just Yari xo

Supermodels off-duty

Ma wants to bring America to her mother’s house in Dhaka. Problem is she has to fit it into 8 pieces of luggage. That’s not gonna stop her. She’s from the country that fits 10 people into a sedan. U.S. customs will definitely stop her. But, that’s later. For now, her enemies are the dimensions of the luggage along with their accomplices, the straps and buckles.

She’s got an item for everyone back in her neighborhood. There’s the old hair straightener she hasn’t used for 3 years; that’s for Kohinoor, the cook. My old backpacks, the ones that have Pikachu on them; that’s for Safwon, my six-year old cousin, the youngest of the family. She’s got prepackaged quinoa for my grandma; Nanu never heard of quinoa and that was before she had dementia. The 1000-pack of Lipton teabags takes up a hefty portion of my luggage, her reason being the packs over there are just too small and watery. There’s the jewelry she packed for my aunts on both sides of the family, her blood sisters and her in-laws. The ones for the in-laws are neatly packaged in their Macy’s gift wrap. The ones for her actual sisters are her own, they’re in whatever jewelry boxes were around the house, brands be damned. Her reasoning, “they wouldn’t be able to tell the difference”. Then there’s the miscellaneous old clothes, gathering dust around the house, having no specific recipient just whoever was forgotten. A back-up. If they don’t like it, their loss.

She packs a lot of Pantene shampoo. We’re only gonna stay for like a month and half and I’m pretty sure in our previous visits I have seen plenty of Pantene ads on TV. She tells me to stop being a kipta and think about how much good shampoo costs over there. Besides, if she doesn’t buy for them who will? Bubu, her oldest sister, lives off the 5 cent packs she gets from the cigarette stand down the street. Ma manages to squeeze in a big can of lemonade powder mix. It’s for Ramadan. Their lemons might have cyanide, so just to be safe you know. After lots of jostling, we manage to tame the 8 beasts and zip them all.

Now begins my workout of the day, weighing them. We take out the scale. I lift each mammoth and take a shaky step onto the scale. While holding on for dear life, my mom peers down at the reading, which is conveniently covered by the luggage. Oh and she forgot her glasses. We have to redo the whole thing. 225 pounds. Oh no, it’s like 20 pounds overweight. Dad hears that and mutters how he’s not gonna pay any stupid $100 fine just because Ma packs some stupid gifts worth $20. 

We have to open them again. Ok, maybe we’ll buy Safwon a new backpack when we get there. Kohinoor doesn’t need that hair straightener, just giver her 100 taka (equivalent to about $1.30) and she’ll be jumping for joy. Get rid of the Lipton box. Just open it. Take the bags out and just wrap them in a towel or something. We’ll scrap the jewelry that was meant for Bubu because she’s the least likely to mind. Nanu probably won’t like the quinoa so instead of the 5-pack, we’ll only take 2. If she likes it, then we’ll bring her more next time or tell our other bideshi to bring some when they visit. 

Ma doesn’t want to take anything out. How can she? This is for her home, for the people who she grew up with, who helped her get here to America. She’s probably hoping that these gifts might make up for her absence in their daily lives. She wasn’t there when Safwon needed heart surgery at the age of 2. She wasn’t there when Bubu’s husband died. She isn’t there to take care of her own mom who has lost so much to dementia that she can’t even go to the bathroom on her own. This is what makes her so resolute. She shoves every item with an extra umph. I try negotiating with her, reasoning with her. She becomes so much of a giver when it comes to her family. When we try repacking, we end up not taking anything out, so nothing changes. 

Never forget that people were often kicked out of their housing because they were unable to afford rent and treatment, because their partner died, or because of outright discrimination. 

There is a reason we have so few queer elders. 

Ronald Reagan spent over five years refusing to acknowledge the crisis.FIVE YEARS. Do you know what that does to research funding? The first antiretrovirals were basically a miracle to have been created given how little funding and how few scientists were assigned to this epidemic. Those first, super awful drugs were released in 1987 and it took another ten years before a decent antiretroviral therapy was brought out. 

Every young person who proclaims queer as a slur needs to read about 700 pages on the AIDS crisis in America.