Oh no - the answer is simple. So simple it almost pains N to have to spell it out for me. This is impossible, because his mother has spoken. She deserves better than this; she has earned this infallibility through the years of motherhood. As a consequence, it is surely obvious she cannot be contradicted.

My mind floods with guilty memories of times when I, like everyone else I know, responded with irritation to my own parents' guidance back in the days when I thought the world was mine to rule. We prize our freedom back home in the old country. No one can tell us what to do — a lesson we learn in adolescence — and we repeat it so often. How difficult it would be to return to the submission that is expected here: the automatic deference. We have come too far.

After a while the conversation moves on to another intriguing aspect of family life. It never ceases to amaze me here that family members can travel across the country, turn up unannounced at a relative's home, and expect to be accommodated, fed, and watered for up to a month. The thought of turning up for three weeks, suitcase in hand, at an aunt or cousin's house back home simply doesn't compute. We're not talking about crisis situations here. We're talking about saying, "I know; I think I'll call in on Uncle Bob - for a month or so." I can picture all too easily the surprised expression, the awkward moment in the doorway, the pained politeness, and the resigned, "Well I suppose you'll be wanting a cup of tea?"

None of that here. As a host in Bangladesh, you put aside all your plans, welcome this visitor from afar, and then happily put them up and put up with them for as long as it takes. When I tell my colleagues here of how, back home, we would need to arrange these things and call ahead, they are astonished. Even for your family? Yes, I'm afraid so - in fact sometimes especially for your family. Visits for tea are one thing, and it goes without saying that longer visits from parents or siblings would be a matter of course, but that's as far as it goes.