducting themselves better than in my description. The bride had many close friends – Pakistani, Bangladeshi and American. And they all danced up a storm to put the most hip-twirling Bollywood movie starlets to shame. Heck, they even insisted old folks like me join in! That’s when I discovered my friends from days of my childhood and youth have progressed rapidly enough to be comfortable happily wiggling their hips. Only I have become [or have remained] the uptight “Abba Huzoor” character of the Lahori movies of old.
Peace be upon you all.

The above has been sent by Safiul.
His articles are always worth reading.