The paint was infused with the great poison known as lead, but we didn’t know that yet. The wire and piping, almost all of it, failed some sort of safety regulation, but we didn’t know that yet. The landlord charged a ludicrous amount of money, but we didn’t know that yet. Of course, that is when I was born (don’t worry – that we knew). It was the ’90s, a simpler time (it wasn’t, but just go with it); jean jackets filled the streets and the Backstreet Boys filled the air. “Popular” trends were immortalized by Kodak cameras. Immigrants flocked to this country by the thousands, including my pregnant mother and her daughters.

Even a year after their arrival, my mom was still struggling to assimilate, my older sisters were struggling with their identity crises, and I was struggling with being a one-year-old. My mother tried very hard to keep me alive in that death trap of a house (successfully, I might add). I had almost mastered the art of walking by then. My mom, by emigrating, had already protected me from the horrors of the third world: from the diphtheria that took the life of the brother I never met, and the hunger that makes death seem preferable. However, there was one danger she could not protect me from.

The coffee table is probably a Bangladeshi’s favorite piece of furniture; it’s what people and their guests sit by as they drink gallons of tea. Bengalis have a word for this table; we call it a “coffee table” (blame the British). Maybe, subconsciously, little Taseen knew the importance of coffee tables, or maybe he was just being a stupid child, but little Taseen had an obsession with running into the coffee table.

Once, like a true warrior, I quickly, courageously stumbled toward my mahogany demon, each step more awkward than the next. Close now, my OJ splashing as if to say, “Oy vey, you schmuck, your tokhis is gonna get hurt!” Even closer now, I clenched my traditional Bengali panjabi (I know some of you were wondering what I was wearing). That huge circular dome some call a head headed straight for the coffee table. Like Newton predicted hundreds of years ago, physics happened.

SMACK!

I sit and look at the picture. It’s titled “Little Taseen Post Coffee Table Trauma” – long but aptly named. Here he contemplates the questions no one dares to ask about coffee tables: “If God is all-loving, why did he create coffee tables?” “Why do I feel so compelled to run into them?” “Why do they hurt?” What you cannot see is that while he was busy contemplating life, little Taseen’s mother placed him on his demon, on his table, along with the OJ. She took out her Kodak camera, and in that lead-infested apartment, the photo was captured.