My long standing agenda to take my parents to their lost home in East Bengal, now Bangladesh, finally fructified this week. My 85-year-old father and 80-year-old mother have never been able to digest their sudden and forceful deportation to West Bengal in 1947 after Partition. I?ve travelled through every continent in the last 38 years but this visit to Dhaka and Comilla is taking up unending GB space as I download memories that I may have to narrate some day to my 7-year-old granddaughter who?s currently growing up in London and will want to know about her roots in this side of the world.

The glorious past of our family recounted by my grandmother, Nalini Bala, was like a Hollywood story for me. I loved listening to her through my childhood when we lived a castaway joint-family existence in a dark and penniless situation in our refugee colony home outside Kolkata. When the wind howled outside, and monsoon water leaked in from the thatched roof on our flooded floor, my grandmother used to recall hallucinating stories of bygone days to distract me. After I immigrated to France, and would return to meet my grandmother, even at the ripe age of 95, she?d never stopped talking about her luxurious homeland on the other side of Bengal. This Dhaka trip, December 2011, made all her words ring true.

But let me first take you to my mother?s ancestral home in Batisha, District Comilla. On November 29, 2011, the Bangladeshi Parliament passed a landmark bill that will enable the return of property seized from the country?s Hindu minority. Called the Vested Properties Return (Amendment) Bill 2011, this dealt with ?orpito? property, meaning vested land that?s been occupied by people without family heritage or without paying for it. What this signified is that those who?d lost their land from 1947 onwards stand a chance to get back their property if they possess authentic documents to prove their legitimate ownership. We were not aware of this new law being passed, nor were we visiting her father?s village to reclaim anything. It was just nostalgia tugging us there.

Our Bangladeshi contact from Comilla was careful to meet us 50 km from my mother?s heritage home. He greeted us warmly but appeared a little edgy. The area was a little troubled he said, being at the border with Tripura, India. He took my father aside and asked whether my mother could remove per red bindi, which is clearly a Hindu ritual. I was shocked initially but adjusted my disquiet to be in tune with the country?s culture. Driving on we could see verdant paddy fields, crossed the Border Security Force guarding the borderline, which is just a wire-fence that disintegrates into no-fence after some distance. Turning off the highway on our right, we reached Bodhiya Bazar. The kind hearted Bangladeshi gentleman told us that we should say we?ve come from Dhaka. I could sense a hostile feeling building up in my parents; my mother asked why she should lie when she had no bad intention. We explained what our contact had said. The Jamaat Islami, a far right anti-Bangladesh-liberation party, which collaborated with Pakistan during the 1971 War of Independence and later joined the current Opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party was politically strong here, and against the new property law. Our contact got hold of many people to trace my mother?s Puber Bodhiya Bari (eastern house of Bodhya class) where her family had lived. He conversed with people on the road while we followed in the car. Everyone kept questioning him on why we were here. He would frequently turn to warn us not to forget to say we live in Dhaka and not India.

An 85-year-old man waddled up to the small group that was trying to find out what we were doing in that area. When he heard about tracing my mother?s house, he grinned toothlessly and asked, ?You know my Sengupta friend who shifted to Dhaka after his father was murdered in the fifties?? Gesticulating with his hands, he indicated that my granduncle?s head was chopped off under a big tree in his own huge orchard where he was resting at noon. He quickened his pace and excitedly went ahead with our contact on foot to show the house. At the turn were several large ponds on both sides of a narrow lane leading to the house. My friend did not allow me to take the camera saying it could be risky. My mother was dejected; she could not control her emotion that the large main house had been torn down. She was sadly remembering all the different places after an absence of 60 years.

The present occupant of this property recognised my mother?s family and hospitably invited us to tea. Meanwhile our contact nervously urged us to leave at the earliest as more people were getting alerted that unexpected visitors were in the village. It was an emotional moment for both my mother and the present occupant, yet I had to be rude to get out of the situation. I?ve never seen my mother so distraught, but I pulled her away. Fortunately we left the place quickly. The next day we heard about the chaos our trip had instigated. It appears a large gang of politically inclined people had come armed with sticks to chase us away. There was great suspicion, especially as we were visiting within a week of the new law being passed. In general, too, when an outsider visits with a local person as guide, villagers think the guide is the middleman with the original owner in the background.

It was very difficult to make people understand that ours was an innocent visit down memory lane. Next week I?ll tell you about the emotion of my father in his village in Bikrampur where we got the evidence that my grandmother?s stories were not the figment of her imagination, but absolutely accurate.

Shombit Sengupta is an international creative business strategy consultant to top managements. Reach him at http://www.shiningconsulting.com