Mohiuddin Talukder: husband, father of Adeeb and Alif, traffic police officer, essential worker

Mohiuddin Talukder is in his early forties. He wears a maroon t-shirt, black sweats, house slippers, heavy framed glasses, and wired headphones. He speaks with a slight stutter as English is not his first language. His accent is British, which is not unusual for someone who went to school in Bangladesh. He has deep bags visible behind his glasses. He rarely maintains eye contact and his leg shakes constantly. He seems uneasy with the background noises and loses his train of thought as if he has a thousand things on his mind. The background noises are included in the monologue.

Yes.

Bolo. Heh.

Okay, I answer now?

Okay.

I came to America 2014...and I moved to Bronx 2017.

(baby scream)

At first I live in Jackson Heights. Then I live with my sister and.

And my brother in Astoria. But, uh, moving...here...

I move here to Bronx especially because my work place is here. That’s why I move here. (baby talking)

(heavy breathing)

It is different because, uh, it are far from my parents, and my sister, and brother. We change school and furniture.

And whole life.

For me now, especially nothing change because I need to go to work. Only I f-

I saw that, uh, there is, uh, no uhh, less people in the street and people are so careful about their health.

They wear the masks...uh, hand gloves, etcetera.

We could not find sanitizer.

No toilet paper too!

Sorry, again?

(phone rings)

In the beginning, I feel- I’m scared, but later on, when I saw that I had to work... So, uh I continued my work.

I work late hour, and it, uh, make me...make me tired.

But I, yeah, I...I continue my work.

Yeah. In the beginning, it’s a little bit struggle because they are not used to, uh, do homework or other thing in online.

Also, when they are study for the new subject, the new chapter, they do it online.

They, um, especially my child, face in the beginning so many problem. But later on, when he use to it, he’ll, he will enjoy it.

(breathes)

When I am at home, I uh, I try to play with the kids, them, so they enjoy work, uh, play with me. And sometime, his mom help him, help them, to play with them.

And sometime, they watch the TV.

That’s it.

We don’t go outside.

That’s it.

Adeeb miss his school friend.

(police siren)

We miss, me, my wife, we miss my mother, my sister, because we cannot, uh, it’s almost, uh... More than three month we don’t meet each other.

That’s the I miss most.

At first place to go with my...

I will go to meet my mom and my sister.

I-I need to see them.

Reflection

I don’t think I’ve ever done a project like this before, but after completing it, I can say that I’m glad I did it. Going into the interview, I had no expectations about how it would go. I interviewed my uncle, who I haven’t seen for months. We always speak to each other in Bangla, which worried me because he isn’t used to having full conversations in English. This shows when he slips up in the beginning and says “bolo,” which means “say it” in Bangla. At first, it didn’t feel like a real conversation. That’s when I decided to tell my uncle that the interview was over, making it easier for him to speak freely. With his permission, I used some parts from our normal conversation instead of the interview.

I think the most difficult part was replaying my recording of the interview and trying to transcribe every word. Every person is used to listening and immediately interpreting in their own way, but I was forced to just listen and not interpret. I pretended like I was listening to someone speak in a different language. Every time I replayed the recording, I caught an “um” or “uh” that I hadn’t noticed before. It taught me to pay attention to the small details in the way a person speaks because those details actually reveal a lot about how the person feels. There were more “um”’s and “uh”’s when my uncle felt nervous or emotional, and there were full sentences when he felt comfortable.

Like many other cultures, a big part of Bangladeshi culture is that men are expected to keep their feelings hidden. I’ve never heard my uncle cry or speak on sensitive issues before. That’s why it shocked me when he said that he missed his siblings and his parents. It opened my eyes to how the adults in my family are feeling right now. They may not always show it, but their feelings are not much different from ours. The interview also made me closer to my uncle. I’m happy to say that our generational barrier feels somewhat broken now, making me hopeful that our future conversations will be just as meaningful as this one.