The plane began its slow descent into Sylhet just as the sky turned the colour of bruised mango skin—purple, gold, and a thin vein of red torn across the horizon. From his window seat, Rahim watched the landscape rise up to meet him: a quilt of paddy fields stitched with silver threads of water, tin roofs catching the dying light, and clusters of palm trees standing in cautious groups like people waiting for news.
He had been away for thirty years. A lifetime measured in curry-house shifts, night buses, marriages that frayed, children who grew faster than he could understand, and a loneliness that settled around him like a second skin.
On the touchscreen in front of him, a bright little plane icon nudged closer to Osmani International Airport, Sylhet. In the corner of the digital map, the word Beanibazar appeared—small, almost shy. A place he once thought he would return to every year, until “next year” quietly turned into three decades.
He pressed his palm to the cold window, as though touching the land itself.
I’m back, Amma, he thought. Late, but back.
When the plane touched down with a soft shudder, Rahim felt something deep inside him shift—an old lock turning with a forgotten key.
The Road from Osmani International Airport
The arrival hall was loud and warm—voices rising, luggage bumping against metal barriers, families calling out names, drivers waving signs. The air smelled of jet fuel, frying oil, wet earth, and that familiar sweetness that belonged only to Sylhet.
Outside, drivers crowded around the exit, offering rides.
“Where to, sir?”
“Do you need a taxi?”
“Beanibazar,” Rahim said, scanning the faces.
A man in a white Toyota stepped forward. He looked early forties, with a weather-sculpted face and an easy smile.
“Beanibazar, yes! I can take you,” he said. “It will take about an hour and a half. More if the traffic near Kazir Bazar bridge misbehaves.”
Rahim nodded.
The driver opened the door. “Please sit, brother. You’ve travelled a long way.”
As the car pulled out of the airport and joined the main road, Sylhet seemed to unfold like a half-remembered dream. Newly built shopping centres stood beside old bamboo stalls. CNGs zigzagged between buses. Women in bright sarees carried groceries with the confidence of people who had fought their way through many markets.
“You lived abroad?” the driver asked.
“Yes. London,” Rahim replied.
“How long?”
“Thirty years.”
The driver let out a low whistle. “Thirty years. Enough to forget the taste of home.”
Rahim watched the landscape bending into softer, greener shapes as they left the city.
“I never forgot,” he said quietly. “I just… stayed away.”
The driver nodded, understanding without prying.
“Home has its own gravity,” he said. “Even when we fly far, we circle back eventually.”
They passed paddy fields shimmering with water, buffalos half submerged in ponds, tea gardens stretching in gentle terraces, and small houses leaning comfortably against the land.
The sun sank lower. The road narrowed. And Rahim felt the invisible pull strengthen with each kilometre.
Welcome Back to Beanibazar
When the car entered Beanibazar, the town greeted him with a mixture of familiarity and estrangement. Shops pressed tightly against one another. Young men lounged outside hardware stores. Children ran barefoot across the roads without fear.
The driver navigated past the bazaar—past the stalls selling everything from fish to phone covers—until the massive old banyan tree appeared, its roots like ancient fists gripping the earth.
“Your house is near here, yes?” the driver asked.
“Near the jackfruit tree,” Rahim said.
The driver smiled. “Ah, of course. Everyone knows that tree.”
They turned down a narrow lane. Houses leaned close, like gossiping relatives. A group of boys paused their cricket game to watch the car, whispering to one another.
When the car finally stopped in front of a metal gate with rust burning through its blue paint, Rahim felt all the air leave his lungs.
The house stood behind it—smaller than he remembered, yet somehow larger in sorrow. The veranda sagged a little. The paint peeled in long strips. The windows stared back at him like tired eyes.
“This is the place?” the driver asked gently.
“Yes,” Rahim whispered.
He paid the fare and stepped out. The car reversed, honked lightly, and disappeared down the lane, leaving him alone with the ghosts of his past.
Rahim pushed the gate open. It groaned in protest.
