A short story set in East London’s Bangladeshi Community
Written by Mujibur Rahman
Chapter 1 – Two Names
My full name does not fit on most forms.
On my passport it is written in full, every letter lined up in strict English font. At home my mother stretches it out, sings it almost, adding that softness only Bangla has. Outside, everyone just calls me “Sam”.
At school the teachers always paused when they reached my name in the register. There was that small hesitation, then the attempt, then the apology.
“Sorry if I said that wrong.”
By college I was tired of hearing my name broken in different ways, so I cut it down myself. I chose “Sam” because it was easy. Nobody mispronounces “Sam”. It fits on Starbucks cups and job application forms. It does not make anyone stop and look twice.
But every time someone calls me “Sam”, I feel a half-second delay inside my chest. Like they are talking to a version of me that is real, but not complete.
At home in East London, above the halal butcher and the mobile shop, I am not “Sam”. I am the eldest child, the one who translates council letters, the one who deals with British Gas, the one who shows my dad how to use online banking.
When Mum talks about me to relatives in Bangladesh, I am “our English-born son”. When my friends talk about me, I am “the Bangladeshi guy who always brings food to lectures”.
I live in this flat, in this city, in this country, but some days I still feel like I am standing in the doorway, not fully inside any room.
The riddle started as a simple question.
“So, where are you from?”
I used to answer quickly, “East London.”
Sometimes that was enough. Other times there would be a small smile, a little insistence.
“No, but where are you really from?”
That word “really” would sit in my stomach for hours.
I was born in Whitechapel. My NHS number is British. My national insurance letter came in the post like everyone else’s. I grew up on fish fingers and daal, on BBC and Channel S. I am used to rain, delayed trains and apologising when other people bump into me.
But apparently, I am still a question people want to solve.
Chapter 2 – Naan And Nuggets
Dinner at our place is loud, even on weekdays.
Mum likes everyone at the table at the same time, which is almost impossible. My little brother has football practice, my sister has tutoring, Dad sometimes does overtime at the restaurant. I am usually the one walking in last, throwing my backpack on the chair and washing my hands in a hurry.
Tonight there is chicken curry, daal and fresh naan from the tandoori place downstairs. For my siblings Mum has also made oven chips and frozen nuggets.
“You spoil them,” Dad says, tearing a naan into pieces. “In Bangladesh we did not even see chicken every day.”
My brother shrugs, dipping a nugget in ketchup.
“We’re not in Bangladesh,” he says.
Mum gives him that look that means “watch your mouth” and “your father is right” at the same time.
I sit between them all, scooping curry with naan and stealing a few chips on the side. This mix is normal for me. I grew up with rice and pizza on the same table, with Bollywood songs playing after Match of the Day.
“So, Samir,” Dad says, using my full first name. “What are you doing about your future?”
Here we go.
“I’m doing something,” I say. “I’ve sent out applications.”
“For what job?” he asks.
“Graduate schemes. Marketing, communications. That sort of thing.”
Dad frowns. He was a chef when he first came to this country. Then he became a restaurant manager. The idea of an office where you sit in front of a screen and get paid to “communicate” still sounds like magic to him.
“Government job is good,” he says. “Secure. Pension. Or maybe accountant. Or teacher.”
Mum nods.
“Something respectable,” she adds.
Respectable. That word is heavy. In their minds it comes with a fixed image. Good clothes. Good salary. Clear title. Something they can explain to relatives on WhatsApp calls.
My friends talk about “finding themselves” and “trying different things”. At home, I feel like I have to pick one thing and stick to it for life.
“You know how hard we worked so you could study,” Dad says, not angry, but tired. “You are British. You have chances we never had. Don’t waste them.”
I know he is right. I also know he does not see the other side. The job posts that say they value “diversity”, but put you in the same box the moment they see your name.
Mum passes me more curry.
“Eat, beta,” she says. “You can’t think about future on an empty stomach.”
I smile and eat. The naan is soft and warm. The nuggets smell like every school canteen I ever sat in. This is my life, in one plate. Two worlds that never fully blend, sitting side by side, and me in the middle trying to taste both.
