The eyes that follow me, even in my street

After nearly a year, my cousin recently took a couple of days off work. She didn't have big plans; she just wanted to hang out with her friends and unwind. She had a good time as well. But the trip's relaxation was quickly ruined when she returned home to her mom's dismissive looks and tone.

Her mom (my aunt) was furious because she had returned at dawn.

The only problem was that the people around, their neighbors, would judge a single girl coming home at this hour. Nobody cared for her self-sufficiency and free-thinking abilities. Nobody cared that she has the power to make the right choices for herself, and the right to live a life she values.

Growing up in a Bangladeshi society often makes you feel as if you have no agency over your own life. You are asked and required to conform to the point where your authentic self feels inauthentic. My mind wandered to a lot of places when my aunt shared her displeasure and despair of the incident with me, as it usually does. This time, however, it went straight to the idea of being watched constantly, even in the vicinity of my own neighbourhood.

It's strange how what Foucault said about prisons seems so applicable to my neighbourhood, and I believe it says a lot about our society. We modify our behaviour to satisfy the perceptions of strangers, not because we care, but because our parents do. They seem to have become prisoners, subject to the state of conscious and permanent visibility, and preserve the function of power inevitably, bolstering these values in which strangers get to dictate one's life actions.

So, we never got to play in the streets like our male counterparts, learned to ride a bicycle there, never visited the nearby shops in our comfy home clothes, or stepped out wearing what we felt confident in, or did any of the other things that establish a connection with your neighbourhood and make it feel like home.

In Bangladesh, where the practice of social control over people is ingrained in the culture, people are ruthlessly scrutinised. The notion that privacy exists often feels like a myth. The people around us, like those on my street, have also attempted to influence the ways in which we behave. They have turned our house into a place we want to avoid and never return to. They have made us feel unwelcome in places we should be feeling the safest.

While the eyes that follow me may never stop looking, we must strive to take away the power their gaze holds over us. We must attempt to deprive them of the one power they believe they hold over us, the ability to regulate us.

Shadya Naher Sheyam attempts to live life like Ashima from The Namesake. Talk to her about Mira Nair films at sadianaharsiam@gmail.com