Longing and Belonging presents a collection of chronicles, fragments, stories, morsels of reflection from Indian émigrés living in Mirpur and Mohammadpur of Dhaka who or whose families were affected by the 1947 partition. But these are not simply partition stories as they are about multiple threads of events which continue to be woven to this day and beyond. The stories are not just about Mirpur or Mohammadpur either as there are risks to essentializing peoples, places, or events. Through these texts, documents and images, photographs from present day Mohammadpur and Mirpur, Longing and Belonging attempts to present composite narratives. These portrayals document places (Mohammadpur and Mirpur) and people (those affected by the 1947 partition) and the interplay and negotiations between the two. The stories are diverse and divergent, from recollections of migration to arrivals at camps, negotiations in and around camps and localities, identities and contestations, other journeys, professions, pursuits, and pastimes, musings on family and friendship – they are portrayals of longing and belonging.
The three poets – Naushad Noori, Shamim Zamanvi, Ahmed Ilias – who called Mohammadpur home at points in their lives, regularly congregated at Green Hotel. There, partaking in paan and tea, helped on by Md. Seraj, a longtime employee at the hotel and fellow traveler, they found a sense of home in friendship and poetry. Steadiness marked Seraj’s decades-long tenure at the hotel in contrast to the tumult and sorrows of his earlier and later years, but whose life is recorded, recounted, shared in honor by his son, Khalid Hussein. From homage to friendships and disheartening destinations and journeys to tender retelling of family lore, here is a catalog of intertwined stories from Mohammadpur.
Explore the collection:
I. Dispersals
II. The three poets
III. Crossings
MOHAMMADPUR
MIRPUR
After her husband’s passing, Munni Akhter lost not just a companion but with that, her “desh,” the two inextricably linked in her mind. For Mehnaz Akter (no relation to Munni), home and rootedness were brokered through different negotiations and belongings. Others – workers at Mirpur’s Banarasi palli, mosque custodians – chart their desires and symbiosis with the locality from the vantage point of both being at a remove while also being intimate archivists of time’s progression. Although complex in their scope, these are singular stories and resident narratives, meant to offer a glimpse into a heady neighborhood that is Mirpur.
Explore the collection:
II. Home and away
III. Footholds of desire