Cross-Border Movement

Moushumi, a servant in a wealthy Bangladeshi family's home, set out for India in the late afternoon to visit her son. She packed a small bag with a change of clothes and two shingara – Bengali-style samosas, more rounded than angular, with a savoury potato filling. She met her ‘uncle’, the broker, outside his house and gave him 200 Bangladeshi Taka, about US$3. Six other travellers arrived as they waited for darkness to fall. She dozed on the floor and ate a shingara. A few hours later they walked to the edge of the river, hopped in a small boat, and floated for a few minutes – definitely less than ten – until the boatman pulled the boat back to the bank of the river. The travellers got out and climbed onto the waiting flatbed rickshaw for the ride into a nearby Indian village. She rested at a relative's house that night and then continued her journey to her son's house the next morning. She stayed there for about a month, cooking for her son and playing with her grandchildren, and then made the return trip to the Indian village near the border. She paid the Indian broker, this time in Rupees, waited for nightfall, and got back in the same boat. The return trip took slightly longer because it was against the current, but she was back at the broker's house in Bangladesh by midnight.