When I was at language school in Dhaka we would sing the
Bangla national anthem every day at the beginning of the day. At the time I thought
it was…well, I guess I was mostly indifferent towards the whole activity…
Over the course of the 4 months of singing the song 5 days a
week I learned it. It’s “Golden Bangla” (Shonar Bangla) a part of a poem my
Bengali Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore. I thought any occasion where knowing a Bengali
would be useful was over when I left language school (I guess except maybe as a
very odd party trick)…but boy was I wrong.
A few months ago at SB one of the ladies asked me to sing…or
maybe I just decided to do it one day (the details are fuzzy)…but the ladies absolutely
LOVED it when I sang a song in Bengali. It has become the go-to source of entertainment
at one of our units. If I sing it in one room I have to sing it in the other. And
if I happen to not sing it for a few days the ladies will say, “oh moushumi, if
you sing to us you’ll make us happy” or, “its so hot, sing us a song”
I love that they love it so much. I love when they sing
along with me. I love the smiles in their eyes…I think part of what they like
so much is that I’ve learned something that is central to their culture…
Today the obsession with me singing “Shonar Bangla” has
reached a new level…they’ve started calling me “Shonar Bangla.” One of the
ladies just yelled from the upstairs room , “hey Shonar Bangla…did you eat?”
…to be clear, this is fine with me. Nicknames are one of my
love languages, after all.
1 comment:
Whenever people complain about some of the vocab we learn in class and how it doesn't seem that useful, I just think, you never know what you are really gonna need later. This is a perfect example.
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