The Importance Of Bidhai
Finding the ritual of bidhai in far-flung Indonesia, through the quiet kindness of an old man
During my first solo travel experience, I spent one night in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra, Indonesia. The hostel I stayed in was a surprising luxury among the rubbles of the city, with its curved staircase and extravagant chandelier hanging from the centre of the enormous open planned kitchen-living room. My flight to Yogykarta left early the next morning; I had to leave the hostel at the crack of dawn.
I walked down the stairs to the main doors, a rucksack snug against my back and a 15kg suitcase in one hand, to find them locked. To the right was a single door, the top half made of glass. I peered through; a wooden desk sat flush against the windowed wall. On the floor, an old man slept on a flattened piece of cardboard. It was the co-owner of the hostel. I hesitated before knocking quietly; he stirred awake almost immediately and opened the door.
‘I’m sorry to wake you but I need to leave for the airport,’ I said quietly.
A few sleepy words in Indonesian told me he understood; he grabbed a set of keys from the desk and proceeded to open the double doors. His bony fingers wrapped around my suitcase handle before I could reach for it and he wheeled it behind him, into a short courtyard. At the far end lay a couple of large wooden gates, chained shut. He jangled the keys a little, found the right one and unlocked the padlock. I was about to take my suitcase but he grabbed it again and continued dragging it behind him as we walked past the gates and stood on the curb, waiting for the Grab (taxi) to arrive.
‘It’s okay, you don’t have to wait with me,’ I said. I felt bad about waking him up so early in the morning and didn’t want to inconvenience him any further.
A few more Indonesian words which sounded something like, ‘no, no, it’s okay, it’s okay.’ I relented, partly because I didn’t know how else to politely protest with a language barrier between us. I only knew a handful of words in Indonesian, including ‘one chicken, how much?’ which I had used the day before at a boat station on a tiny volcanic island up north called Pulau Wei. ‘Ten’ the lady had replied, holding up both hands with all her fingers stretched out. I handed her a note, thanked her and walked away feeling proud because technically, I had successfully had a full conversation with a local in Indonesian.
The Grab was about five minutes away. The old man and I stood side by side in comfortable silence, me with one hand resting on my suitcase handle and he with both of his hands held behind his back, staring calmly ahead. I felt comforted by his fatherly presence. I was so used to looking after myself, I didn’t really know what it felt like to have someone look after me. Mum and dad split up when I was nine, and even when dad was around, while he had the presence of being ‘the man of the house’, he barely engaged with us kids. Having an older male figure look out for me felt… foreign - and something else, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it - it was like a faint whiff of a perfume that tugged at a long-lost memory. What was it? Ah yes, a tiny, tiny hint of sadness. Because dad never cared. And that’s why an old man showing me a modicum of care by waiting with me for a taxi in the early hours of the morning felt so unusual.
It was then that I learned the significance of seeing someone off. This was normal practice in Bangladeshi and other South Asian cultures. But having grown up in London, with a single mother who struggled with (sometimes severe) depression and anxiety, and a weak connection to my large, extended family, we lost a lot of the cultural practices along the way, including this.
Bhidai was the act of saying a long, emotional farewell to someone, often associated with seeing the bride and groom off at a south Asian wedding. In Bengali, it literally translated to ‘goodbye’. It was a mixture of sorrow for the departure, and joy and gratitude for the time spent together. Bidhai was also used to name smaller, intimate goodbyes between family and friends. Mum would often say, ‘bhidhai khori’ meaning ‘let me see them off’ about guests, usually those that lived far away and rarely visited.
Mum’s oldest sister lived in Birmingham and she would come and visit us every few years with some of her kids. They’d stay a week or so, or we would go and stay with them. Birmingham was only about three hours away from London but back in the nineties and early noughties, it felt like a huge cross-country trip. And at the end of the stay, both women would get emotional, talk in high-pitched quavering voices, saying goodbye with a series of heartfelt valedictions and short Arabic prayers, accompanied with tears that they wiped with the corners of their colourful saris. I always thought they were being dramatic and occasionally complained that they thought they were acting in a Bollywood film.
When other family members came to visit from afar, mum would always see them to the door, or to their car, saying a string of goodbyes along the way and waiting until they had gone out of sight before turning around and walking back into the house in a pensive mood, sometimes followed with a big sigh. I was never bothered about saying goodbye and preferred to stay indoors, chowing down the leftover samosas and boras before my siblings finished them all.
Two decades later, standing on a dusty street of Medan, with an old man I barely knew, in the early hours of a cool January morning, I understood the importance of seeing someone off in a way I couldn’t truly express with words.
Nice travel writing, you could write a book