Chapter 3 – The Eid Party
Eid at my uncle’s house in Ilford feels like walking into a small piece of Sylhet that someone has dropped in East London.
The living room is full of aunties in glittering salwar kameez, uncles in crisp panjabis, kids running around with sticky hands and new trainers. The smell of biryani and attar hangs in the air.
“Samir, you got taller,” one aunty says, even though I have not grown in years.
Another pats my cheek.
“Working now, na? Big man.”
They ask the usual questions.
“What are you doing now?”
“Finished uni?”
“Got job?”
“When are you getting married?”
The marriage question lands like it always does. I laugh it off, but they keep going.
“My cousin’s daughter, very educated, very religious,” one aunty says. “Born in Sylhet but speaks English also. Good girl. No boyfriend rubbish.”
I feel Mum’s eyes on me. She joins the conversation quickly.
“He is still settling,” she says. “Insha’Allah, when time is right.”
The aunties exchange looks.
“These English-born boys,” one of them says, half joking, half serious. “They forget their roots.”
Later, in the kitchen, while helping to lay out the plates, Mum pulls me aside.
“Don’t be rude,” she says. “They only wish good for you.”
“I know,” I say. “But they talk like I am some project.”
She sighs.
“You think it’s easy for us?” she asks quietly. “We are in the middle too. Back home they say we have become too English. Here they say we are too Bangladeshi. We just do our best.”
Her words surprise me. I never thought of my parents as being in the middle with me. I always saw them as firmly on the Bangladeshi side.
After lunch, the men go to one room to talk about politics and the price of onions. The women stay in the kitchen, swapping recipes and family news. I end up in the hallway, scrolling through my phone.
My cousin Rahim, who is a few years older than me, leans against the wall.
“You look bored,” he says.
“Just tired,” I reply.
“You thinking of leaving the country yet?” he asks, smiling.
He works in Dubai now, comes back once a year with stories about skyscrapers and tax-free salaries.
“Not yet,” I say. “Still trying to belong to this one.”
He laughs, but his face softens.
“Bro, listen,” he says. “You will never be English enough for some people and never Bangladeshi enough for others. If you try to make everyone happy you will go mad.”
“So what do you do?” I ask.
He shrugs.
“I just pick my own side,” he says. “I know who I am. They can think what they want.”
Easier said than done, I think. But his words stay with me long after the party, long after the henna smell has faded from my hands and the glitter has been vacuumed off the carpet.
Chapter 4 – The Interview
My interview is in a glass building near Liverpool Street. The kind of place where the lifts are silent and the reception smells like expensive coffee.
I am wearing my only suit. It still feels like a costume, something I borrowed from an older version of myself.
The receptionist smiles when I give my name.
“Hi, Sam,” she says, looking down at the list. “Take a seat. Someone will be with you shortly.”
I sit on a grey sofa that looks nice but feels stiff. On the wall there are posters with words like “Innovation”, “Belonging”, “Vision”.
A young guy in a slim-fit shirt comes to collect me.
“Sam?” he says.
“Yes,” I stand up.
We go into a meeting room with glass walls. People walk past outside, carrying laptops and branded coffee cups.
The interviewer, a woman in her thirties, looks up from her notes.
“Hi, Sam,” she says, shaking my hand. “Thanks for coming in.”
The interview starts. Questions about my degree, my experience, what I know about their company. I give the answers I have practised. I talk about teamwork, deadlines, communication. I try to sound confident but not arrogant, ambitious but not unrealistic.
Halfway through, she looks down at my CV again.
“So, where does your name come from originally?” she asks, casual, like she is asking about the weather.
I feel my shoulders tense.
“My parents are from Bangladesh,” I say. “I was born here.”
“Oh, nice,” she replies. “Do you go back often?”
“Every few years,” I say. “We still have family there.”
She nods.
“Must be interesting, having two cultures,” she says. “Big mix.”
I smile politely.
“It is,” I say, because I do not have time to unpack the full truth.
She moves on to the next question, but my brain gets stuck on that moment. On the part of me that only came into the room when she read my full name.
On the way out I pass a framed photo of the staff at some charity event. Almost everyone in the picture is smiling, wearing the company T-shirt. Almost everyone is white.
