Heritage, culture, and identity. This triage are major aspects in my life that shape whom I am today and structure the basic components of my personality. I am Tanisha Zaman a multi-generational immigrant, a girl with Bangladeshi heritage interweaved with British culture. The living definition of a British Bangladeshi.
My journey with my heritage primally started with my grandfather and great-uncle moving to Britain in the 1950s, with encouragement by the British government to help rebuild the country after WW2. Some could say they were British before they were Bangladeshi, as they technically never lived in a country called ‘Bangladesh’, but rather a country deemed as ‘East Pakistan’.
They spent decades working hard, labouring and starting from the bottom to ensure I could be where I am today. My grandfather is what my father would deem a ‘grafter’, a hard working ‘bloke’ in the heart of the east end, and this came with many hardships. He worked, lived, and survived in a time when racism thrived, when local pubs, shops and other public spaces explicitly said, ‘NO DOGS, NO BLACKS, NO IRISH,’ yet this never brought him down.
It is recorded that he would spend time mingling with other east enders in a pub located on Whitechapel Road, called the ‘Blind beggar,’ where it’s only best to assume this was one of the many places he conjured up and mentally organised his multiple business ventures. A man beyond his time, an intellect, and an entrepreneur, my grandfather was the man who started the lineage of the Zaman’s. He was but a humble tailor to some but in my eyes, he was the man who subconsciously constructs my mindset, a hero in his own right. He led by example for my father and is perhaps one of the largest reasons as to why I think as I do to this day. Although I never met my grandfather, Sufi Miah, his teachings, and knowledge resides with me. He taught my father impeccable mannerisms and was known to be loving and nurturing.
