When I was eighteen years old, I left Dhaka and went to America to claim my new home. After that, Dhaka’s trees, shrubs, air and water decided that I was not fit to return to her. So she attacked me and after she was done, the skin on my face was her burning red trophy, my sinuses and air passages the plundered pathways of her victory. She polluted her water so I could neither cool my infected organs nor douse the fire in my throat. I limped about the house, my whole body one large noxious pustule. My mother regarded me with dubious sympathy, ‘But we are all breathing this air and drinking this water, and so did you for eighteen years!’ How could I tell her that the water had been poisoned specially for my lips, the air made toxic only for my lungs? I knew what was happening to me was nothing but the seal of a vital separation between Dhaka and me, my old life and the new one I sought.

My older sister Naveen, who also returned to Dhaka for holidays, was never punished in the same way. The city greeted her with open arms, made her skin glow and rewarded her with hours of glorious rest and recreation. Naturally, my sister wanted me to snap out of it and join her in her sojourns. She too, regarded me with suspicion, ‘Surely you can’t be feeling that bad?’

Oh, but I did feel that bad. Even Dhaka’s doctors were perplexed. It wasn’t allergy season. The trees were almost bare. They couldn’t figure out what was giving me this set of allergic reactions. One doctor asked, hopefully, if I ate a lot of shellfish. ‘No,’ I croaked, ‘I don’t eat any shellfish.’ Another doctor suggested that we wash all the rugs and curtains in the house to get rid of mites. A tumultuous week followed. The maids scurried about, washing the curtains in boiling hot water. Rugs were cleaned and dried in the hot sun, floors were wiped with antiseptic solutions. The mites may have perished, but my misery lived on. The helpless doctors stuffed my eyes, ears, nose and mouth with every potion at their disposal until, finally, I lay in a limp and medicated heap, unable to move or speak. Still, the vile liquids flowed and flowed, draining my lymph system only to fill it to the brim again. They were viscous liquids of brilliant colours: crimson, green, yellow. Like wicked schools of fish they crawled along my body, spreading their venom everywhere.

The following year, I decided to arm myself with American ammunition to put up a fight against my Bengali ailment. Hidden under the layers of clothes and shoes in my suitcase were my weapons – Claritin, Zyrtec, Allegra, Singulair, Nasonex, Benadryl, Sudafed, Tylenol-Sinus and many more. I anointed my body with the concoctions of war and waited for ambush. It came after three days of waiting. The liquids rose within me like an apocalypse. The war was over before it began. I lay in a state of semi-consciousness for days. The world came to me in shadows, moving closer in the shapes of hands that fed me more liquids. I dimly remember the desire for solidity and dryness. All I dreamed of during those melting hours was to be whole once more, to feel the entirety of my body, to be revitalised through every breath, to be held upright and propelled forward again by the force of each muscle, tissue, ligament and bone.

Each time I was there, Dhaka was merciless to me until she exiled me from her soil once more. As soon as my airplane lifted off Dhaka’s angry bosom, my body would begin to repair itself. By the time I inhaled the frigid air of New York, I could smell again the rancid scents of coffee, fries and cigarettes. What had Dhaka smelled like? I longingly wondered. And I knew I would have to return to her, again and again, until my insides became redolent with her breath.

Excerpted with permission from Bloomsbury India.