A Bangladeshi family’s history
Gemini Wahhaj’s debut novel The Children of This Madness marks the entry of a talented new voice from the Bangladeshi diaspora into the vibrant sphere of South Asian American literature.
Gemini Wahhaj holds a Ph.D. in Creative Writing from the University of Houston and is an Associate Professor at Lone Star College in Houston. She is the recipient of the James A. Michener Award in fiction as well as the Cambor/Inprint Fellowship, and her short fiction has appeared in several prestigious literary journals.
In her novel, Wahhaj takes on the ambitious project of rendering a Bangladeshi family’s history from the early years of the region’s independence from Britain, when it was part of East Pakistan to its War of Liberation and rebirth as the nation of Bangladesh, ending with events during the post 9/11 U.S. invasion of Iraq. This large swathe of history is rendered through the perspectives of a father, Nasir Uddin, an engineer and a professor, and his daughter Beena who is a Ph.D. candidate in literature when the novel begins.
A critique of the Bangladeshi diaspora
Through Beena’s experiences, Wahhaj provides a sharp critique of the diasporic Bangladeshi community in Texas, who have embraced American capitalism and do not feel any guilt in working as engineers in the arms industry which is producing weapons deployed on Iraqi civilian targets. For Beena, this lack of a moral compass in a community, that is otherwise generous, is unacceptable, and she feels alienated from this group.
Instead of agreeing to one of the varied matches that her mother and friend Salma try to arrange for her, she enters into a relationship and eventually marries her graduate school colleague, Roberto, who is an international student from Italy. That marriage is not without its share of cultural barriers. Beena constantly feels that she is imposing on Roberto’s kindness and that he is not at ease with the Bengali community.
Lifelong trauma
Through alternating voices of Beena and Nasir Uddin, we learn about the family and Nasir Uddin’s humble beginnings from a farming family, his mother’s untimely death, and the life-long trauma it imposed on Nasir Uddin and his siblings. It was his mother who was determined to give him an education beyond that of the village elementary school. Nasir Uddin overcame various barriers to become an engineer and then steered his path into academia, against the pressures of his family who only wanted financial success from which the extended family could benefit.
Nasir Uddin’s journey to Canada for graduate studies parallels Beena’s own trajectory a generation later. However, Nasir Uddin always wanted to return to his ancestral land despite the many disappointments and traumatic experiences he was subjected to over there.
A life of many journeys
In fact, Nasir Uddin’s life is one of many journeys. Even after his return from Canada, the lack of challenging work and corruption in Bangladesh prompt him to move to Iraq as a faculty member at the University of Mosul. It is one of the most fulfilling times of his life, but the start of the Gulf War forces him to return to Bangladesh and rebuild a precarious academic career.
Nasir Uddin’s life is characterized by many personal losses, usually by random accidents. These also have a debilitating effect on his own health. When he finally visits Beena and Roberto, he is a frail and ailing man whose ideals immediately alienate him from the affluent Bangladeshi community, many among whom are his former students. Unlike him, they have no hope for their native country.
A return to Bangladesh
Despite many pleas by Beena, Nasir Uddin decides to return to Bangladesh, realizing that he will be most at home in his native land. The novel ends with Nasir Uddin traveling back to his ancestral village of Dari Binni, even though the family has moved away. Nasir Uddin’s stepbrothers and sisters have fought over their inheritance and disappointed him, and yet, there is a sense of peace he feels in his ancestral village and satisfaction in seeing small improvements in the lives of the villagers.
Gemini Wahhaj is a gifted storyteller. She gives us a complex and moving vision of Bangladeshi life both in the nation and diaspora. There is a deep love of the land and an intimacy in her portrait of Bangladeshi life, often lacking in many renditions by diasporic authors. There is no sentimentalization of the homeland. She is balanced in her portrayal of both home and diaspora. Her deft storytelling renders an immediacy to historical events. Her novel invites deep introspection about the ethical implications of life choices made by highly educated Bangladeshi immigrants.