Ugh, Diaspora.

It’s been over a month since I returned from Bangladesh..

And I’ve wanted to write something beautiful, something heartfelt about how deeply connected I feel to the country, the culture and everything in between. But the truth is, I still feel like an outsider—not completely, but just enough to notice it. Just someone who doesn’t entirely fit in.

Growing up in London, I never questioned where I belonged. Every time I go back, London feels like home in a way that’s effortless. I am an East Londoner through and through. But when I’m in Bangladesh, I feel myself holding back. I know I’m not my most authentic self. I navigate unspoken rules, respect boundaries and move through perceptions and ideologies that aren’t necessarily mine but are part of the world I step into. And I’m consciously choosing which comments to challenge and which to let go. Where I live now, I’m much more like, nah, sorry love, gotta disagree with you on that one.

A self portrait in Dhaka, Bangladesh

But that’s the paradox—I love Bangladesh. I feel drawn to it. But I also know I exist in the in-between, never fully belonging to one place.

The people in Bangladesh are warm, kind and incredibly helpful. When I think of my time in Dhaka, I often talk about my tailor, he’s incredible. Every time I visit, he asks, Have you had breakfast? Have you had tea? He’ll sit me down, make sure I’m comfortable and in those moments, there’s a real connection. And it’s not just him. I have friends there too, an artist in the rock scene, an entrepreneur from Bangladesh’s first Shark Tank, an incredible chef. Hanging out with them is pure vibes, they get me. They understand my perspective and where I come from, something that feels rare in a country as traditional as Bangladesh.

But then, there are moments that remind me I don’t fully fit in.

One evening, I caught up with a friend who took me to a market on the outskirts of Dhaka, explaining everything in detail, knowing full well I wasn’t from there. Later, we ended up at Gulshan Club, sipping drinks and talking about my trip to Bombay, his experiences there. It felt like a rare friendship, built on mutual understanding. We have a huge age gap but connection isn’t always about age; it’s about shared perspectives and respect.

And then—the wedding party. The moment I walked in, I knew I wasn’t going to last long. Everyone was on MD, rolling. That’s fine, but it’s just not where my head’s at anymore. I stayed for half an hour, had a drink and left. Honestly, it made me cringe, drunk and high people chatting away when we had nothing in common.

I thought about my experiences elsewhere, like in South Africa, where my friends would introduce me to people with real warmth. Ah, this is Rez, she’s an incredible chef, she runs a pop-up, she used to work in TV. They would hype me up, make space for me in the conversation and do the same for the other person. It makes such a difference.

In Bangladesh, I didn’t experience that in the same way. Maybe it’s just not a common social custom, introductions tend to be more reserved rather than expressive. Some cultures actively integrate new people into conversations, while others expect you to ease in naturally.

Either way, it was something I noticed and in one instance, it was kind of impossible to ignore. A friend introduced me to someone and to his credit, the conversation could have gone either way but from the start, something felt off. And of course, not every introduction was like this, but in that moment, it set the tone. It was laced with misogyny and weird flirting, making me uncomfortable almost immediately. I actually had to stop and say, please don’t introduce me to people like that and that was our very first interaction. Like we were on completely different frequencies, sharing the same space but never quite in sync.

Anyway, maybe we’ve created our own culture, something distinct, something that exists outside of both Bangladesh and Britain, shaped by London’s multiculturalism.

I think about how people in Durban see themselves, Indian by ancestry but South African by experience. Over time, their identity has evolved into something unique, shaped by their history and environment. Maybe that’s exactly what we’ve done too, carved out identities that blend where we come from with where we’ve ended up. In my case, having spent two-thirds of my life in London and the last decade moving through so many other places, I’ve naturally absorbed what resonates, gravitating toward what feels like home to me. 

And then there’s the lack of freedom.

An uncle on a flight once asked me if I’d be friends with gay people and if I thought being gay was an illness. No, respectfully, uncle—that mindset is the illness. If I could be gay, trust me, I would be.

It’s frustrating to be in a place where my freedom, something so basic, feels restricted, not by law but by deep-rooted societal norms. Women don’t go out at night, not because they don’t want to but because it isn’t safe. Instead of making public spaces safer, society just tells women to avoid them. Around 80% of married women in Bangladesh have faced domestic violence. Rape conviction rates are painfully low. Just existing at night comes with baggage and it’s exhausting. I felt hyper-conscious of time, scheduling everything I wanted to do alone in daylight before meeting friends in the evening.

This experience has made me even more grateful for the freedom I do have. I once had a romanticised version of Bangladesh in my mind but I don’t anymore.

My connection to Bangladesh has always been through its people, through exploration, through experiencing it on my own terms. Maybe that’s how it will always be, me continuously going back, figuring it out as I go. Because as much as I feel a disconnect, I don’t want to lose my culture.

If I’m being honest, going back a second time didn’t bring me any closer to Bangladesh. I still feel exactly as I did, like a bit of an outsider. If anything, it only reinforced my sense of being Sylheti rather than broadly Bangladeshi. The more time I spend there, the more I realise just how tribal the country feels, how even in Dhaka, the Bangla spoken is different from what I grew up with. People would constantly remind me that I sounded different, that I spoke this weird version of Bangla they didn’t fully understand. My connection isn’t to Bangladesh as a whole but to something more specific.

And maybe that’s why I feel detached from the things that seem to matter so much to others. My views aren’t tied to status, class or clout, so in a way, everything matters and nothing matters at the same time. At the end of the day, we’re all just brown people. The Gulshan mindset felt foreign to me—and yet, ironically, it was the place where I felt safest as a woman. I’d look at people and think, you’re just brown like everyone else. 

The track I’ll leave you with today is Borders by M.I.A.

Love,

Rez x