He stood at the threshold of the house, unable to move.
A voice suddenly called from the next yard.
“Is that… Rahim?”
He turned.
An elderly woman stood in her doorway. Her hair was silver, pulled into a bun. Her eyes widened behind thick glasses.
“It can’t be,” she breathed. “You’re Ashor Mia’s son. You used to run through this lane with scraped knees.”
Rahim nodded silently.
She stepped closer, studying his face.
“Your mother… she waited for you,” the woman said softly. “Till her final days. She always said, ‘My son will return. One day he will stand at this gate again.’”
The words hit him like a blow.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” Rahim whispered.
The woman touched his arm. “No apology can change life. But you being here now… it matters.”
She returned to her doorstep, leaving him to face the house alone.
Rahim entered.
Dust rose in a soft cloud. The air carried the smell of absence. Rooms lay unchanged yet wounded by time—cracked walls, rusted locks, cobwebs hugging corners. His mother’s metal trunk still sat beneath the window. The wooden bed sagged in the middle.
Rahim sat and lowered his head into his hands.
He didn’t cry loudly. The grief was quiet, like water seeping into the roots of the earth.
The Tea Stall Under the Banyan Tree
Later that evening, hunger nudged him into the lane again.
At the base of the great banyan tree, a tea stall stood with a tin roof and mismatched chairs. A thin man with a trimmed moustache poured tea into glasses, steam rising like spirits released.
Rahim sat on a plastic chair.
“Tea?” the man asked.
“Yes, please.”
The man placed the glass in front of him. After a long look, he frowned.
“Do I know you?”
Rahim hesitated. “I used to live here.”
“In which house?”
“The one near the jackfruit tree. Ashor Mia’s house.”
The man’s eyes widened.
“Rahim? You’re Rahim?”
Rahim blinked. “Yes…”
The man burst into a grin.
“It’s me—Rafiq! We played football together. You always wanted to be the goalkeeper!”
A memory fluttered awake—muddy fields, laughter, the scratch of bamboo posts marking goal lines.
“Rafiq,” Rahim said slowly. “I remember your speed. You were the fastest among us.”
“And you always argued with the referee,” Rafiq laughed. “Some things never change.”
They talked until the stars sprinkled across the sky. About who left. Who returned. Who married. Who didn’t. Who died. Who pretended to be alive.
“You should stay a little while,” Rafiq said. “Beanibazar has changed. But it remembers you.”
Rahim sipped his tea, feeling a strange peace settle in his chest.
Kabir Returns
The next afternoon, a figure walked into the courtyard—a stocky man with tired eyes and a hesitant step.
“Rahim?” he said.
Rahim froze.
“Kabir?”
Kabir nodded, fighting tears.
They embraced—two grown men clinging to a friendship suspended in time but never broken.
“You disappeared,” Kabir said gently. “London swallowed you.”
Rahim nodded. “I thought I’d come back quickly. But life runs fast there. Faster than the heart can follow.”
Kabir sighed. “It took many years to understand that you didn’t abandon us—you were just drowning somewhere else.”
They spoke for hours.
About Kabir’s mother, who died missing him.
About Rahim’s father, whose declining health was carried by whispered rumours.
About nights when Kabir worked in the rice mills until his hands cracked.
About the foolishness of youth and the betrayals of adulthood.
At last, Kabir looked serious.
“There’s something else, Rahim. Your father’s land… your uncle took most of it.”
Rahim’s jaw tightened.
“He said he was just looking after it. But over the years… he acted like it was his.”
Rahim closed his eyes.
“Take me to him,” he said.
The Uncle
Kabir walked with Rahim to a larger but weary-looking house. The veranda was cluttered with broken tools and old furniture.
Rahim’s uncle sat on a charpoy, a shawl on his shoulders though the day was warm. His hair was thin, eyes clouded by age.
“Who is it?” he asked.
“It’s Rahim,” Rahim said. “Your brother’s son.”
Recognition flickered faintly.