I stand outside the building, watching my reflection in the glass. Suit, tie, haircut. Nothing about me screams “foreign”. And yet, one question about my name was enough to remind me that I am never just another candidate.
Chapter 5 – The Question
On the bus home I sit upstairs, near the front, watching London pass by.
Old red-brick houses, new glass towers, kebab shops, hipster coffee places, chicken shops on every corner. A man in a thobe walks past a woman in gym leggings. Two school kids argue in a mix of English and Somali. Somewhere a siren wails, then fades.
This is the only London I know. Messy, loud, mixed. On paper, I belong here. Off paper, it feels more complicated.
I remember being in primary school, drawing my family tree. Other kids’ trees were small, neat. Mum, dad, siblings, maybe a grandparent or two. Mine stretched across the page like a forest, with aunties and uncles and cousins in different countries.
When I coloured the little flag next to my name I hesitated. The teacher had printed Union Jacks for us. I stuck one next to my picture, then drew a small green and red Bangladesh flag under it with my felt tips.
“What’s that one?” the boy next to me asked.
“It’s where my parents are from,” I said.
“So where are you from?” he asked.
I did not know how to answer that then. I am not sure I know now.
The bus turns onto Mile End Road. I see the mosque where I used to go to evening classes. I remember sitting on the floor, repeating Arabic letters, while my friends from school were at home watching cartoons or playing video games.
Back then I envied them. I thought if I did not have to go to mosque I would be more like them, more British.
Now I am older and I see it differently. Those classes gave me something too. Words, stories, a way of looking at the world. Another layer, not a chain.
The question hangs in my mind again, the one people ask in different ways.
Where are you from?
Who are you really?
I realise I have spent years trying to give the right answer, trying to be the right amount of British, the right amount of Bangladeshi, depending on who is asking.
It feels like sitting an exam nobody told me I signed up for.
Chapter 6 – My Own Answer
That night, after everyone is asleep, I sit at my desk in the small room I share with my brother.
He is snoring lightly, one arm hanging off the bed. My laptop screen glows in the dark.
I open a blank document and type just one line first:
Who am I?
For a moment I stare at the words. It feels dramatic, but honest.
I start listing things.
I am British.
I am Bangladeshi.
I am the eldest child.
I am the one who fills in forms.
I am the one who orders biryani in perfect Sylheti and a flat white in perfect East London English.
I am the one who knows all the Premier League teams and all the dishes that take three hours to cook on Eid.
I am the one who has laughed at racist jokes just to avoid being called uptight, and the one who has defended this country when relatives back home said England had no values.
I am tired of being half of anything.
The list keeps growing. Not neat, not poetic, just real. My words, in my own plain voice.
At the bottom of the page I write:
I do not need to choose.
I think of my cousin in Dubai saying he picked his own side. I think of Mum telling me she is stuck in the middle too. I think of Dad saying I am lucky to be British and have chances he never had.
Maybe the riddle is not for me to solve in the way people expect. Maybe the problem is the question itself. “Where are you really from?” as if there can only be one answer.
I save the document with a simple title: My Answer.
The next week I go to Friday prayers after a long break. I still feel awkward, like I am coming back to a room I have not visited in years, but I go. Afterwards I meet my friend Adam for coffee, and we talk about football and job hunting.
Two different spaces, two different parts of the city, both mine.
At home, when Mum calls me to the table and uses my full name, I answer without that usual sting of embarrassment. When my friends text me, “Sam, you coming out tonight?” I still reply as Sam. Both names are mine. Both lives are mine.
The next time someone asks me, “So, where are you really from?” I already know what I will say.
“I’m from here,” I will tell them. “From London. From Bangladesh. From both. That’s the whole point.”
Maybe they will understand. Maybe they won’t. But for the first time, I am not trying to give them the perfect answer.
I am just giving them mine.
Disclaimer
This story, published on mujiburrahman.com is a purely fictional work. All characters, places, communities, and events described are products of imagination or used in a fictional context. Any resemblance to actual individuals or real-world events is entirely coincidental. The purpose of this content is storytelling and entertainment only and should not be taken as factual or representative of any real person or community.
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