The introduction clearly stated my intention for this post; however, I have come to understand that to understand the present one must accept one's past. I know my past but I probably should let you in on it.
It might not be shocking but I am not the first and hopefully not the last to leave my birth town and country to settle in another country. My maternal and paternal grandparents both had to build a life in a city that was not their hometown. They learnt to love the city they lived in and now I wonder if it ever became more like home then their birth town. Although their journey was far more painful and dramatic than mine, I feel there might be a lesson there which I might have not realised yet.
My grandfathers were born in Rajshahi and Dhaka, which are now located in Bangladesh. They were forced out of their hometowns because of the partitioning of India. They had to flee their country of birth and leave behind all their ancestral wealth as Hindus were being persecuted following the Indian 'Brexit' in 1945.
My paternal grandfather (20 y/o in 1945) was the oldest of three children and the bread winner for his family. He arrived in a refugee camp where he experienced the worst days of his life. The only way he could secure food until he was given a domicile (official paper declaring you are a citizen of that country) to live India as refugee was when the army would dish out food in his hand while they waited in a queue. No plates, no decent portions.. just enough to fit in both your palms. He then however secured a piece of land in West Bengal by hoisting a tent and living there for days. My understanding is that is how refugees could secure land in those days. After he received his official documents to work in India, he got a job as an engineer in Phillips and never looked back. He fell in love and married a girl (my grandmother), who was offered a scholarship to study biology in America but chose a life with him rather than a life of luxury and a supportive family. He, eventually, moved to my birth town and built a successful contruction business that afforded me many luxuries that majority Indians did not have.
My maternal grandfather (15 y/o in 1945) was the middle child of eight children. He came from a long line of doctors and lawyers. His oldest brother sacrificed his entire life to ensure there was food enough for 11 mouths. My grandfather was never academically inclined so when he got the opportunity to work in the forest department of the Indian government, he took it. He would live in dense forest helping with developing various areas all over India. He, however, had the courage to turn his back on the first sense of financial stability because he saw some of his colleagues kill a lion and carry its corpse to profit from it. Despite the fears of disappointing his family, he returned back home where he met a girl at a wedding, fell in love, got married and decided to move to my hometown (despite it breaking his heart to leave his family behind) where he built a very successful hardware production business. He did stray from his ambitions but my grandmother had the metal in her spine to refocus his energies into building a life so successful that he could provide for the entire family.
Here is why I believe i destiny. These two strong individuals, who were born into wealth, lost their sense of home and displaced into a different country, but had forged their way through (what I can only imagine) gut-wrenching moments to build a successful life. They not only landed in my hometown but were neighbours too. Their children, my parents, then fell in love, got married and I was born followed by my sister. If one single moment of their life was changed then I wouldn't be born. But, knowing what I know now, I wonder if they did have any regrets. I wonder if they ever really did feel like my hometown was theirs too or did they feel exactly like me. A heart split in two, one part beats for the idea of home we are born into and the other beats for the home we build with our blood, sweat and tears. There is one thing I know for sure though, I am a small percentage of people who are called international migrants (3.6% to be precise) and I inherited the courage and strength to consider this move from my grandparents.
P.S. I would recommend reading this 2020 UN report (International Migration 2020 Highlights) for a less distorted or politicised image of migrants.
https://www.un.org/en/desa/international-migration-2020-highlights
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