“You finally remembered your home,” the old man said with a dry laugh.
“I came to speak about my father’s land,” Rahim replied calmly.
His uncle’s face hardened.
“What about it?”
“You know what,” Rahim said. “You took control. But it was never yours.”
His uncle looked away, towards the pond near the house.
“I tended it when no one else did,” he muttered. “You disappeared. People move in when a house is empty.”
“You profited from it,” Rahim replied.
“I survived,” the old man snapped. “Life wasn’t kind to me either.”
Rahim didn’t raise his voice.
“I want the papers,” he said. “I’m not here to fight. I’m just here to set things right.”
The old man sighed—a long, weary sound.
“I’m too old for arguments,” he said at last. “The papers are inside. Take them. Do what you want. I have nothing left to gain or lose.”
Rahim felt no triumph. Only sadness.
“Thank you,” he said quietly.
The old man closed his eyes, as though relieved to finally surrender his pretence.
Sonia at the Fence
That evening, while the sky softened into peach-coloured dusk, Rahim walked to the backyard. Beneath the tall jackfruit tree, a woman stood examining the heavy fruit. Her hair was streaked with silver, tied in a braid. Her posture, her stillness—unmistakable.
“Sonia?” he whispered.
She turned.
Her eyes widened—those same dark, wide eyes from decades ago.
“You’re really here,” she said, her voice softer than he remembered.
They faced each other across the low boundary wall—older now, shaped by separate storms, but bound by a memory that still breathed faintly.
“You look well,” he said.
She smiled sadly. “Well is a quiet compromise. I am alive, and life goes on. That’s enough.”
“And you?” she asked. “Are you happy in London?”
“Sometimes,” he said. “In small ways.”
They spoke of her children, his distance from his own, the rising price of rice, how the village changed and didn’t.
At one point, she said:
“You know… I waited for you when we were young.”
“I know,” Rahim whispered.
“I thought you didn’t.”
“I did. I just… didn’t know how to return without fulfilling every promise I made.”
She looked at him, eyes soft.
“Sometimes we don’t need the promises,” she said. “Just the person.”
A silence settled—gentle, almost forgiving.
“We were different people then,” Rahim said.
“Yes,” she replied. “But they still live inside us. We just visit those rooms less often.”
When she finally stepped back, she said:
“Some stories don’t end. They just rest.”
Then she vanished into the dimming light.
The Night Before Leaving
Rain arrived suddenly that night—heavy, warm, insistent. It filled the courtyard with silver ripples. The guava tree glistened in the lamplight.
Kabir arrived soaked, clutching a folder.
“These are the land papers,” he said. “Your uncle handed them over without a fight.”
They sat on the veranda, lightning flashing in the distance, reading through survey numbers and boundaries marked by old trees and ponds.
“It’s yours again,” Kabir said. “Officially.”
Rahim traced the lines gently.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with it,” he said.
“You don’t have to know yet,” Kabir replied. “Some things we reclaim simply to honour what came before us.”
He looked at Rahim.
“Will you come back again?”
Rahim exhaled slowly.
“Yes,” he said. “Not to close chapters… but to open new ones.”
Kabir smiled.
“Good,” he whispered. “We’ve lost enough time.”
The Departure
Morning came quietly. The lane smelled of washed earth and fresh sunlight. A small car waited to take him back to Sylhet.
Neighbours leaned on doorframes, pretending not to stare. Rafiq waved from the tea stall.
“Next time, bring Londoni biscuits!” he shouted.
“Next time, you make me tea better than London’s!” Rahim replied.
Kabir hugged him tightly.
“Don’t disappear again,” he said.
“I won’t,” Rahim promised.
As the car pulled away, the houses slid past, the banyan tree faded, and Beanibazar shrank into the distance—but not from his heart.
For the first time in years, Rahim felt a gentle steadiness inside him.
He had come back—not as a stranger seeking absolution, but as a son finally tracing his way home.
Some roads, he realised, always lead you back to the place that first taught you how to walk.
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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