Colours, sounds and smells are often critical to our recollection of events and our emotions. A homeland, or someplace where we belong, also has these associations for each of us. Sometimes these are guided and formed by the popular perception, and sometimes each individual's intimate emotional understanding or experience. For Bangladesh, most people when asked what colour they associate with the country, a go-to answer is green and red of the flag. For me, the colour I most associate with living in Bangladesh is the grey-blue of heavy rain clouds, specifically the eerie yet beautiful shades the sky turns right before a Kalboishakhi. I love enjoying those storms from my (very privileged) balcony or roof, much to the chagrin of the parents.
"Green. If you don't mean Dhaka, but the whole country, I can't think of anything other than vast lush fields of green crops almost everywhere." – Mehraz Hossain
"I feel it is green, but not because how books say that Bangladesh has green fields and such, because other countries are also lush and have arable fields. I am a keen sports enthusiast, and Bangladesh always wears green in sports." – Abdul Fattah
"Green. The green landscape of the countryside, the abundance of veggies, the moss growing on almost every wall." – Rafia Tehseen
"I most associate the lush bright green of a rice sapling as the colour for Bangladesh." – Raffat Binte Rashid
"I would definitely describe my country as green to others. Cause It brings positivity in mind also depicts the colour of nature." – Jannat Noor
"Yellow. Bangladesh is all about the sun... the warmth, the extra bright days, the sunny glares, the sweat, the tan, the complaints of heat wave! It's all so bright and yellow in my mind and I absolutely can't do without some of this Asian sunshine every day." – Tanzin Chowdhury
"Red. The way I see it; it applies to the blood spilled by the brave to free ourselves from the oppressors. You can apply it to the anger you feel at every turn of modern Bangladeshi living (seeing red). You can apply it the blood spilled by innocents now, what with accidents, malpractice, enforced Houdini antics, exploitations, encroachment etc. You could see it as an open wound in a country that could reach higher and go further if not being constantly given self-inflicted wounds." – Intisab Shahriyar
"Brownish? For the straw and village huts. It is what we were forced to draw in art classes a hundred different times." – Amiya Chowdhury
"Yellow, everything here is heightened and people are so passionate. Sometimes people are passionate even though they might not know what they are talking about." – Saad Ashraf
"It's mostly white because it has a lot of work to be done and it's somewhat like a clear canvas." – Disha Ekram
"I was going to say grey due to the experience I had with the smog the last time I was there, but I will say red now due to the bloody horrific news I keep reading. But green too because of how its GDP is rising except poverty is still not decreasing, it is a mixed bag." – Audi Amin
"It's black to me. The people of this country are such hypocrites, self-centred, corrupt to the soul and they are so lame to blame others for their own deeds. Still we act like each of us are saints and rest of the other are demons." – Mofidul Topu