I was getting ready to leave the Qatar lounge in Doha to head towards my plane. Before doing so, I walked up to this young guy to say Thanks for helping me show where the different amenities in the lounge were when I had walked in. In particular, I was looking for the showers and some food.

As I said “Thank you” to him, he asked me “Are you a Bengali?”.
“I indeed am. Do you speak Bengali too?”
“Yes sir.”
“How did you realize that I am a Bengali?”
“I overheard you, Sir”.

So apparently, Shahnawaz – that was his name – overheard me talking to Sharmila and then my brother in Bengali. We talked for quite some time after that. I learnt that he has been working in Qatar for the last 10 years and has been supporting his parents and his own family way back in Bangladesh (Chittagong area). I has a baby who is going to turn a year in a few more days. He gets to see his family twice a year but thinks worthwhile to work hard abroad and send the money back home for his family. I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He thought he would continue working like he is doing now but perhaps get this family to live with him.

I talked about Bengalis living in US – both from India and Bangaldesh. In fact, I even showed some pictures of our Bengali runners. He was suitably impressed!!

It was getting to be time for my flight to leave. So, we grabbed a colleague of his to take a picture of us, exchanged our contacts and promised to stay in touch!!